Tribune News Service

Barnawa (Baghpat), July 10

Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is out on parole for a month, can be seen reciting bhajans and preaching his followers at Dera Sacha Sauda Ashram, Barnawa, in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh daily. He has reportedly written around 700 bhajans while serving his term in the Sunaria jail, Rohtak.

The dera head, convicted of raping of two women disciples and murdering journalist Ram Chander Chhaterpati, was released on parole on June 17. He was convicted by a special CBI court in August 2017.

The dera head reached the Barnawa ashram, which is spread over 100 acres, on June 18. All four gates of the ashram have been closed since July 26. UP Police and dera security personnel are deployed around the ashram.

Dera spokesperson Sandeep Kaur said, Guruji starts his day by playing volleyball and badminton. He can also be seen looking after dogs and horses, besides trying his hand at gardening.

He has written 700 hymns in the jail, which he recites for his followers. The main theme of these hymns is to wean youths away from drugs. He interacts with his followers for hours after 4 pm daily, she said.

#dera sacha sauda #gurmeet ram rahim

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Out on parole, Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim tends to animals, tries hand at gardening - The Tribune India

Rare archival footage, recordings and photographs, eye-witness accounts and expert comments along with location shoots across India, bring alive the fascinating journey of George, John, Paul and Ringo from their high octane celebrity lives in the West to a remote Himalayan ashram in search of spiritual bliss that inspires an unprecedented burst of creative songwriting. It is the first serious exploration of how India shaped the development of the greatest ever rock band and their own pioneering role bridging two vastly different cultures.

Director Ajoy Bose was a teenage rebel in Calcutta in love with the Beatles when they came to India. His long mop and the psychedelic flowers painted on his shirt imitating the Fab Four led to fierce fights with his bureaucrat father. In an interesting quirk of fate half a century later as an established journalist and author, Bose was writing a book, Across the Universe to mark the 50th anniversary of The Beatles historic trip to Rishikesh for the worlds largest publishing house Penguin Random House.

Inspired by Ajoy Boses book, British Indian music entrepreneur Reynold DSilva has now taken the amazing saga of The Beatles and India further by producing Boses directorial debut. Bose and cultural researcher, co-director, Pete Compton, have created an audio-visual presentation that stands apart from the many documentaries on the band, delving deep into the most crucial period of their evolution from the worlds most famous pop stars into multi-faceted pioneering musical artists.

For thoughts on The Beatles and India, please check out our discussions on The Video Attic:

Video Quality

The Beatles and India comes to Blu-Ray with a very lovely high definition master that suits the film as well as you might hope. As is typical with documentaries on subjects from decades ago, the film features a lot of different material in varying degrees of quality. The new interviews look incredibly solid and clear with natural skin tones and some detailed facial features on the subjects. The archival footage features a variety of different sources that seem to be in the best shape possible given the filming limitations. Some footage appears to be authorized within the compound while other is taken from far away as people tried to get a glimpse of the Fab Four. Much of this footage is pretty ragged, but it helps bring a glimpse of history into the modern world. The colors featured in the film have a decent degree of vibrancy to them. The transfer has not fallen victim to any compression artifacts or digital nuisances of the sort. MVD Entertainment has delivered a great presentation for fans.

Audio Quality

This Blu-Ray disc comes with a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a LPCM 2.0 track which perfectly suits the source material. Since this is a film focused on world famous musicians, you might expect wall-to-wall classic tunes, but most of the music featured in the film comes from Indian musicians rather than The Beatles themselves. Nevertheless, the sound quality is pristine and fills the room in a wonderful way. With this being such an interview showcase with talking heads aplenty, it is nice to note that dialogue comes through flawlessly in the center channel. The archival clips do not feature much in the way of age-related wear, thankfully, but you can tell there were some limitations to recording in certain situations. The surround channel presentation is not pushed to the limits, but it sounds terrific here. There are optional English subtitles provided on this release.

Special Features

Final Thoughts

The Beatles and India is an immensely entertaining documentary detailing a unique period of time in the career of one of the greatest bands of all time. Hardcore fans of the group may already know quite a bit about this period, but even they should find a lot of value in the unique archival footage and the larger context you get from the interview subjects. If you are completely fresh to this information, get ready for a different side of the Fab Four which more clearly defined what exactly mattered to each of them at this point in their lives. MVD Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray featuring a strong A/V presentation and a nice array of additional material. If you are a Beatles fan, you are going to have a lot of fun. Recommended

The Beatles and India is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: MVD Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.

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'The Beatles And India' Blu-Ray Review - A Look At The Fab Four's Quest For Enlightenment & Creativity - Geek Vibes Nation

Eknath Shinde said he is a "Sevak" of the Maharashtra people.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday said he was a "sevak" and his government was committed to the all-round development of the state as well as welfare of its citizens.

Mr Shinde also said that the decisions being taken now for the welfare of the people, should have been taken two-and-a-half-years back, but since that did not happen, 50 MLAs had to unite and take a stand.

He was referring to Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's announcement made on Tuesday about his party's support to the National Democratic Alliance's Presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu.

Mr Shinde was interacting with reporters at Anand Ashram in the city after paying tributes to late Shiv Sena leader and his mentor Anand Dighe on the occasion of Guru Purnima.

When asked about NCP president Sharad Pawar's recent remark that he wanted the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress to contest the future elections together as the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the chief minister said, "Pawar is a big leader. The 50 MLAs, who are in my camp and with the present alliance (with the BJP), all of us are aiming to develop the state. Hence, we do not want to get into any politics. "My government wants to ensure that the lives of the people of the state are improved. The citizens should feel that it is their government. I am a 'sevak' (servant) and will remain one till the end. I will walk on the path shown by late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and Anand Dighe by following their principles," he said.

When asked about Mr Thackeray announcing his party's support to Murmu, Shinde said the Shiv Sena MPs wanted it. "Even we, the 50 (rebel) MLAs, have already declared our backing to Murmu. The support being given to Murmu from all quarters is being welcomed at all levels and by everyone. Even the support given by Uddhav Thackeray to her is being welcomed from all quarters," he added.

"The decisions meant for the welfare of the people, which are being taken now, should have been taken two-and-a-half-years back. But since they did not do so, the 50 MLAs had to unite and take a stand. We have taken this decision now," he said.

Mr Shinde was referring to the rebellion in the Shiv Sena led by him last month. A majority of the Sena MLAs had sided with him, leading to the collapse of the MVA government headed by Uddhav Thackeray. Shinde became the chief minister, a day after Thackeray resigned from the top post on June 29.

"The stand taken by the 50 MLAs has been receiving an overwhelming response from all over the state. Even during my visit to Pandharpur recently, where 10 lakh people had gathered on the occasion of Ashadhi Ekadashi, I got a rousing reception. I moved freely among the people and they gave me love," he added.

The stand taken by the rebel camp has been welcomed by the party's office-bearers, corporators and all others, he claimed.

"Even today, Sena corporators from Ulhasnagar supported us, and the situation is similar in Nashik and Ahmednagar, etc," he said.

When asked whether the expansion of his cabinet would happen after July 18, he replied in the affirmative, but refused to elaborate.

Mr Shinde also evaded any direct reply to a query about Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut's statement that his party's support to Murmu does not mean backing the BJP, he said his faction's spokesperson Deepak Kesarkar has gone to Delhi for a meeting of the parties called by the NDA over the presidential polls.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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My Government Committed To All-Round Development Of Maharashtra: Eknath Shinde - NDTV

You must be thinking Respecting your teacher is a very easy task but it is not that easy, even it is one of the most difficult task. Take a look into your life and think about a incident in which you had disrespected your teacher, Do you feel guilty now? I am sure you are guilty of disrespecting your teacher. These days students want to look cool infront of others and therefore they make fun of their teacher or start arguing with them but ask yourself is it really a cool task to disrespect your teacher

Here is a one story for all of you. Whenever you think bad about teacher remember this story of Surdas. As it help you to understand that the teacher not only help you to gain you bookish Knowledge but they also play a very important role in building your personality.

Surdas was an eager student who wanted to learn about Spirituality. He met a Guru who accepted him as his disciple. The Guru found that Surdas was hampered by his quality of getting angry easily, which prevented him from learning. Thus, the Guru decided to make Surdas shed his anger.The Guru said 'Dear Surdas, chant the God's name during all your activities for one month, then take a bath and come back to me. Surdas followed the Guru's instructions and the day after the month was over, he went to meet his Guru. On his way to Guru's ashram, a sweeper on the street carelessly put dirt on his clothes. Surdas got angry and scolded the sweeper, 'What are you doing,you fool? Now I have to go back wash and dry these clothes and bathe again! Such a waste of time!' The Guru had observed the scene and when Surdas reached the aashram he told him,'Dear Surdas, you are not yet ready for further spiritual practice. Chant the God's name during all your activities for another month, take a bath at the end of it and come to see me.'

After a month, he eagerly went to his Guruji's ashram and the same thing was repeated. Surdas again became really angry and blamed the sweeper. After bathing, he met his Guru who asked Surdas to chant God's name for one more month. One month passed and this time the same incident happened when Surdas went to meet his Guru. However, this time Surdas addressed the sweeper softly saying "Thank you. You are my master. You have helped me to overcome my anger." The sweeper felt bad for his action.

This time as Surdas approached his Guru's hermitage, he could see his Guru standing in front of the hermitage welcoming him. Guru told Surdas that he is now ready to teach him.

Learn from this story, start respecting your teacher as they are the one because whom you had achieved all the success in your life.

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On this Gurupurnima, Learn to respect your teacher - News Track English

By Express News Service

MALKANGIRI: To address the problem of malnutrition among school children while providing good refreshments and improving their attendance, the district administration launched a flavoured gift milk programme at the remote Silakota Ashram School under Podia block last week.

The initiative, supported by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) Foundation for Nutrition with CSR assistance of Indian Railway Construction Limited, will be rolled out in the district on a pilot basis for a month. It is expected to benefit around 3,162 students in 21 government schools in Swabhiman Anchal of Chitrakonda and inaccessible pockets ofMathili, Korukonda and Podia blocks.

Collector Vishal Singh said as Malkangiri is an aspirational district and typically deprived of basic necessities, IRCON identified it as one of its intervention areas and decided to provide flavoured milk in government and tribal schools. NDDB then requested the district administration to initiate the programme.

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'Gift Milk' programme aiming to address malnutrition launched in government schools in Odisha - The New Indian Express

Appearing for the Uttar Pradesh Police Friday in a bail petition by AltNews co-founder Muhammed Zubair, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju argued before the Supreme Court that his tweet calling Yati Narsinghanad Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop hate mongers had offended the followers of Muni, who is a respected Mahant in Sitapur.

As Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, appearing for the State of Uttar Pradesh, also opposed Zubairs plea, Raju said: Bajrang Muni is a respected mahant a religious leader in Sitapur with a large following. When you call a religious leader a hate-monger, it raises problems. The religious feelings of a lot of people in UP are hurt, he added.

* Bajrang Muni

The 38-year-old runs the Shri Laxmandas Udasin Ashram in Khairabad in UPs Sitapur district, though he is originally said to be from Raniganj in Pratapgarh district of the state. According to those who know him, he was working in an airline company when he reportedly met some spiritual leaders, decided to quit and joined the Udasin Akhara. Before coming to Sitapur, he stayed at Prayagraj, Nasik and Azamgarh.

* The current controversy

On April 2, on the eve of the Hindu New Year that saw several incidents of communal tension across the country, videos had surfaced where Muni was making threats.

In the videos, Muni is heard threatening to rape women of another community if a single Hindu woman is harassed. I am telling you with love. If you harass a single Hindu girl, then I will openly rape your daughters after picking them up from your houses, he is heard saying in one of the purported videos on April 2 in Sitapurs Khairabad town. He is seen surrounded by a crowd, including policemen, while he says this sitting inside a car.

Among others, the National Commission for Women sought his arrest.

Hours after police lodged an FIR against him, another video of him apologising for his statement surfaced, in which he said: To all the mothers and sisters, I would like to apologise. If my video, which is viral, has hurt them, please forgive me I respect all women.

He also claimed the video was being distorted and showed out of context. See, this is Khairabad. Eighty per cent population here is Muslim, while 20 per cent are Hindus That day (April 2), we had a Kalash Yatra, and these people were climbing their terrace with stones and sticks and wanted to repeat a Karauli-like incident (the violence in Rajasthan) When the administration stopped such an incident, they started abusing. We said that if you do so, the power to tolerate will finish, and that if you commit atrocities against our daughters, then your daughters wont be safe.

Muni was arrested on April 13 and booked under Sections 354-A (making sexual remarks), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 298 (uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person) of the IPC.

A senior police officer who spoke to The Indian Express at the time of the arrest said Muni was known for making controversial remarks in the past too.

On April 24, Muni was granted bail by a local court and was quoted as saying in a PTI report: I have no guilt for what I said. He added that he was ready to go to jail a thousand times, but will continue to safeguard my religion and women:.

* The past rows

It was around two years ago that Mahant Bajrang Muni Udasin first surfaced in Sitapur. The antecedents of the priest before that are blurry, though he is almost constantly in the news in the area for land disputes.

Those close to Bajrang Muni in Khairabad and adjoining areas in Sitapur say he is originally a native of Raniganj area in Pratapgarh district, and once held a job at an airline. It was after he reportedly came in contact with some spiritual leaders that he decided to quit and joined the Udasin Akhara. As part of the organisation, he stayed at Prayagraj, Nasik and Azamgarh before coming to Sitapur.

Contacted over the phone, Bajrang Muni told The Indian Express he was a native of Pratapgarh district, and hung up.

Most of the rows he is involved in Sitapur involve land around the Ashram, also known as Badi Sangat.

Saket Mishra, a candidate who lost from the Sitapur Sadar seat in the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, told The Indian Express that locals in the area had filed several complaints against Bajrang Muni, accusing him of threatening them and harassing them with false allegations, and of grabbing their land around the Ashram.

Circle Officer, City (Sitapur) Piyush Singh said that Muni too has filed three cases against locals, all related to land.

In February 2021, Muni had been provided a police gunner for protection after a clash with a local resident called Laiq Khan, and his brothers Atiq and Salman, who allegedly hit him in the legs with a knife and left serious injuries.

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Rape threat, land rows, unclear past: Who is Bajrang Muni, the 'respected mahant'? - The Indian Express

We are, as philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, Spiritual beings having a human experience. Its complicated. Being human is not simple or easy, and it challenges us daily to show up for life, or at least,wantingto show up for life.

Many people dont even want to do that because life is too hard, painful, and even unbearable. Its just too much all the time. So, we escape the moments. We dont want them. We want them to go away. We want them to stop reminding us of how difficult life is, and they do, again and again.

What can we do with such a difficult life? What can we do with so much of our pain and suffering? Escape? Check out? Die? Thats what millions of people do. They escape, either through drugs and alcohol, the overuse and dependency of their devices, or even choose to die through suicide when they cant take it anymore. They want out. And they want out desperately.

How can you explain to someone who doesnt want to be here that this is heaven on earth? Yes, it can be hellish, but that can be overcome if we change the way we look at all of this, and Mindfulness helps us look at life differently. More heaven, and a lot less hell.

Heres how: Stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself. What do you see? Did you immediately judge yourself? Did you immediately criticize yourself? Did you immediately tell yourself that youre unattractive, or over- weight, or unlovable, or unworthy? Or did you look deep into your eyes and get lost? Look into those eyes of yours.

Let them invite you in where you can meet yourself. Go ahead. Dont be afraid to go deeper into you. You have nothing to be afraid of. You just think that you do, and that is part of the problem, what we think. We think ourselves right out of the moment by telling ourselves how inadequate we are in it.

This mind of ours never stops. Thousands and thousands of thoughts are going through our minds daily, and we do very little to regulate its activity. Thats like allowing thousands of ants to traipse through your house without doing something about it, and we know how insidious ants can be. You look away, and the next thing you know, theyve multiplied in droves.

Being present means we not only see the ants but we also mindfully take care of the problem. And, if the problem keeps recurring, which an ant problem most certainly can, we become even more mindful of what can solve that problem in the best way possible. And we do it with a very clear mind. You have a problem, and you take care of it with a clear-thinking mind.

This is a mind that is uncluttered, unfettered, and that doesnt get lost in distraction or in thinking about something that happened yesterday, or worrying about whats going to happen next. You dont want to take care of an ant problem by wishing they werent there or by worrying about more ants coming into your home. Thats a complete waste of time.

I use the ant analogy because it shows where our mind can go, and how prone it is to want to go out of the moment. You cant go out of the moment if you have an infestation of ants in your home. You need to stay right there and fix it.

Mindfulness helps us stay right there, even when its uncomfortable staying right there, and this is something very important for us to learn. We must discipline our mind to be present, aware, and focused, even when we would rather do anything but that.

***

Ora Nadrich is founder and president of theInstitute for Transformational Thinkingand author ofLive True: A Mindfulness Guide to Authenticity, named among the top 18 books on what an authentic life looks like by PositivePsychology and one of the 100 Best Mindfulness Books of All Time by BookAuthority. She is a certified life coach and Mindfulness teacher, specializing in transformational thinking, self-discovery and mentoring new coaches. Her new book isMindfulness and Mysticism: Connecting Present Moment Awareness with Higher States of Consciousness(IFTT Press, Nov. 11, 2021). Contact her atoranadrich.com.

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Dont Be Afraid to Look More Deeply into Yourself - Thrive Global

Buddha was a historical person, a prince in ancient India, who left his royal life in search of a truly reliable, lasting refuge. After years of meditation, he achieved enlightenment, and taught others to do the same.

Learn more about Buddha...

Being a Buddhist means trying to bring the insights from our meditation into daily life. Keeping the view from meditation gives us more space to act consciously instead of from habit or disturbing emotions.

Learn more about being a Buddhist...

Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, shares the following message regarding the birthday of Lama Ole Nydahl. Karmapas message for Lama Oles 81th birthday Karmapas congratulations reached Lama Ole Nydahl at the European Center in Immenstadt during his Continued

Diamond Way Buddhism is an international network of Buddhist meditation centersfor people who want to integrate the Buddhist view with daily life and work. We offer a wide range of meditations, from those for complete beginners, through to advanced methods learned in retreat conditions. All Diamond Way meditation practices come from the Karma Kagyu lineage, a thousand-year-old tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, whose teachings have been passed down from the historical Buddha.

The Karma Kagyu lineage has been headed by the Karmapas the first reincarnate line of Tibetan teachers since the 12th century. The 17th Karmapa, Thaye Dorje, lives in India and travels widely to teach his students around the world. His predecessor the 16th Karmapa asked Lama Ole Nydahl and his wife Hannah Nydahl to establish Karma Kagyu Buddhism in the West. Since the early 70s they have started 640 Buddhist centers around the world, in over forty countries to date.

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Diamond Way Buddhism

Kadampa Buddhism is a Mahayana Buddhist school founded by the great Indian Buddhist Master Atisha (AD 982-1054).

In the word, Kadampa, Ka refers to Buddhas teachings, and dam to Atishas special Lamrim instructions. Kadampas, then, are practitioners who regard Buddhas teachings as personal instructions and put them into practice by following the instructions of Lamrim.

By integrating their understanding of all Buddhas teachings into their practice of Lamrim, and by integrating their experience of Lamrim into their everyday lives, Kadampas use Buddhas teachings as practical methods for transforming daily activities into the path to enlightenment.

After Atisha, the Kadampa lineage was passed down through a succession of great Kadampa Teachers including Dromtnpa, Geshe Potowa, Geshe Sharawa, and Geshe Chekhawa.

These precious Teachers were not only great scholars but also spiritual practitioners of immense purity and sincerity.

They placed particular emphasis on the practice of Training the Mind (Lojong) by which all our daily life experiences, and especially all our problems, suffering, and difficulties, can be transformed into the spiritual path.

The Kadampa lineage passed from generation to generation until the fourteenth century when it reached the great Buddhist Master Je Tsongkhapa.

Je Tsongkhapa clarified all the teachings of Kadam Dharma and made them very accessible to the people of that time.

In particular, he showed how to combine Lamrim, and Lojong with Mahamudra Tantra in a unified daily practice.

Just as the union of study and practice was a hallmark of the early Kadampas, so the union of Sutra and Tantra was to become a hallmark of the New Kadampas, as the followers of Je Tsongkhapa became known.

After Je Tsongkhapa, the New Kadampa lineage flourished for hundreds of years, down to the present day.

In recent years, it has been promoted widely throughout the world by the contemporary Buddhist Master, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.

By founding the New Kadampa Tradition, the International Kadampa Buddhist Union, Geshe Kelsang has created a truly global infrastructure to preserve and promote Kadampa Buddhism for many generations to come.

Use the menu to discover more about Kadampa Buddhism.

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Kadampa Buddhism - Kadampa Buddhism

Once associated in the United States with the alternative spirituality of hippies and beat poets, Buddhism is now ubiquitous in Silicon Valley. In 2016, tech giant Salesforce set up Mindfulness Zones at its annual Dreamforce Conference, with pavilions where Buddhist monks from Thich Nhat Hanhs Plum Village monastery taught meditation and mindfulness techniques. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner calls his leadership style compassionate management, which he describes as putting yourself in another persons shoes and seeing the world through their lens or perspective, and claims it is inspired by teachings of the Dalai Lama. Bill Gates took up meditation in private lessons from Andy Puddicombe, the former Buddhist monk who co-founded Headspace, an app which has turned online meditation into a multimillion-dollar business. Google even has its own in-house mindfulness guru, Chade-Meng Tan, a former software engineer who says his program Search Inside Yourself not only boosts profit but also contributes to world peace.

What we see in the tech world is an extension of American Buddhisms adaptation into the US mainstream, a process that has been shaped by influential mindfulness entrepreneurs such as Jon Kabat-Zinn, who claimed to have extracted from the Buddhas teachings the universal essence of Buddhism without the rituals and paraphernalia of religion. Kabat-Zinn popularized meditation traditionally an advanced practice for gaining insight into the ultimate nature of reality as a secular practice to boost mental health and productivity. Now, business meetings often open with a brief meditation session to make sure everyone is fully engaged:a mental hack in service of productivity.

In her new book, Work Pray Code, Carolyn Chen a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley argues that a new kind of American Buddhism has evolved, one which serves the logic of work and business. Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation, she writes. Chen spent five years studying American tech companies infatuation with Buddhist-inspired mindfulness and meditation practices. She participated in company meditation sessions; attended corporate mindfulness retreats; interviewed personal mindfulness coaches who help CEOs find their authentic selves; and spoke to tech workers who use meditation as a self-hack to improve focus, efficiency, creativity, and confidence. Her book describes a corporate culture where meditation and mindfulness address workers mental and spiritual needs, imbue work with a spiritual aura, and turn workplaces into productivity-centered faith communities.

Chen warns that corporate spirituality is turning work into a religion that replaces community-based spirituality and engagement. In an industry where 70+ hour workweeks are normal, the boundary between private life and work has been erased. Chen describes how tech professionals are dropping out of political and civic participation because their commitment to their companies leaves no time for such engagements outside the workplace; instead, they are encouraged to seek meaning and connection at work. Instead of building friendships, trust, and goodwill within their communities, writes Chen, [workers] develop the social capital of their companies.

Judith Hertog for Guernica

Guernica: In your book, you describe how Buddhist meditation practices have been disconnected from their religious context and repackaged for business. Is there something inherent in Buddhism that lends it to being used this way?

Chen: The Buddhism practiced among white Americans does not have the same structures of centralized authority that we witness in many Abrahamic religions. You could say its been an unregulated market. Especially early on, there was no formal credentialing if you wanted to teach meditation or mindfulness. But there are also historical reasons why this has happened, in particular in the Bay Area. The Bay Area has been the epicenter of this fascination with Asian religions and Buddhism, starting in the late 1950s with the arrival of the Japanese Zen master Shunryu Suzuki, the Beat movement, and then the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the people who initially brought mindfulness and meditation to the Silicon Valley corporations were what I call mystics, spiritual seekers who had come to the Bay Area to participate in the great counterculture movement.

But then we saw the mainstreaming of both the tech industry and Buddhism. People like Jerry Brown and Steve Jobs, who had an interest in Buddhism and had traveled to Asia, became the political and business elites, and the ethos and practices of the baby boomers became part of the establishment. Many of the meditation and mindfulness coaches in the tech industry picked up these practices in the 1960s and 1970s. For most of their careers, they were teaching in dharma centers or community centers, but with the rise of the tech industry and the rise of the cost of living in the Bay Area, they increasingly found that they had to service the tech industry if they wanted to survive and make a living. And this came with certain compromises or adaptations to the teachings and practices to meet the needs of the tech industry. I call it trickle-down Buddhism, because their culture became the ambient culture of the Bay Area.

Guernica: You write that most white Westerners know only a particular brand of Buddhism that has repeatedly been altered and adapted to appeal to them. Can you talk more about this process?

Chen: For the overwhelming majority of Asian Buddhists, Buddhism is a devotional practice. Bowing to images of deities, burning incense, worshiping at an altar those are all fundamental elements of Buddhist practice. There is this acknowledgement of worshiping higher beings. Meditation was not at all a mainstream lay practice in Buddhism. It only became popular in the early twentieth century, when Buddhist reformers such as the Burmese monk Mahasi Sayadaw, founder of modern Vipassana meditation, promoted it as a lay Buddhist practice. Mindfulness, as it was practiced for most of its history in Asia, was a very elite practice reserved only for advanced monastics. But Jack Kornfield, who is one of a number of influential teachers responsible for making Buddhist meditation go mainstream, understood that devotional Buddhism would be an obstacle for white Americans. He emphasized meditation because he understood that devotional Buddhism would be too associated with religious practice.

I want to clarify, by the way, that Im not necessarily critical of American Buddhist entrepreneurs. The problem is if you mistake this white American Buddhism for all Buddhism, or claim that this is the right or only way to practice Buddhism.

Guernica: How have traditional Buddhists leaders responded to the Western demand for Buddhist spirituality?

Chen: The Dalai Lama was instrumental in advancing the secularization of meditation. For him it was in part a political calculation. He wanted to make Buddhism relevant and useful to the West. Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, played a key role. In 1992, Davidson traveled to Dharamsala to meet with the Dalai Lama, and they discussed studying meditation scientifically. What ultimately grew out of that encounter is the Center for Healthy Minds, a research center that promotes scientific research on the efficacy of meditation. Talking about meditation in terms of data and metrics and facts has totally revolutionized Buddhism. Theres now a huge body of science on mindfulness and meditation, which has taken it out of the world of spirituality and allowed it to become standard practice in secular therapeutic spaces like hospitals, counseling centers, and schools. You no longer need to be a Buddhist to practice Buddhist meditation.

Guernica: Hasnt the validity of some of this research on meditation been questioned?

Chen: Yes, and I think the other question here, to which I never got a satisfactory answer, is: Why meditation? Why mindfulness? When I looked at additional research, I learned that gardening can produce similar health outcomes to decrease your stress. Or just sleeping more! But nobody promotes those practices in the same way or to the same scale because theres nothing to gain there. Several meditation teachers I interviewed told me that meditation is really hard and difficult to sustain, but here are all these companies touting it and claiming its making people more productive and improving their mental health. Yet there are all these other things that could be equally beneficial that people can do if they just get more time off work. But employers are unwilling to entertain that option.

Guernica: Youve identified a kind of doublespeak that meditation coaches often rely on to market themselves: on the one hand asserting that meditation and mindfulness are secular, science-based techniques, but on the other hand drawing on the spiritual authority of Buddhism. Could you speak more on this paradox?

Chen: Let me first emphasize that I would not characterize the meditation teachers I interviewed as manipulative or dishonest. Their motivations were genuine and came from spiritual experiences they had had themselves. Their concern was to bring wholeness to people and to share their own spiritual transformation with the world. But because of the particular circumstances of living in the Bay Area, in the techtopian ecosystem, they have to figure out ways to monetize these teachings.

For that reason, they resorted to this kind of doublespeak. They felt that in order to market their spirituality, they had to quote the science and use the PowerPoints and language legible to tech professionals. They have to present meditation in secular terms because many companies have qualms about bringing religion into the workplace. These teachers consider this doublespeak as expedient means, which is a Buddhist term that justifies adjusting the teachings to make the dharma accessible to a variety of people. But I think all the teachers had some qualms about being forced to leave the ethical aspects of Buddhism out of the workplace. They were not being hired to make the employees more ethical; they were being hired to make them more productive.

Guernica: Its also interesting to look at it from the other side. If companies are so focused on the secular and scientific aspects of meditation and mindfulness, why are they bringing it in as a spiritual practice?

Chen: For some companies its just a matter of out-perking other companies. On that level, it has nothing to do with spirituality; its just another perk. But on another level, companies are concerned about the spiritual care of their employees. They realize that employees do not perform well if their physical and mental state is not optimal. They worry about burnout. Many HR people talked to me about the spirituality of their workers as a competitive advantage. Human capital is the most valuable asset in a knowledge economy. So how do you grow the value of your capital and increase profit? You invest in your most important asset, which is your high-skilled workers. You try to persuade them to align the deepest parts of themselves with the company. You use spiritual practices to try to get them to love work and completely identify with the company. And the meditation and mindfulness that are being promoted in corporate workplaces are all part and parcel of that.

At some companies I observed, they would teach loving-kindness, Metta meditation, which is a traditional Buddhist meditation to promote compassion. Participants would be told: Imagine yourself spreading your love to your family. And now imagine a circle of love that you enlarge to include all of your workplace, and then all of your community, and then all of the world So, first of all, you might ask, what does any of this have to do with work? But when you associate these practices with your company because they happen at work, you begin to associate this sense of wellbeing and spirituality with your workplace. The social and spiritual binding that happens when you practice meditation together this is what gets people to develop a sense of belonging and identification with their company. It has nothing to do with compassion anymore.

And this happens not just in Silicon Valley. Almost all Fortune 500 companies are now organizing themselves to function as religious organizations. They have an origin story, a mission, ethics, and a particular set of practices, and many of them have a charismatic leader, which are all basic components of organized religion. I would say that this is strategic. They have learned that managing meaning is a central labor practice to compete for highly skilled workers in a knowledge economy.

Guernica: What would Marx say about that?

Chen: (Chuckles) He would say, I told you so! I actually found myself thinking a lot about Marx as I was doing my research.

Guernica: Youve talked about how companies aim to develop their human capital by cultivating a spirituality of authentic selfhood. Is this similar to the individualism that informed the counterculture movement?

Chen: Whether its a countercultural movement or a deeply mainstream American movement, there is in the United States this celebration of individualism and the ideal of the autonomous individual, who not only gets to make political choices and exercise their rights, but also gets to make economic choices in the marketplace. In the spiritual realm, this is expressed as an expectation of an unmediated relationship with the divine and of envisioning the divine as embodied in each individual person. At the core of this, whether its from the left or from the right, there is this celebration of self-fulfillment, of self-optimization, and of the idea of the autonomous, unencumbered, authentic self. Which, by the way, completely contradicts the Buddhist principle of no-self.

Guernica: You call the spirituality promoted by corporate America Whitened Buddhism, which claims to capture the essence of the Buddhas teachings without any distracting cultural baggage. How do the racial politics of the US play into this?

Chen: What we see is the erasure of Buddhism as a religion or tradition that Asians or Asian Americans can claim or identify with. In a place like the United States, there is a racial dimension to what is considered universal. Things like chanting, bowing, devotional practices, robes, incense, or having an altar are considered religious because they are associated with Asians or Asian Americans, while Buddhist meditation practices are presented as universal: something that can cross all times and people and spaces. And this matters a lot, because the universalization of Buddhism makes it marketable for business and therapeutic use. Such supposedly universal aspects of Buddhism are promoted in a secular context, while beliefs and practices associated with a particular cultural or ethnic group are considered to be religious.

I remember talking to someone at a company that brings meditation and mindfulness to businesses. She made it really clear to me that they did not bring in any zany gurus to teach meditation; they offered straight-laced teachers (they actually called them trainers) who didnt wear robes but looked just like the people they were teaching, wearing something like khaki pants and a button-down shirt. The way she saw it, they had done away with the accoutrements of religion that were not fundamental to meditation.

Guernica: Could this desire for a spirituality geared towards ones individual needs explain the backlash against organized religion in the US?

Chen: What we see in American religion, even if it is practiced in a corporate setting, is often the question, How can the group help the individual realize themselves? Whereas in other cultures this question tends to be reversed: How can the individual help realize the goals of the group? Interestingly enough, I think that companies have been able to command great self-sacrifice from Americans in a way that no other institution can today. I would argue that companies or workplaces have become the new faith communities that are replacing organized religion.

But there are downsides to this. We start to organize our selves, communities, and spiritualities around capitalisms goals of efficiency and productivity, ignoring other possible ethics of justice, kinship, and beauty. Ultimately, companies, which are driven by the bottom line, cannot offer us a solution for a flourishing life.

Guernica: What worries you most about corporate control over spirituality?

Chen: Its a problem when work becomes the alpha institution around which our lives revolve. I use the example of Buddhism to show how tradition and practices become flattened, impoverished, and hollowed out because they now serve the needs of the corporation. We see this also in families and in communities where civic participation has declined in the past 50 years. If we look at the economy of devotion in a community, devotion is collectively organized; it is organized around institutions such as the family, or the church, or the temple, or the workplace. But its a problem if you have only one game in town the workplace and essentially everything else orbits around it. This is increasingly what were seeing as we, human beings, become flattened into workers whose value is determined only by what we produce. This, I think, is also whats behind much of the obsession with self-optimization, positive psychology, and the health and wellness industry: we are under constant pressure to boost our value as individuals to stay competitive in a capitalist society. And this also damages our democracy. People are spending all their time and energy at work. In a place like Silicon Valley, the workplace takes care of workers needs, but it also claims all their employees time, energy and devotion, so that they have nothing left to give outside work.

I think this is where traditional religions have a role to play. To be sure, religious affiliation and participation is on the decline, and extreme groups like white Christian nationalists have monopolized Americas popular conversation on religion. But religion still is a powerful vehicle for social justice, especially among people of color think about the role of religion in the civil rights movement, the United Farm Workers movement, or immigration reform. But religions have articulated traditions and practices of meaning and purpose and of community and kinship that can counteract the extremely individualized, decontextualized, secular kind of spirituality that is being marketed today.

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Carolyn Chen: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation. - Guernica Magazine