Three lectures that grounded the soul, the heart and the body (3)

A very unique presentation
by Geshe Michael Roach

Lecture 3: Buddhist teachings that ground my heart for a successful career

Like many people, I am also a person who from time to time
worry about stability of career.

Just a few days after Dr Lai's talk,
I went for a 2-night career talk
organised by The Diamond Cutter Institute,
meeting a person I admire for a long time but
never thought I would be able to meet in person
-- Geshe Michael Roach.

I first learnt about the existence of Geshe Michael Roach
through recommendation by some buddhist friends,
multiple years back, about this book called
"The Diamond Cutter".

In the book, the author i.e. Geshe Michael Roach
narrated how he set up a successful diamond company
in New York within 1 year, using Buddhist teachings
he learnt in a Tibetan Monastry for 25 years.

At Geshe Michael's talk over two evenings,
Geshe Michael wanted to specifically answer
most people's desperate wish for a successful career.

He compassionately pointed out that
the only guaranteed way towards a successful career is to
plant the seeds for a successful career.
That is to help other people succeed in their careers
and to solve other people's problems in their careers.

Strange as it sounded, but that was a proven path
as per Geshe Michael's testimonial
and Buddhist texts (The Diamond Sutra).

Geshe also taught us 4 specific steps to ensure that
we will succeed in our career faster:

(I) plant the seeds in the right place
   i.e to help people who helped us a lot before (e.g. parents),
         people who helps a lot more people
         or people who are in emergencies -- without hesitation

(II) meditate and plan how
      to help resolve target's sufferings/difficulties

(III) take action

(IV) recollect every evening on
      own's kind deeds during the day
      to help resolve target's difficulties

Also according to Geshe Michael,
our success in career is easily erased by jealousy.
To insure the success of our career from being demolished by jealousy,
he reminded us 4 important concepts to help dissolve it:

(A) Jealousy is a perspective that come from ourselves,
      hence it can be eliminated

(B) Any intention/seed will eventually amplify,
      hence the damaging results of jealousy 
      is scalable in long term

(C) Commit to ourselves that
      we will not be jealous over defined period of time
      as an initial practice

(D) Do something to conteract jealousy,
      e.g. learn to praise a person.

I almost wanted to give Geshe a standing oviation
for all those precious teachings.

He was simply brilliant
putting buddhism into lay man terms and
making it so relevant to our modern lives
-- especially when it grounded my unsettled heart
in my career switch recently!


Gratefully,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com



{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}