Even Gandhi Was a Jerk to Work For

…

“Elephants are terrific bullshit artists,

and are never doing quite as well

as you think they are.

This audacity makes them great,

if slightly smelly.

…

The elephant cannot be ignored.

It must be understood and directed this way and that.

It can be done, because for some strange reason,

in spite of all their size and power,

elephants need direction and know it.”

A funny, transcendently simple, ultra-enlightening and very Zen guide

that helps you to manipulate and control the large, grey behemoths that run the world,

otherwise known as your boss.

In Throwing the Elephant, Fortune magazine columnist Stanley Bing describes how to manage your boss. Simultaneously satirizing the self-help, self-discovery and business management genres, Bing stumbles upon more than a few truths that, although delivered tongue-in-cheek, merit serious consideration.

Bing says he learned a basic truth early: "You can't choose your boss."

Thus, your only choice is to mold the one you have into someone you can tolerate.
When you control your boss, you can "throw the elephant."

And just how do you achieve this nirvana?

Bing turns to Zen Buddhism, adapting its sacred principles to boss/employee interactions.

Bing identifies four truths that underlie professional life:

* Work is suffering. "The ability to boss other people around destroys much of human decency," writes Bing. "Evidence suggests that even Gandhi was a jerk to work for."

* Desire is at the root of suffering.

* Suffering can be conquered.

* There is a path to end suffering.

Your only hope: mastering "Zen and the Art of Managing Up." Sure, you can trust the elephants, Bing writes, but only as far as you can throw them. "This is the first time we come face-to-face with the need to actually throw the elephant."

So how do you get to that point? First, you discover how to handle the elephant, then how to manage it, then finally how to toss it. "That you are willing and able to do actual work gives you incredible power over a creature that by no means wishes to ... do any," writes Bing.

Another advantage you hold over elephants: They are large, you are not.

"Elephants are not afraid of big things, or are at least unwilling to admit such fear," Bing posits.

"Elephants are therefore left only the option of being afraid of little things that sneak up and surprise them. Such things include mice, loud noises, spreadsheets, ... unannounced visitors [and] word of the displeasure of a higher executive."

Equilibrium is essential to the elephant's survival, says Bing. You control small matters that can easily destabilize the elephant.

Bing concludes with a chapter titled "Finding the Elephant in You."

Adopting the tone of a self-help guru, he counsels readers on how to think of themselves in the boss/employee continuum: "Elephant? Or human? You can't be both.

The choice is in your hands. ... Think about it.

Or better yet sit down and don't think at all."

Mike Frost is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va.

Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up

A funny, transcendently simple, ultra-enlightening and very Zen guide

that helps you to manipulate and control the large, grey behemoths that run the world,

otherwise known as your boss.

In Throwing the Elephant, Fortune magazine columnist Stanley Bing describes how to manage your boss. Simultaneously satirizing the self-help, self-discovery and business management genres, Bing stumbles upon more than a few truths that, although delivered tongue-in-cheek, merit serious consideration.

Bing says he learned a basic truth early: "You can't choose your boss."

Thus, your only choice is to mold the one you have into someone you can tolerate.
When you control your boss, you can "throw the elephant."

And just how do you achieve this nirvana?

Bing turns to Zen Buddhism, adapting its sacred principles to boss/employee interactions.

Bing identifies four truths that underlie professional life:

* Work is suffering. "The ability to boss other people around destroys much of human decency," writes Bing. "Evidence suggests that even Gandhi was a jerk to work for."

* Desire is at the root of suffering.

* Suffering can be conquered.

* There is a path to end suffering.

Your only hope: mastering "Zen and the Art of Managing Up." Sure, you can trust the elephants, Bing writes, but only as far as you can throw them. "This is the first time we come face-to-face with the need to actually throw the elephant."

So how do you get to that point? First, you discover how to handle the elephant, then how to manage it, then finally how to toss it. "That you are willing and able to do actual work gives you incredible power over a creature that by no means wishes to ... do any," writes Bing.

Another advantage you hold over elephants: They are large, you are not.

"Elephants are not afraid of big things, or are at least unwilling to admit such fear," Bing posits.

"Elephants are therefore left only the option of being afraid of little things that sneak up and surprise them. Such things include mice, loud noises, spreadsheets, ... unannounced visitors [and] word of the displeasure of a higher executive."

Equilibrium is essential to the elephant's survival, says Bing. You control small matters that can easily destabilize the elephant.

Bing concludes with a chapter titled "Finding the Elephant in You."

Adopting the tone of a self-help guru, he counsels readers on how to think of themselves in the boss/employee continuum: "Elephant? Or human? You can't be both.

The choice is in your hands. ... Think about it.

Or better yet sit down and don't think at all."

Mike Frost is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va.

3 Things That Would Transform the World for Better

ONE: as individuals, we step out of the fear

of what other people think of us

because that is the prison that most people live in.

And once you're in the fear of what someone else thinks,

you are not living YOUR life in YOUR truth;

you are living someone else's version

of what they think you should be.

In other words, you're in the herd now.

If we step out of the fear of what other people think, as individuals, and say, to use the title of one of my books, I Am Me, I Am Free, and if you don't like it, that's fine-you have a right not to like it-but this is me!

At that point we cease to be a sheep.

And if enough of us do it, we cease to be a herd of sheep.

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SECOND: we allow everyone else to express their uniqueness, even though it differs from ours.

You know, "What a crime; call the police; my goodness me,

this person thinks different than me!"

Once we do that, we cease to be a sheep dog for the rest of the herd.

Just those two things alone, and this whole edifice of imposed power starts to crumble

because the very basis of it is crumbling.

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THIRD: the balance point...

No one seeks to impose what they believe on anyone else,

so all are respecting everyone's free will,

so that my belief is not imposed on anyone else.

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-David Icke-

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What’s Before Us To Do

Field training students often are curious about the role of action in deliberate intending.

In our view, actions follow naturally, spontaneously, and inevitably from intentions.

So how we move through the world corresponds to the identity choices we’re making, wittingly or not.

The only reference to action in the Course is in the direction to “do what’s before us to do,” with a note that this may or may not have anything obvious to do with what we’ve deliberately intended.

For example, I may be deliberately intending financial success, and find that what’s before me to do, right now, in the living present, is wash the dishes. In that case, washing the dishes is the right action, because failing to do what’s before us to do invariably arises from counterintentions.

It isn’t surprising, then, from a Field training point of view, that failing to wash the dishes when washing the dishes is before us to do may move through the nonlocal concatenation of causes and effects in a way that somehow postpones financial success—or whatever other fulfillment we’ve claimed inwardly.

Action, of course, would not be central in any consciousness-as-cause model, except insofar as it contributes to one’s deliberately chosen state of consciousness relevant to the action.

In Seth/Jane Roberts’s book, The Nature of Personal Reality, Seth/Jane advises us, after making the required alteration in consciousness, to make some gesture to show ourselves that we believe in what we’re doing, meaning that we believe in the new identity.

Jed's A Millionaire

In the case of intending financial abundance, it might mean spending a few dollars more than we may think we can afford in the faith that somehow the money will come into our reality.

There’s a similar idea in the approach Huna takes to conscious creating—Huna being Polynesian shamanism as practiced by the kahunas. They, too, regarded a gesture, some action in the world, as an important part of the creative process.

Field training doesn’t include this idea for the simple reason that, in practical terms, the idea almost entails the strategic, premeditating approach that Field training diligently avoids, holding as it does that any such approach immediately implicates us in the contradiction of believing in the very condition we’re aiming
to change through belief.

Even in Seth/Jane’s book, the essential gesture is described as having the aim of convincing us that what we’ve claimed inwardly is true.

So, the action serves as something like an anchor that gives the new belief greater credibility in what might be regarded as a kind of biofeedback reinforcement.

Field training prefers the idea that such “gestures” occur spontaneously and naturally, commensurate with the thoroughness of our alignment in the new identity.

Believing wholeheartedly that one has financial means that one believed, in the previous identity, one lacked, naturally expresses itself in the sort of actions that Seth?Jane/Huna regard as part of their “method.”

You can see in this word method the first inkling of strategy that Field training considers problematic. If our alignment is not thorough—that is, if we’re still “bilocated” in the language of Field theory, then a situation will come up that presents us with two options, each one representing one of the bilocated identities.

Often test situations come unexpectedly, and we don’t realize until later that we were tested—that is, confronted with a situation in which we had to choose, wittingly or not, to remain true to the new version of self or revert to the former identity, complete with its payoff and price.

These aren’t tests that one can pass or fail; they simply reveal in the most practical terms, who one is being, thus giving us the opportunity either to express our alignment or to deepen it in newfound resolve.

In our view, the new sense of oneself is like a stone thrown into the center of the lake of reality. From it, ripples move out in all directions, showing up as new thoughts and feelings, new actions, and new conditions—all moving effortlessly through the medium of our being-here, while we rest at the center.

-

source

Roses from Bob

Bill Maher's New "Sex Addict" Rule

New Rule: Stop saying "sex addict" like it's bad thing.

In the wake of Tiger Woods' heartfelt apology that he gave to his fans, his friends, his foundation - and just to be safe, Elizabeth Edwards - the media has been interviewing sex addicts: on CNN one addict said, "The day Mount Saint Helens blew up, everyone was talking about it. But I didn't even know it happened because I was having sex all that day." Oh, the humanity! Please get this man some professional help soon, before he has a hot three-way and completely misses a tornado.


Now, I haven't commented on Tiger Woods much because, well, he's just a golfer and it took me this long to give a shit. But all this talk about sex addiction now - please - sex addiction is just something Dr. Drew made up because he had no other way to explain Andy Dick. And that's not just me saying that - it's also the American Psychiatric Association, which does not list sex addiction in its manual; it does not regard it as a real psychological syndrome, like delirium or bipolar disorder or any of the other things Glenn Beck suffers from.

You want to know the surest way that you can spot a "sex addict?" He's got a penis. That's why Tiger was having sex with more women than even a black celebrity needs to have sex with, and thereby threatening to unbalance the delicate ecosystem of playas and ho's.


But before Tiger moves on there's one more apology he really should make, and that's to Buddha, for dragging him into this mess and proving once again, that whenever something unspeakably tawdry, loathsome and cheap happens, just wait a few days. Religion will make it worse.

Now usually, when famous cheaters are looking for public redemption, they go to Jesus, but Tiger went old school, and claimed that sleeping with 2/3 of the waitresses in America had made him a failure as a Buddhist. He said Buddhism teaches you the way to inner peace is letting go of desire - and if that doesn't sound like marriage, I don't know what does.


Personally, if I was a golfer, I'd go with Jesus - because he's a Trinity, so when you walk with him, you've got a foursome. Christianity is for rubes. Buddhism is for actors.

And it really is outdated in some ways - the "Life sucks, and then you die" philosophy was useful when Buddha came up with it around 500 B.C., because back then life pretty much sucked, and then you died - but now we have medicine, and plenty of food, and iPhones, and James Cameron movies - our life isn't all about suffering anymore. And when we do suffer, instead of accepting it we try to alleviate it.

Tiger said, "Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves" makes us unhappy, which confirms something I've long suspected about Eastern religions: they're a crock, too.

Craving for things outside ourselves is what makes life life - I don't want to learn to not want, that's what people in prison have to do. Buddhism teaches suffering is inevitable. The only thing that's inevitable is that if you have fake boobs and hair extensions, Tiger Woods will try to fuck you.

And reincarnation? Really? If that were real, wouldn't there be some proof by now? A raccoon spelling out in acorns, "My name is Herb Zoller and I'm an accountant." ...something?

People are always debating, is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy: it's a religion. You're a religion if you do something as weird as when the Buddhist monks scrutinize two-year-olds to find the reincarnation of the dude who just died, and then choose one of the toddlers as the sacred Lama: "His poop is royal!"

Sorry, but thinking you can look at a babbling, barely-housebroken, uneducated being and say, "That's our leader" doesn't make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter.