If you meet the Buddha on the toad, lick him!
“The Tao Jones Index”
Washington Diarist
- May 4, 2012 | 12:00 am
“Even though I am still very shy, I find myself able to project a quiet but unmistakable self-confidence, whether I am meeting world leaders like Barack Obama, speaking to a large audience, or dealing with a traffic police officer. ... In most situations, when interacting with people, I let my ego become small, humble, and mostly irrelevant, while focusing on bringing kindness and benefit to whomever I am interacting with. ... I am amazed by how much my simple aspiration for world peace has resonated with so many people.” The man who wrote those words must be insufferable. I have never met him, but I have read his book. It is called Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace), and he is Chade-Meng Tan, an engineer at Google, Employee Number 107, known officially as the “Jolly Good Fellow (which nobody can deny),” whose job description is “enlighten minds, open hearts, create world peace.” My own heart his book has turned to stone. It is a work of the most obnoxious contentment, and a precious document of the sanctimony and the insularity of Silicon Valley. It is also an insidious example of what used to be known as industrial psychology, or the managerial promulgation of doctrines of the mind that will pacify workers and motivate them for “high performance.” In the case of Google’s in-house lama, the instrument of the corporate mind-fuck is Buddhism itself...
COMMENTS (1)
Buddhism doesn't translate well in the modern world. There are not many Bodhi trees in noisy urban environments to sit under and meditate. "Corporate mind-fuck" is an apt description of what Buddha brings to Google's workplace. This reminds me a bit of Hamburger University. I worked at McDonald's for a year, and the indoctrination is similar. Produce at a high level, and be loving and accepting in the process. Translation: work you brains out, and don't ever speak up.
Well written, Leon.
