13AR18-28

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Apologia Report 18:28 (1,164)

July 24, 2013

Subject: Engineering enlightenment and "joy on demand"

In this issue:

NEW AGE BUSINESS - "just another neo-spiritual fad" or a "new gospel for tech companies" today and for the western world tomorrow?

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EASTERN MYSTICISM, MADE IN THE USA

"Enlightenment Engineers: Meditation Isn't Just About Inner Peace - in the Valley It's About Getting Ahead" by Noah Shachtman -- begins with profiles of Silicon Valley workers who have transformed themselves into geeky gurus. Steve Jobs is seen as being an early part of this tradition. One example is Chade-Meng Tan. He and "most of his pupils are Google employees, and this meditation class is part of an internal course called Search Inside Yourself" <www.siyli.org>. Another example of eastern influence is visible in "the company's bimonthly series of 'mindful lunches' <www.ow.ly/nfYNK>, conducted in complete silence except for the ringing of prayer bells, which began after the Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh <www.ow.ly/nfYUH> visited in 2011. ...

"It's not just Google that's embracing Eastern traditions. ... Classes in meditation and mindfulness ... have become staples at many of the region's most prominent companies. ... The cofounders of Twitter and Facebook have made contemplative practices key features of their new enterprises, holding regular in-office meditation sessions and arranging for work routines that maximize mindfulness. Some 1,700 people showed up at a Wisdom 2.0 conference held in San Francisco this winter <www.wisdom2summit.com>, with top executives from LinkedIn, Cisco, and Ford featured among the headliners.

"These companies are doing more than simply seizing on Buddhist practices. Entrepreneurs and engineers are taking millennia-old traditions and reshaping them to fit the Valley's goal-oriented, data-driven, largely atheistic culture. Forget past lives; never mind nirvana. The technology community of Northern California wants return on its investment in meditation. 'All the woo-woo mystical stuff, that's really retrograde,' says Kenneth Folk <www.kennethfolkdharma.com>, an influential meditation teacher in San Francisco. 'This is about training the brain and stirring up the chemical soup inside.'

"It can be tempting to dismiss the interest in these ancient practices as just another neo-spiritual fad from a part of the country that's cycled through one New Age after another. But it's worth noting that the prophets of this new gospel are in the tech companies that already underpin so much of our lives. And these firms are awfully good at turning niche ideas into things that hundreds of millions crave." Note the page title for this article on the web: "In Silicon Valley, Meditation Is No Fad. It Could Make Your Career."

Onetime engineer Bill Duane "frames Neural Self-Hacking, an introductory meditation class he designed for Google. 'Out in the world, a lot of this stuff is pitched to people in yoga pants,' he says. 'But I wanted to speak to my people. I wanted to speak to me. I wanted to speak to the grumpy engineer who may be an atheist, who may be a rationalist.'

"Duane's pitch starts with neuroscience and evolutionary biology. 'We're basically the descendants of nervous monkeys,' he says....

"Meng has had quite a career himself, joining Google in 2000 as employee number 107 and working on mobile search. But for years, his attempts to bring meditation into the office met with limited success. It was only in 2007, when he packaged contemplative practices in the wrapper of emotional intelligence, that he saw demand spike. ...

"There is in fact little data to support the notion that meditation is good for Google's bottom line, just a few studies from outfits like the Conference Board showing that emotionally connected employees tend to remain at their current workplaces. Still, the company already tends to its employees' physical needs with onsite gyms, subsidized massages, and free organic meals to keep them productive. Why not help them search for meaning and emotional connection as well?"

Duane's interest in eastern mysticism began when he was "leading a 30-person site-reliability team" for Google. Then he moved to "a management post where he oversaw nearly 150 Googlers. [He] decided to leave the company's cadre of engineers and concentrate full-time on bringing meditation to more of the organization. Google executives, who have put mindfulness at the center of their internal training efforts, OK'd the switch. ...

"He still professes to be a proud empiricist. But when I walk back into the Search Inside Yourself class, neither he nor any of the other Googlers seem at all fazed when Meng tells us to imagine the goodness of everyone on the planet and to visualize that goodness as a glowing white light." The author, following Meng "in a variation on a Tibetan Tonglen exercise," confesses: "I actually feel a buzzing on the underside of my skull as I try to imagine pure love."

Independent mindfulness instructor, Soren Gordhamer <www.sorengordhamer.com>, "struck a nerve when he described how hard it was to focus in our always-on culture. By providing constant access to email, tweets, and Facebook updates, smartphones keep users distracted, exploiting the same psychological vulnerability as slot machines: predictable input and random payouts. They feed a sense that any pull of the lever, or Facebook refresh, could result in an information jackpot.

"And so he got the idea to host a conference where the technology and contemplative communities could hash out the best ways to incorporate these tools into our lives - and keep them from taking over. The event, billed as Wisdom 2.0, was held in April 2010 and drew a couple hundred people.

"That was three years ago; since then attendance at the now annual conference has shot up 500 percent. ... Gordhamer has become a Silicon Valley superconnector, with an array of contacts that would make an ordinary entrepreneur burst with envy. He now leads private retreats for the technorati, and more conferences are in the works - one just for women, another to be held in New York City. 'Everywhere you turn at Wisdom,' says PayPal cofounder Luke Nosek, 'it's like, "Oh my God, you're here too?"' ...

"One of the reasons that Wisdom 2.0 - and the broader movement it represents - has become so big, so quickly, is that it stripped away the dogma and religious trappings. But it's hard not to consider what gets lost in this whittling process. ... Seeing the megarich take the stage to trumpet his practices is a bit jarring.

"It also raises the uncomfortable possibility that these ancient teachings are being used to reinforce some of modern society's uglier inequalities. Becoming successful, powerful, and influential can be as much about what you do outside the office as what you do at work. There was a time when that might have meant joining a country club or a Waspy church. Today it might mean showing up at TED. Looking around Wisdom 2.0, meditation starts to seem a lot like another secret handshake to join the club. ...

"One night during the Wisdom 2.0 conference, I meet Kenneth Folk and some of his proteges at a vegetarian restaurant run by the local Zen center. ...

"After the mesquite-grilled brochettes with Hodo Soy tofu, Vincent Horn <www.vincenthorn.com>, who runs the popular Buddhist Geeks website and podcast, tells me that everyone I'm eating with is enlightened.

"Horn drops this casually, as if he were discussing his hair color or the fact that all of the men are wearing pants. I'm not sure how to respond. As Jay Michaelson - the guy sitting to my left, and the author of Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment - gleefully notes, talking openly about enlightenment is as big a taboo as there is in modern American Buddhism, where the exploratory journey trumps any metaphysical destination. Enlightenment implies sainthood, perfect wisdom, an end to the cycle of birth and death. Michaelson, Folk, and Horn are polishing off their second bottle of red."

After describing Folk's "journey toward enlightenment," the author adds: "Folk's doctrine may be less radical than it seems, however. Yes, he calls himself enlightened. But he doesn't think of himself as some holy man. To him, the old stories of Buddhist saints shaking off their cravings for food or sex are just that: stories. 'Sainthood is a relic of the past,' he says. ...

"Enlightenment may be hackable and shareable, but only if its meaning radically changes. To Folk, being enlightened is about 'meta-OK-ness' - meaning that it's OK even when it's not OK - which he says anyone who tries can achieve. ...

"Meng has another goal in mind for this exercise: to help his colleagues develop mental habits conducive to kindness. It's these sorts of meditations, Meng tells me later, that ultimately led him to 'discover the ability to access joy on demand. After a while, it became a skill.' He smiles and gives me a look as if to say: No, seriously.

"Maybe I shouldn't be surprised at the claim. Last year Meng published a Search Inside Yourself book. The introduction proclaims him to be 'a closet Bodhisattva' - a Buddhist saint, next in holiness to Siddhartha himself. ...

"Steve Jobs spent lots of time in a lotus position; he still paid slave wages to his contract laborers, berated subordinates, and parked his car in handicapped stalls.

"One of Meng's students raises her hand. This saintly training, this randomly wishing for others' happiness - it doesn't seem all that genuine, she says: 'It felt like I was saying the words, but I wasn't actually doing anything by thinking that.'

"Duane tells her it's OK to feel that way. The practice will help you later, he says, even if it comes across as empty at the time. 'There's definitely a fake-it-till-you-make-it aspect to it,' he says.

"Oh no, Meng answers. It's the first time in the whole class he's corrected anyone. 'It's not faking it until you make it,' he says. 'It's faking it until you become it.'" Wired, Jul '13, pp120-128. <www.ow.ly/mX7bj>

(Hmm. Still sounds plenty "woo-woo" to me. - RP)

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SOURCES: Monographs

Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment, by Jay Michaelson (Evolver, October 2013, paperback, 256 pages) <www.ow.ly/nfZwF>

Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace), by Chade-Meng Tan (HarperOne, 2012, hardcover, 288 pages) <www.ow.ly/ng41c>

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