Meditation in the Workplace? 441
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"."
Anything to get away for an hour (Score:2, Interesting)
Obligitory Simpsons quote (Score:2, Funny)
Bring in the Love
Re:Anything to get away for an hour (Score:2, Funny)
Friday Massage (Score:5, Interesting)
An added bonus is that you don't just spend your weekend recovering from the working week. You feel more inclined to go back to work on monday when you feel you have a life beyond work.
Q.
Re:Anything to get away for an hour (Score:3, Insightful)
What a lot of Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:2)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Redundant)
I usually find that I am much more productive afterward, but also much more relaxed. Double plus good!
J.
Other options (Score:2)
All of that also applies to sex. Think they'll be endorsing that in the workplace? I sure hope so.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
Swimming, hiking, camping, and listening to music are my ways to relieve stress and bring up my productivity.
I hate sitting in one place basically doing nothing for more than 5 mins.
I wish management would learn that people are individuals and need to be treated as such. Blanket policy always pisses someone off.
Remember that.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
That might be because it's (or at least it seems like) your own decision to meditate. There's a HUGE difference in attitude when you go meditate on your own initiative then when you're forced to meditate during work for 15 minutes, in a hurry, without being paid. I'm no expert on these things but I'd think it's very plausible that being forced to do meditation against your will and with a bad attitude towards it effectively renders it useless indeed...
That said, I think most people would rather have easier work times, more realistic goals set by management and be treated as humans instead of expendable statistics.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
That might be because it's (or at least it seems like) your own decision to meditate. There's a HUGE difference in attitude when you go meditate on your own initiative then when you're forced to meditate during work for 15 minutes, in a hurry, without being paid. I'm no expert on these things but I'd think it's very plausible that being forced to do meditation against your will and with a bad attitude towards it effectively renders it useless indeed...
You're no expert? No kidding! Read the frickin' art
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Funny)
Substitute "Mediation" with "six pack" and you have what the rest of us do. The effects are amazingly similar plus it has the added bonus of the beer goggle effect.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
First you say it doesn't work, then you leave this gem:
The only thing it's useful for is getting you off to sleep at night.
OK, so if it doesn't do anything, how can it be effective in relaxing you?
You know, that's the point of meditation - to help you to relax.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:2)
The only thing it's useful for is getting you off to sleep at night.
OK, so if it doesn't do anything, how can it be effective in relaxing you?
You know, that's the point of meditation - to help you to relax.
I doubt your boss would like it if you went to sleep in his time
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
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 [meditationsociety.com] that I've found to be helpful.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:What a lot... Here's a research hint. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously, anyone who mentions "increased brain waves" is a crank. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that doing Yoga is not good for you, or even that these are poor Yoga instructors they're hiring - some of the best physical therapists, chiropractors and martial arts instructors combine great skills with a variety of cranky beliefs. As long as he gets your employees motivated to stand up and wave their arms around, they will be healthier and happier - even if the particular motions emphasised in Yoga are complete and utter bunk (which I do not believe, but I can conceede the point for sake of argument.)
Also, a persons perception of being healthful or content is entirely driven by psychology. If you have flakes on your staff, you can probably help them feel better by having a certified crackpot with a mellow voice tell them that doing Yoga removes static from their brainwaves. I don't see the harm.
A Buddhist meditation teacher replies (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said you are absolutely correct. Giving people the opportunity to take a relax and stretch without harassing them about their "productivity" would certainly be one thing they could do to treat employees with respect.
This isn't what typically happens though. It gets applied just like any other buzz word compliant band-aid program that makes them feel like they're respecting their employees while actually treating them with disdain and just as much like mere productivity machines as they ever did.
Thus meditation becomes demeaning for many.
On the whole they could do more good by letting people listen to music of their choice while they work and not having a coniption fit if they walk to the watercooler a time or two.
Meditation cannot be applied as a paliative for keyboard logging.
KFG
Re:A Buddhist meditation teacher replies (Score:3, Insightful)
*applause*. A lot of the "don't knock it till you've tried it" posters sure sound like evangelists to me.
> This isn't what typically happens though. It gets applied just like any other buzz word compliant band-aid program that makes them feel like they're respecting their employees while actually treating them with disdain and just as much like
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
You seem to be wanting respect and meaning from work. I agree that these are fundame
Right idea, wrong place, wrong time (Score:5, Interesting)
Then there's the "kindness" meditation which can be done at all hours while you're awake. Basically, you decide that you wish everyone well no matter what they think of you and you don't let situations beyond your control get the best of you.
I don't find value in yoga or sitting in one place humming crazy chants. Neither do most educated Buddhists. The charlatans like yoga and incense and other nonsense because it sells. The naive like yoga and incense and other nonsense because these people haven't detached themselves from the myth that you can *buy* happiness.
Corporate adoption of meditation practices seems like yet another idiotic idea from marketing. I'm sure most employees are perfectly capable of taking care of their spiritual needs without the Corporate Big Brother getting involved.
If corporations really want to help, they can focus on providing money in exchange for hours worked instead of always trying to ace full-timers out of their labor.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies should be concerned about their employees health without being concerned about their increased productivity as a result. I wouldn't mind this article if the message was "yoga reduces stresss" but in stead the message is "lets work these people an extra hours, but send them yoga so they'll be artificially more productive." Most execs (especially those of large corporations) need to learn how to treat employees like something other than cattle.
Also, Doing anything relaxing for an hour(in the middle
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
In many ways, employees may benefit from relaxation and some 'quiet time' away from their normal hectic workplace. Yoga training will help make the most of these relaxinig breaks. Having Yoga training is also a good selling point to upper management (despite the added cost), and will make the introduction of quiet rooms and time away from desks easier. Which pitch will convince the PHB sooner?
"We'll train our resources to maximise their benefit from regular meditative breaks, which will increase their productivity."
or
"We'll allow our people to sit around doing nothing for an hour or so each day, because we, erm, think they'll work better because of it."
Remember, anything even remotely fun or enjoyable should be packaged as 'training', or as an organised activity with clear benefits, or the bosses will not approve of it. Notice how you never just "go out to shoot your co-workers with paintball guns", but instead are sent on a "team-building event". Even if the teambuilding consists of shooting co-workers with a paintball gun.
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:2)
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:2)
Moderated as insightful, yet flamebait seems more justified.
Turgid, maybe you should relieve your ignorance on the subject by reading a good book [saigon.com].
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
None of these companies is enforcing. We have a choice to join if we want to. Many people do so just before going to their cubicles, if nothing else it takes of the hangover of road rage.
Yes respect is needed and so is dignity, but it seems you are not at all aware of how all this can help you. Frankly speaking try it. If not "new age clap-trap" just be alone at a quite place and closing your eyes and trying to think of nothing. You will feel much relaxe
Re:What a lot of Nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to work for a company that had (optional) yoga sessions once a week at lunchtime. I loved them, they were the highlight of my working week. The only problem was that I was so relaxed at the end of a session that I'd fall asleep. That doesn't help productivity too much!
Also, some of you geeks really ought to try yoga, as yoga classes are usually full of attractive wom
It's plausible for creative or analytical jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
This internal dialog can become fixated on a single idea. When it becomes a more important determinant of our behavior than the informtaion we receive from our senses. Everybody's had the experience of working with a coworker who keeps coming back to the same issues over and over again. We tend to put it down to perversity -- that they are just use every event as an excuse to harp on their pet issue. But it's not really voluntary - it can become a pernicious habit like drug addiction.
It's an interesting comparison, because meditation is closely related to hypnotism, and many people have found hypnotism useful in breaking destructive habits. "Free your mind" has become a familiar catch phrase from The Matrix, but what the mind needs to be freed from is not an outside force, but its own overly ingrained habits of thought. In a sense, we all can become "addicted" to certain ways of thinking about things, to the extent that we become blinded to situations that would be obvious to somebody looking at them with fresh eyes.
Yoga is not just about physical flexibility -- it's about mental flexibility as well.
Of course, the benefits depends on what your job is. If your job involves processing information and making judgements, meditation could conceivably allow you to be a little more creative. I have a feeling that most people in these kinds of positions have at best a few hours a week in which most of their creativity is done. Much of the time spent during the week is duff. For some people, giving even an hour a day to meditation could conceivably be worthwhile if they could extend the number of highly creative hours from say two to two and a half over the course of a week.
Medication (Score:5, Funny)
Save your money (Score:5, Funny)
Lay off the coffee (Score:5, Informative)
Of course such suggestions will no go down with programmers
Re:Lay off the coffee (Score:2)
Of course, a friend of mine suffers from chronic insomnia (he'll go for 2-3 days just unable to get more
Re:Lay off the coffee (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lay off the coffee (Score:4, Interesting)
Very true. I used to drink coffee and soda, now I have completely quit. I have plenty of energy, I am active all day long, and I have no problems getting 7-9 hours of sleep at night. I don't find myself nodding off in the middle of the day anymore, either.
As for meditation, I have tried it on and off, and find the results to be very subtle. I'm trying to get back into it again, meditating in the morning before going to work, and in the evening at some point. A book I recommend is "Journey of Awakening" by Ram Dass. The way he presents his ideas makes it very accessible to most of us. Even if you don't end up doing any meditation, the first chapter of the book gives great insight into life in general.
Re:Lay off the coffee (Score:3, Informative)
So I stopped drinking regular caffeine about 5 years ago... had about a days worth of withdrawl, and haven't looked back. Every once in a while I drink Coke or Pepsi or some other caffeinated beverage and you know what... it tastes a whole lot better when you don't have it all the time.
a need for peace (Score:5, Interesting)
Observations....
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...
So employees can breathe easy: This is one perk that isn't likely to get axed.
I've heard this one before...
*****
I did Bikram Yoga at Funky Door in Berkeley. Any recommendations?
Bond Trading Clarification (Score:3, Informative)
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
Buddhism (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, I recommend it. It's _the_ geek religion* [google.com] 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
Re:Buddhism (Score:3, Funny)
No, but then there's the gnu [gnu.org]. :-)
zRe:Buddhism (Score:2)
Re:Buddhism (Score:4, Insightful)
You raise an interesting point. The essence of capitalism is competition, it need not be cut-throat competition, although that's often the approach that people take.
Can you imagine what the corporate world would be like if everyone was compassionate and open-minded? How about if corporate officers adopted the "do not create evil" precept? Most people would probably say that a corporation that embraced these ideals would be at a severe disadvantage in the market.
There are certain advantages to "playing dirty". But there are also certain advantages to compassion and open-mindedness. I think that a company that plays by the latter principles would gain extraordinary trust among its consumers and employees, and would probably produce more innovation with less waste.
I try to bring Buddhist ideals into every part of my life, including my business relationships. For the most part, I believe that this has helped my career rather than hindered it.
Re:Buddhism (Score:2)
I think it's not much a religion, but more a philosophy. At least for me, a "geek religion" is an oxymoron: if a geek is a cold-minded individual that wants everything to make sense, he/she would have no religion at all.
But maybe I'm being too much INTJ [personalitypage.com] on this ;-) Everyone should believe what he/she wants and finds meaningful, if that doesn't mean any harm to anyone.
Re:Buddhism (Score:3, Interesting)
Since we're all talking about bullshit, I feel I have to mention that those personality types are bullshit as well. See here. [skepdic.com]
That said, geeks aren't always cold-minded individuals that want everything to make sense. Love is essentially a chemical reaction; a lie. But I have no problem living that lie and I don't waste my time questioning it. Sure it's not what it seems, but it's a nice experience, so that works for me.
In any case, i've met a lot of geeks tha
In Defense of Atkins, Buddhism, Meditation & Y (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, now it is my turn to call bullshit.
As much as I have always despised 'diets de jour', Atkins was preaching his take on this for 30 odd years, much to his own personal and professional derision. However, in recent years scientific studies have finally been conducted to validate or refute his findings, and in every case have validated his approach.
Now there is plenty of innuendo suggesting 'long term health effects' that are bad, but no solid studies have been performed, and the claim that the atkins diet does in fact lead to dramatic weight loss has been demonstrated and is no longer disputed even by its detractors.
OTOH we do have emperical evidence of the ill health effects of the low fat, high carb diets that dieticians have been foisting upon us over the last two decades: America has never been as obese, or as unhealthy, as it is today. Specific causes are uncertain (correlation does not prove causation, it really can only suggest it, and even then not always), but it is clear that as the American diet has embraced and increased its consumption of low-fat, high-carb products the populace has grown vastly more obese and unhealthy.
So we have only three ways of losing weight in a reaonably healthy manner: burn more calories, consume less calories, or go into ketosis by dropping your carb intake dramatically. 'Low Fat' doesn't do shit for anyone except peddlers of 'low fat' foods and diets
In any event, calling atkins "any old bullshit" flies in the face of numerous studies and, most importantly, the very real and reproducable effect it has on people's weight.
I actually did the Atkins thing, not out of any personal interest (as I said, I've always despised 'diets de jour'), but to be supportive of my girlfriend who was doing it.
I did not expect it to work and had zero faith in the approach.
After losing 45 pounds and having my waiste size shring by 6 inches I had to eat a little crow and admit that, emperically, the damn thing worked, and worked dramatically. Having my blood pressure go from marginally high to marginally low, and my cholesterol go from Very High to Medium-Low in four short months made me a believer...whatever 'long term health effects' there might be (and who knows, even pseudo-scientific innuendo can be right on occasion), the immediate health effects were dramatic and extremely positive.
However, unlike religion, I buy into the Atkins approach (though I'm no longer on the diet) because of verifiable, reproducable results.
As I said, it is possible there may be health issues with eating low-carb diets over the long term, but that certainly isn't proven, and no real long term studies have yet been done (though plenty of allegations have been made, by the same people who were pushing the low-fat, high carb disaster upon us the last several decades).
Indeed, Given that we evolved for most of our 3 million years as primates eating exactly that kind of diet, it is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that there are no such health risks
In a way it is a pity Atkins has become popular (among geeks as well as anyone else), as I absolutely hate doing anything that smacks of 'trendy,' but the simple fact is that, unlike low-fat, high-carb diets that are supposed to make you healthy and don'
Buddhism IS a religion (Score:4, Insightful)
How is Buddhism not a religion? What makes a religion? The suspension of rational thought?
There's nothing scientific about the Buddhist moral code in the Middle Path and this moral code is far stricter than any religion I've seen. You pay the price of your deeds in karma. That price can be pretty f'n heavy if you aren't careful. You might not get punished immediately or even in this life but you will pay. Conversely, karma rewards good deeds. You can foster your entire existence into generating good karma (/. has nothing to do with this.)
There is no eternity for your behavior. You will not suffer eternal damnation for evil nor will you enjoy eternal bliss for good. Everything can change.
Further, while the overall concepts square with science, once you start exploring the 31 states of existence, you may need to leave science at the door or at least not get upset when you hear various descriptions of these different realities.
You have to believe that the Middle Path is the right way of living and that creating excuses and rationalizations for why you deviated from it will hurt you more than just admitting that you like porn, gambling and other nonsense.
Now, what were you saying about Buddhism not being a religion? Maybe it was just your ignorance and cynicism shining through.
Re:Buddhism IS a religion, but without dogmas. (Score:3, Informative)
Einstein liked Buddhism (Score:5, Interesting)
"Buddhism is a science, not a fanatic religion like football."
-- Lama Khyentse Norbu
"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion; the religion
which is based on experience, which refuses dogmatism. If there's any
religion that would cope with scientific needs it will be Buddhism.... "
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, [from Albert Einstein: The Human Side,
edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
Meditation as de-fragging (Score:3, Interesting)
Meditation is just a way to set everything else aside until you've de-fragged those resources.
I think the best explanation of this is Krishnamurti's [robotwisdom.com]-- Westerners tend to confuse images with realities, and stress themselves out trying to become what the images demand. Even the gnostic gospel of Thomas has Jesus sayin
Re:Meditation as de-fragging (Score:3, Interesting)
1) The de-fragging routine is built-in, so trying to speed it up or control its execution will just interfere. The trick is to relax. (I like to think the word 'religion' is related to 'relaxation', but your bible may vary.)
2) Following the movement of your breath is a useful, neutral focus for your attention. A simple mantra for this is "hoom-saah".
3) Self-deception (lying to yourself) tends to come to the surface during the process, so it encourages honesty.
Re:Buddhism (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm too much of an agnostic to profess a religion, but if I was going to take one up, it would be Buddhism. I always loved this quote from Carl Sagan:
I prefer Druidism (Score:3, Informative)
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 physi
Don't confuse Yoga with Buddhism. (Score:3, Informative)
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 33
this is cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean... (Score:5, Funny)
I hope this doesn't become a "fad" (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Another Case of Hawthorne (Score:5, Insightful)
Yoga: Foosball for a New Decade (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, I derive the same benefits from my Scotch-and-Cigar breaks, without the added mystic baggage. Fortunately, I work from home.
But, hey, whatever floats your boat. If sitting in the Lotus Position and intoning chants from the Vedas is what we have to do to keep jobs from going to India, I'm all for it.
...appreciating the irony it, but all for it, nonetheless.
Lesson in meditation (Score:3, Informative)
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 b
The comfy sofa (Score:2)
This place had a room you could go to when you needed a break. It had a comfy leather sofa and a few chairs, a satellite TV feed an an N64 (newish then) you could play on. Could go in whenever you liked - time wasn't really monitored as such in MMC, it was more "have you done what we needed you to do, within the time we needed it by?" than "how many hours have you put in today?".
A good place to wor
Electronic Component Makers Mantra' (Score:5, Funny)
Other solution... (Score:2, Insightful)
Next on internalmemo.com (Score:5, Funny)
From: management@company.com
Subject: Note Yoga team members
Dear ${team_member},
It has recently come to our attention that some corridors have a very strong smell of incense, patchouli and other unidentified substances.
As much as we value the quality of your working environment, we would like to remind you that marijuana is not yet allowed within the united states.
Sincerely,
${manager}
ps: What's with all those Pink Floyds mp3 ?
Re:Next on internalmemo.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah right! (Score:2)
In this heat? Are you nuts?!
(it's 27 degrees celsius in my office right now and it's not even 4 o'clock yet)
zAh crap! (Score:3, Funny)
What the hell must they think when I fall asleep browsing porn sites?
Here, in Switzerland we prefer sport (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Why would you have to be motivated? (Score:2)
If you had a job that matters to you this wouldnt be a problem
Motivation through fear. (Score:3, Funny)
Here each week's lowest producer has to have the goatse.cx guy as his desktop wallpaper the following week.
Other Motivational Techniques (Score:2)
Things I've found useful include
Start-of-day calisthenics
Singing the company song [zdnet.co.uk]
Dressing up as your favorite animals [dilbert.com]
Yoga and thought systems (Score:2, Insightful)
On another matter, despite wide-spread acceptance of yoga in the higher classes of the society, it is still closely related to a eastern thought system, if not religion. Yoga is not neutral in terms of vision of the world and ethics. Could someone refuse yoga sessions offered by an employer for attempting to impose certain religious beliefs in the work
The benefits (Score:3, Funny)
Dogbert
Whoop dee doo... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, that kind of thing makes me completely mad. What about paying people a decent salary?
What about not over-working them (ie: decent work hours, not permanent overtime)? This way, perhaps your employees won't need frivolous yoga classes to be productive and motivated!
What about managing companies responsibly, not in an Enronesque way?
What about day-care benefits for employees with children? You know, like having in-house day-care center for toddlers, so that moms and dads can see their kids during lunch hour, and not grow apart from their offspring?
Etc... etc... In short: decent and sensible policies? Noooo.... instead, you get these moronic "benefits".
Nothing against yoga, mind you, which I am really interested in, by the way. It's just that replacing sound management policies by yoga classes just doesn't cut it for me.
If I want yoga classes, I'll pay for them out of my own pocket, thank you very much...
(Sorry for the rant, this is the kind of Dilbert-esque "benefits" that just push me over the edge...)
Re:Whoop dee doo... (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree that people should be fairly paid, a yoga class could work better than raises from the company's point of view.
Lets say you have a company with 100 people. Lets say you give them a raise of $1,000 per year. That costs you $100,000 per year. I would expect hiring a yoga instructor or two for an hour a day would cost substantially less than $100,000.
Also, a $1,000 raise may make people happy in the short term, but after a few months, productivity woul
What about religion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, this is a positive trend... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yoda in the workplace? Sorry (Score:3, Funny)
Begin, this reading comprehension failure has.
motivation? (Score:2, Interesting)
OTOH, to see this used as motivation is really silly. For example, many companies use the fear of being terminated as
Yoga? (Score:2)
Nevertheless, I'm a real proponent of the concept; it's the ideal combination. I'm currently very stressed and see my body go downhill fast. And although I don't like Yoga, I'm automatically looking in the direction of the Oriental sports with the "body and spirit healing" combination. Too bad many of these sports have a "fighting" reputation; it's one thing that keeps me, weakling, from just joining the club. That, and my week schedule
all the same (Score:5, Funny)
Life is a Mosaic - Art (Score:2)
Many practitioners of yoga, never meditate, and vica-versa. Many who meditate, don't even know
Spiritual materialism is the wrong attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Buddha taught us that the source of human misery is attachment. In order to be free from sorrow, we must be free from attachment - and from striving.
Many people who meditate - and I suspect most Americans who meditate - do so because they hope to get something out of it, anything from relaxation, to relief from stress, enlightment or spiritual growth. But if you are striving to better yourself through meditation, you are missing the whole point. What you must free yourself from is that very striving.
The Shambhala [shambhala.org] monk Chyogyam Trungpa [shambhala.com] was instrumental in bringing Tibetan buddhism to the US and Canada in a form that could be appreciated by westerners. May I recommend a couple of his books:
-
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism [shambhala.com]
-
The Heart of the Buddha [shambhala.com]
Spiritual materialism was particularly rampant in the United States in the late 60's and early 70's. Trungpa worked hard to teach all the navel-gazers that that was a mistake.I can teach anyone to meditate in about two minutes:
Sit comfortably but with your back straight. Focus just part of your attention on your breath. Clear your mind of thoughts. Don't beat yourself up if a though crosses your mind, just let it go. Then sit for a while. Try ten minutes to start with, then a little longer each day as you get used to it.
The most important thing is to just sit. How many Slashdotters ever allow themselves to just sit? To just clear your mind without thinking of anything?
Trungpa said there was no way out but to apply your bottom to the meditation cushion. I can promise you'll enjoy his books - he was quite a colorful character.
I think that the day that release from attachment can be sold to American business will come when Bill Gates gives his money to the poor, shaves his head, dons saffron robes, and takes The Vows of Refuge [sacred-texts.com].
Corporate sponsored religious practice (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.niharonline.com/culture/religion/cul
Bhagavat-Gita, a part of the epic Mahabharata, expounds the synthesis of three yogas or ways of attaining union with the Supreme Self, Gyana-yoga (union through knowledge), Bhakti-yoga (union through devotion) and Karma-yoga (union through action).
http://www.classicalyoga.org/Page18.html
There has been and continues to be much confusion over what is religion and/or spirituality. In actuality, these two words have an identical meaning. "Religion" comes from the Latin root "religio" which means "to link-back" to the spirit. This is the identical meaning of the word "Yoga" which comes from the Sanskrit "Yuj;" i.e., "to yoke" to the spirit. Even before the word "Yoga" was used, the Vedas (Hindu scripture) use the word "Yajna" which essentially means "sacrifice." The word "sacrifice" comes from the Latin translation "sacred doing." With this understanding, one becomes aware of the inseparable nature of Yoga/Religion/Spirituality.
Re:Corporate sponsored religious practice (Score:4, Insightful)
The 'yogas' from the Bhagavad Gita are various spiritual disciplines that don't necisarily have any 'physical' component. Bhakti yoga, for instance, is simply the practice of demonstrating love and devotion to an aspect of the divine (usually your favorite Hindu deity)
The yoga that is being taught in the workplace is a physical discipline of stretching, posture, breathing, etc. It is a course of exercise. It need not have any particularly religious component.
Yoga, coming from the Sanskrit for 'yoke' (as you correctly observed), refers to any course of discipline or training. This can be a spiritual discipline (such as bhakti), aimed at bringing the practitioner closer to god, or it can be a physical discipline or training, such as 'physical' yoga. Sending your kids to 'time out' could probably be called yoga, if you wanted.
So while yoga (or meditation) can be explicitly religious in tone, they don't have to be so, any more than any other activity. The religious component lies in how they are presented, and in the attitude of the participants. I'm sure there are some folks at these companies who think of it spiritually, and quite a few that think of it as the Eastern Hokey Pokie ("put your left leg in, put your right arm out, draw your breath through your chakra and . . . ")
My Question (Score:2)
If not, can anyone think of anyone better? I was thinking of enlisting the help of Sri Salil "The Hammer" Gupta, but he hasn't been the same since being beaten by Sri Bikram in the World Championships.
Yoga jobs going to India! (Score:5, Funny)
You know... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be more relaxed and motivated if they just gave me more money and more holidays, instead of wasting their cash on these fruitloops.
You know you are reading slashdot when...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Meditation and Type "A" personalities... (Score:3, Funny)
I can imagine someone working on a deadline, the boss pipes up and says that it's meditation time.
oooohhhmmmmmm....Ooooohhhmmmmmm....OOOOHHHHMMMM
Or the yoga...would that be better? The annoying co-worker who whistles through his nose every time he breaths...I can imagine the stressed out "A" Type grabbing the guy and 'helping' him into several yoga positions that while are impossible, are amusing to contemplate
Double-edged sword (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the companies who bring in this sort of thing are usually the companies who NEED it--the same companies that have downsized until their remaining staff is starting to gnaw on their wrists to escape the bad decisions and hellish environment.
In other words, the thinking amounts to this: Tighten the work environment until it's inhumane, and when people start to crack, we'll get them to meditate so we can keep up the same stupid pace.
Treating the symptoms, not the disease.
The good news is that it's likely to backfire. If people meditate with conviction and sincerity, they're likely to see more clearly how silly it is to stay in a job like that, and have the confidence to leave it.
[1]Not that I object to the religious and spiritual practices of them, but that's not something that a company should be promoting and sponsoring in a heterogeneous environment.
Issues of Religion in the workplace (Score:3, Insightful)
If my director came to me and said "ok, I read an article about how 60 minutes of daily prayer would benefit productivity; start tomorrow," I might become pretty irritated. I don't want to do that to my employees (not to mention the legal ramifications).