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Meditation in the Workplace?
prostoalex writes "Nortel, Texas Instruments, Raytheon, Google, Apple and many others are apparently finding meditation and yoga to be a very efficient way to motivate and energize the employees. BusinessWeek finds that the reasons companies are suddenly hiring the yoga experts and conducting regular classes are easily justified to the management: "increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most"."
If you want to relax then stop drinking caffeine and sugary drinks. You'll sleep better at night and thus will feel better at work, no need to take caffeine to wake you up due to lack of sleep the night before.
:)
Of course such suggestions will no go down with programmers
Seriously, I recommend it. It's _the_ geek religion* as far as I'm concerned; no contradictions with physics or cosmology, no ridiculous mumbo-jumbo from some 3000 year old oral histories of nomadic shepherds, no all powerful elephant-god floating in the sky somewhere... and Zen will teach you more about programming and network administration than any number of certifications and courses.
*well, apart from Discordianism, or the Church of the SubGenius... which both have a lot of zen in them anyway - the jokes, mainly
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
As someone who practises yoga myself I'm totally in favour of this BUT... only if it isn't a passing fad, to be forgotten in a few months when the next trendy idea comes along.
If your company doesn't offer it, you could try taking a few quiet minutes at lunchtime (sitting in your car in the car park if necessary) to do some breathing and calming exercises. It's relaxing and really does help you.
We have a guy that comes and gives shiatsu to whoever feel like being massaged.
But most of the time, instead of mediting, we prefer doing some sport (not on the screen, I mean perspiring, running around, etc.)
It is also *forbidden* to speak about work-related issues during lunch.
The guy that came 2 days ago about his weight problem is not alone and I guess there's nothing as relaxing as re-oxygenation ; SPORT.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
This is ridiculous. Employers would find that their employess were productive and content by treating them with respect and dignity, managing them properly, having proper time-scales, fair working hours, etc. Enforced yoga, meditation and feng-shui is childish, silly and new-age clap-trap put about my a bunch of charlatans looking to make a quick buck out of the naieve, impressionable and those with more money than sense.
As someone who meditates on a daily basis, I wholeheartedly disagree. Meditation is *very* useful for clearing the mind and relieving stress. It's a useful tool for collecting your thoughts, visualizing the achievement of goals, and quieting the useless chatter in your mind that keeps you from being productive. It's a technique that's been using tens of thousands of years, and it's very, very effective. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!
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Read any of Jon Kabat-Zinn's books; Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness and Wherever You Go, There You Are.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
The only thing I can say in response to that is if it didn't work for you, you're not doing it right. ;) (I'm sure you've heard this before. Most people I tell this to in response to what you've said say the same thing ;)
There is plenty of actual, hard scientific evidence that points to both physical and mental health benefits to meditation. Here are some useful meditation resources that I've found to be helpful.
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You should have tried a bit more. Since you sum it up as a waste of time where "you could have been doing something"....thats kinda the idea, to not do anything and clear your head. You can't just say "I'm gonna meditate", and BAM! your mind is cleared.....eventually you can get close to that
Yoga would be great to "get he kinks out" from sitting at the desk, solely as a stretching exercise, some nit-pickers can argue then its really not Yoga but simply stretching, in either case it'd be good. As far as whether its trying to squeeze more productivity out of you, as long as they pay you for that time, who cares?
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
Honestly, I find meditation and yoga relaxing. However I think everyone is wired differently. Yoga may be relaxing for me, but someone else it may be pure torture. Also, if someone goes in with the attitude that yoga and meditation are "silly and childish", that person is most likely going to gain nothing from the experience.
I do think employers should put some effort into treating their employees with respect and dignity. The workplace is as stressful as your employer wants it to be.
At my current position, I'm a contractor. The company I'm contracted has rules like "contractors cannot participate in birthday celebrations." At the last company I was contracted to, they had a more friendly attitude toward contractors. Even including us in company wide events and including us in company wide discount programs.
How can this be truly effective? Does anyone else see this as a crock and completely misguided? You want true peace? Turn your heart to Christ Jesus, get involved in a church, read your Bible every day, learn to walk in His will. That'll do it.
Yeah, but unlike your six pack, meditation has actual physical and mental health benefits, which your six pack causes actual physical and mental harm. That's the difference. ;)
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William H. Gross, of Newport Beach (Calif.)'s Pacific Investment Management Co., who often meditates with yoga before a day of trading at his $349 billion money-management firm.
Has anyone ever listened to Bill Gross's bond recommendations? They always seem to do much worse than his actual holdings...
In investment banking, the primary job of traders is not to make recommendations, but to make prices. And AFAIK traders can't hold personal positions in the markets they handle.
People (institutional investors and brokers) call looking for a price on some quantity of a product, and it's the bond (commodity / equity / option / structure) trader's job to decide or report at what price the firm is interested in doing the deal (frequently with the help of a buttload of real time math and spreadsheets the size of a football field). It is assumed that the buyer already knows what price he or she is looking for - there's little if any recommending going on.
In turn they are rewarded for doing deals that make money for the firm (or reduce risk at a low cost), it is the customer's job to take care of their own interests.
Put another way, the only real altruistic goal of investment banks is to provide liquidity in the marketplace - to ensure that when someone wants to buy or sell something, there is a price (even if it's really high or really low) at which the deal can be done.
The person you deal with, who tells you what to buy, is a personal investment advisor. You then trade through a broker, who trades through a trader.
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Lamrim.com broadcasts Tibetan Buddhist teachings. Of special importance to Reality Hackers is the Dalai Lama participating in a Mind Sciences Conference.
This is from the zen perspective I have achieved.
Mystic baggage: mystic means uncommunicable personal experience (the essential facts cannot be understood by representative symbols), and baggage means stuff you carry around from your past (karma).
I highly doubt that you have actually experienced meditation if you think a cigar (personally can't stand em) and scotch (depends on the particular scotch for me) provide the same benefits. I have reasons for this, and I hope you understand that I am not criticising you, but rather I want you to understand that what you say is confusing to me.
Meditation is a process of simplifying your immediate experience to (and past) the point that the sphere of what you are immediately aware of surpasses the immediate sensory experiences. Scotch and cigars are complex immediate sensory experiences. These are opposite.
Old metaphor: If you pick up a hammer and drive a hundred nails, somewhere between nail 2 and nail 100 you will stop thinking about how to hold and swing the hammer. You will simply will the nail to drive through the wood, and then you will feel your arm strike the blow. The nail will glide into the wood under the direct force. The hammer has been absorbed into the way you feel your arm that it is a natural extension of your hand.
If you just sit and breathe (nothing mystic or baggage about that), your brain may stretch out and connect with all the things in your immediate surroundings. Your brain may try to glom onto the minor bodily irritations caused by sitting crooked or breathing too fast or slow. Mediation is the practice of nipping these irritations and distractions in the bud: noticing its root cause, and dealing with that until the distraction passes. You will pass from distraction to distraction, and each will linger in the periphery. Eventually your brain will calm down and stop trying to be distracted/entertained if you are comfortable enough to stay awake without pain. (The lotus position is just a way to train your body to support itself --eventually-- without discomfort for long periods of time. This protracted sitting period will give you more opportunity to train your brain.)
When your brain stops chasing distractions, you will gain a broad, unfocused perspective that includes everything in your surroundings. Not much is going on, but you will realize what is going on, and you will understand the chain of cause and effect in those things, and you will know how things are going to happen as they are happening and not afterwards, without thinking about them.
The more you practice (your brain must be trained to go into this mode at will), the easier it will be to apply this consciousness outside of sitting meditation. Eventually you will be able to function in everyday life "in the zone" all the time. Assholes at work will not phase you. Stupidity at work will not phase you. You will see what is happening, and know what to do, and do it without any wondering about anything.
It is HARD to do this. If you do, then people will glom onto you because you are a calm person in the middle of a storm. They will get emotional security from being around you. This has a positive effect on the work that gets done even if only a few people are "in the zone". You are perfectly capable of doing great or terrible things without any emotional reservations or baggage. Sometimes you will kick yourself out of the zone. Cigars and scotch probably cannot be enjoyed in the zone.
Zen is about detatching from the things in your immediate experience so that you can connect and disconnect without any greif. Nothing
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
As I understand it, Buddhism is focused on disassociation from the physical realm, thereby freeing the mind and spirit to concentrate on the greater mysteries of the universe. Naturally this is very important for those of us who must keep such nebulous things as IP networks and sounds cards and such running without letting the magic blue smoke out.
However, as a druid, my path is the path of wisdom through knowledge. We strive first to know everything about ourselves through studying the nature of the physical universe. Next we study the nature of the Otherworld through art, song, dance, and numerous other "right-brained" activities (I personally have had many a spiritual epiphany while coding). Finally we study the connection the two, the physical and the spiritual, to understand how they interact with one another, thereby fully integrating our spirits and our bodies.
The end result is enlightenment through understanding the nature of the universe. With that understanding comes some small ammount of control over how things work. It is a long and difficult path (like anything worth doing), but the benefits are astounding.
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
Buddhism is not based in dogma. You should trust only your own _practice_ and experience. Buddhism is intrested of human mind. Cosmology and others are not so important. Many buddhist do belive in karma rebirth etc. like many people did in Buddhas time. Buddha himiself consistently refused to respond in many questions: is the world eternal, is the world infinite, is the soul same as body, does buddha (avakened person) exist after death, etc. If you are following buddhist path you are doing something not beliving.
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it, or because it is
tradition, or because you yourself have imagined it. Do not believe
what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for him. But
whatever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive
to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings, believe and cling
to that doctrine, and take it as your guide. -- Buddha
Dyslexics have more fnu.
Ah, like most Westerners, you seem to confuse meditation and yoga as originiating in Buddhism. Far from the truth. Buddhism is only about 2600 years old (Buddha was born as a Hindu prince in 623 B.C. in a town called Kapilavatsu on the modern Indo-Nepal border.)
On the other hand, the practice of Yogic poses and meditation in India is * real ancient". More than 3000 yrs old. In fact, Yoga is mentioned in the RigVeda, the oldest known Hindu text. RigVeda is currently estimated by historians as at least 3300 years old. However, the first authoritative treatise on Yoga was written by the Indian sage, Sri Patanjali Maharishi about 2000 years ago. Yoga derives from 'yuj', a Sanskrit word meaning 'to unite.' Yoga was therefore used to connote union of one's consciousness with a presumed universal consciousness. Yoga is just one of the 6 main Indian philosophical systems or Darshanas : ( Darshana literally means 'sight' or 'revelation' in different contexts in Sanskrit, Hindi, and many other Indian languages.)
1. Yoga - union of individual consciousness with universal consciousness
2. Vedanta - knowledge of self, universe and God.
3. Sankhya - philosophical classification of the universe
4. Vaishesika - analysis and characterization of the universe
5. Nyaya - logic
6. Purva-Mimamsa - laws of formal religion
My boss buys us Hockers. This not only makes me look forward to work, but I hardley wank off in the loo any more.
You also engage in false identities and making up stories based on those false identities. I should imagine that's very relaxing too!