BOOMERS LOOKING FOR BUDDHA

This blog entry is considerably longer than any thus far. Bear with me, it's worth the read. Probably one of the most inspirational stories we've had and it certainly speaks to the journey we are all on towards enlightenment. My thanks to Fast Company again for their brilliance in creating awareness of this new era of "Enlightened Capitalism" Enjoy!


Dr. Brilliant Vs. the Devil of Ambition

If baby boomers had their own Faust, he'd be Larry Brilliant, a man who's found himself at the center of almost every defining moment of his generation. His biggest battle: taming the devil of ambition.

From: FAST COMPANY Issue 39 October 2000 By: Harriet Rubin

What happens when you're the quintessential baby boomer? What happens when you're raised according to the precepts of Dr. Spock? What happens when, every time you cry, you're fed?

Here's what happens: The devil of ambition starts raising you. You grow up impossibly demanding -- and hating how demanding all of your fellow boomers are. You become ruthlessly competitive -- and even more competitive about appearing noncompetitive. You aspire to be a superachiever -- but you can't appear to be an egomaniac, much less an asshole. You become ambitious. And you become even more ambitious about not being ambitious.

This is the story of an entire generation. It is the story of baby boomers raised on ambition and of a generation that is never happy with what it has. When everything comes too easily, all you want is more. Ambition is the longest unrequited love affair of boomers' lives. It scrambles their brains, and leaves them empty and unfulfilled. No wonder boomers are reaching their forties and fifties and feeling as fried as the Colonel's best.

This is the story of a man named "Brilliant." Talk about a blessing and a curse. How would you like to live with a name like that? For starters, you would have to become nothing less than Dr. Brilliant, your generation's answer to Dr. Faust. Then you would have to play a starring role in every generation-defining event in every decade from the 1960s forward.

You wouldn't just go to Woodstock, you would star in the movie sequel. You wouldn't just make a pilgrimage to India at the same time that Mia Farrow is being chased by a horny Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, or at the same time that the Beatles are just an ashram away, learning to meditate and siphoning sitar music into Rubber Soul; you would find your own yogi, a formidable guru who would send you on a mission to banish smallpox from India.

After spending a decade in India, you would find your way home, where you would invent the first -- indeed the prototypical -- online community, the WELL. You would try to get Zenny Baba Ram Dass to baby-sit your rambunctious kids. You would become the personal physician to Jerry Garcia, the quintessential 1960s icon. And still ambition would be an itch that you hadn't scratched.

So, when you are 56, when all of your baby-boomer friends would be writing workplace exit strategies, you would take your first real job: dotcom CEO, of course. After 30 years of struggling to find God and your soul and the meaning of work, you would walk into the heart of the new economy, smack into the belly of the beast. Why? Because you know deep down that you won't really kill off that itch of ambition. You won't really be free of its nagging demands for more and more and more until you've gone one long round in the ring with Mephistopheles. You have to prove to yourself once and for all that even in the soulless world of Silicon Valley, a complete human being, an authentic leader, can survive.

This is the stuff of legend, the kind of confrontation that would be worthy of a work by Goethe or of an opera by Gounod: "The Soul Vs. The Devil of Ambition." In the title role would be Dr. Larry Brilliant, his soul on the line in a contest for the soul of a generation.

To know your own soul -- and maybe even to save it -- it helps to understand Larry Brilliant's.
Did Somebody Say "soul"?

Larry Brilliant steps out of the fancy dusk of Soho's Mercer hotel, shouldering past media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his new Lolita wife, and the first thing that Brilliant says is, "Every day, I struggle with ambition. Every day, I try to understand the meaning of this line: 'Live your life without ambition. But live as those who are ambitious.'

"On the surface, this ideal is preposterous," Brilliant continues. "It means, 'Don't aspire to power or success. But live as those who are ambitious.' It means that you can never tell when you are being sincere. Do I stay at the Four Seasons? Can I take a hot tub? Do I not try too hard at anything?"

Two years ago, Brilliant became CEO of SoftNet Systems Inc., a broadband company based in San Francisco that brings high-speed Internet access to small cities, airports, and rural towns. The SoftNet CEO looks like a great success. The company has 400 employees and a market value of $280 million. In February, the company partnered with CMGI and Compaq to invest more than $100 million combined to bring broadband mobile Internet services to global business travelers. During the coming year, the company expects to see the mushrooming of SoftNet Zones, local-area networks and computing-business service centers, complete with cyber-concierges in airports, convention halls, and hotels. Cisco Systems and Nokia have joined to provide the technical equipment and support.

And now Brilliant asks himself the question that measures his own ambition: "Where better could I test my soul than in the land of temptation, power, and money?"

Brilliant has found a new way to be ambitious, a healthy way, a way to act ambitiously without letting it sink into his sense of identity. Ambition, after all, is a basically healthy state. The word "ambition" shares a root with the word "ambient" -- ambire, meaning "to move around freely." That word originated in the 14th century, when politicians would travel broadly to get votes and support. Taken literally, and used correctly, to have ambition is to create your life's journey.

Ambition is not a single-minded focus, a career obsession, or rampant self-promotion at the expense of others. The true arc of ambition, as Brilliant has lived it, is a healthy one.
It shows. There are people in Silicon Valley who are more successful than Larry Brilliant. And there are people in Silicon Valley who are richer than he is. But there are few who have had more impact on the world at large than he has.

In truth, Brilliant has been ambitious for one thing only: his soul. How many of us would consider the soul a sufficient driver for success? The soul, after all, can be an annoyance when you're trying to get ahead. But things are changing. The soul may be the next drilling platform to plumb the heart of the leader. As the new economy continues, each of us is going to be drilled down to our depths. And the only mark of difference between us will be in our deep identity, our soul. Everything else will be commodified.

That is why Brilliant has devoted his life to understanding that one simple, puzzling mantra: "Live your life without ambition. But live as those who are ambitious." Do that, and you discover the discipline of living an authentic life -- and of living hard, as if each day counts. That said, there is no mistaking that Brilliant is, well, weird. He is maybe three statistical variations from the norm, which he also fully accepts.


"I have, alas, studied philosophy/Jurisprudence and medicine, too,/And, worst of all, theology/With keen endeavor, through and through -- /And here I am, for all my lore,/The wretched fool I was before./Called Master of Arts, and Doctor to boot ..."

So where does this tale of abnormal, sane, hyperactive ambition begin? With a kid growing up Jewish in Detroit, being raised on Dr. Spock -- and switching to medical school when he learns that his father is dying of cancer. He has been studying philosophy and has been thinking, like almost everyone in his generation, that his mission is to change the world. His father's death convinces him not to change the world but to save it.

Then, as the 26-year-old Larry Brilliant is finishing his surgical internship at Presbyterian Hospital in San Francisco in 1970, he learns that the first person he must save is himself: He is diagnosed with cancer of the parathyroid gland. The surgery he is headed for was his own. The salvation he must seek begins with his recovery.

"I took time off to heal," Brilliant recalls. "


He was hooked on learning the secrets of life that went beyond mere comfort and success. During that time he had never met so many people who were so poor, yet so alive," Brilliant says. "Life didn't just happen to them. They experienced life at a deeper level than I had ever experienced it. I had been a radical, a left-wing politico, and meeting the Indian people made me realize that the politics of the left and the right were so much less important than the politics of the heart and the spirit." A year later, he wound up at the ashram of Neem Karoli Baba.

To Brilliant, this destination didn't look like ambition -- it smelled like Nirvana. It turned into a trip to the big time.

Brilliant was sitting under a bodhi tree at his guru's ashram in northern India, content with doing nothing more than his daily meditations. There was just one problem: "Every time I sat and meditated, my guru would throw apples at my testicles," Brilliant says. "I had to get up and get moving. I had no choice."

The point of the apple throwing was to get Brilliant out of the lotus position and into work where he could do the greatest good. His guru, Neem Karoli Baba, was telling him, "There are people who get exactly what they want. You think they're the lucky ones, but they're not. The lucky ones are those who do what they are meant to do." For Baba, that meant vaccinating people against smallpox. In the early 1970s, the disease was devastating India. Trying to eradicate it seemed like a fool's errand.

That errand became Brilliant's. At his guru's insistence, he found himself on his longest journey yet: a bus ride from the monastery in northern India to the offices of the United Nations.
It is a measure of Brilliant's unusual outlook on ambition that he never questioned his guru's advice. "I had never seen a case of smallpox," says Brilliant. "I don't know how my guru knew that I could do this work. I had hair down the middle of my back, and I was wearing a white robe. Everybody in the United Nations was over 50 and wearing a business suit. I showed up at the United Nations office dressed as you would expect someone to be dressed in a monastery. I walked in and said, 'My mystic sent me to cure smallpox.' I was told to go home.

I took the 17-hour bus ride back to the ashram and told Baba that I had failed. He said, 'Go back.' I did this two dozen times, making this trip back and forth. Slowly, the robe gave way to pants, then to a shirt, then to a tie, then to a haircut, and then to a resume. I learned to look like a diplomat."What was the lesson that his guru was teaching him? "The great thing about gurus is not that they make you feel everybody's love," says Brilliant. "It's that they make you feel that you can love everybody."

Here's the problem: You begin to develop attachments to meaningless things, to sense objects. From those attachments, you make choices. From those choices, you find preferences. From those preferences, you identify with the best or the worst attributes of some of them. That identification takes you directly to the land of illusion, because those attributes are meaningless. From that identification comes cognitive dissonance. As a result, your desire for one thing versus another is based on illusions in your own mind -- illusions that cloud your ability to see what is really worth doing, what would truly make you happy.

Here's how it plays out: "Say you decide that you like Chevrolets and not Fords," says Brilliant. "Or you decide that you like Yahoo! and not Lycos. It's all the same. In my case, I felt that it was more important to stay in the monastery and to become noble than it was to do common work. But in the long run, preferences don't matter to your success or to your happiness. They distract you from seeing what is most important to you. The point of life is to transcend the smallness of the finite self by identifying with things that last. Preferences, or attachments, lead to forgetfulness: How can I really remember why I like Chevys and not Fords, why Yahoo! is better than Lycos? Why, in my case, is study better than action? From my preference for a certain path comes confusion, and from that confusion comes inability to reason, and from that inability to reason comes pranashiti -- total destruction of the cognitive process.

"Comparisons are odious," Brilliant continues. "The more you think about that, the more it helps you to achieve your goal. The goal is to be equanimous." Equanimity, balance, peace -- so that you are yourself no matter what goes on around you, no matter what the world hurls at you. "If you are constantly making judgments based on superficial affiliations, your world gets to be pretty small."

The exemplar of that attitude? That, in Brilliant's estimation, was U Thant, secretary general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971. "He was a great and spiritual man. Dag Hammarskjold had just been killed. There was a possibility of nuclear conflagration over a surrogate war being fought in the Congo, in which the West and the East were actually at war. U Thant was locked in a last-ditch meeting to avert disaster when he was handed a piece of paper, which he read, and he stayed in that meeting until the parties had reached a truce. Someone then asked him what was on that slip of paper. He said, 'My son was just killed in a car accident.'

"The newspapers wrote about a cold-hearted Buddhist. But in that act was someone whose love of humanity allowed him to transcend his own narrow definition of family and to expand it into a greater definition. U Thant's act was an act of a great, loving human being. That is equanimity, and it will probably see you through tougher times than passion or balance will.
"If you live a rich life of the spirit, you are not distracted," says Brilliant. "You carry out your duty, your dharma, no matter what."

This Just In: Your Soul Is Not Dead.

We advise you not to try stepping over it on your way to someplace else.

There is a little book of Hindu scripture that is called the Bhagavad-Gita. The book says, in effect, that work is a form of ecstasy -- if you twist your mind into the right position. Think of the Gita as the Kama Sutra of work. The Gita tells the story of a brilliant warrior named Arjuna who mysteriously loses his will to fight at the worst possible moment: the morning of battle. At dawn, he walks the battlefield and sees arrayed on the other side brothers, fathers, uncles. He has no appetite for killing them. But he is a trained fighter. It's his dharma; he must fight. His guru, Krishna, reminds him that ambition must be focused on one thing only: duty. The satisfaction is in doing what you are supposed to do, not in doing what you want to do.

"I experienced Arjuna's dejection," Brilliant says. "It happens at the time that we confront why we exist, why you, particularly, exist. Not why we but why I exist. I exist to do this work? I felt that dark night of the soul so many times when I was working in the smallpox program. I would say to myself, 'God, you have chosen poorly. You've chosen me, and I'm a piece of shit. Any god who would choose me for such an important position can't be God.' "

The Gita teaches you to think differently about ambition and about its unnecessary limitations. "Early on," says Brilliant, "I had this problem with a government secretary. I placed an order for 200 four-wheel-drive Mahendra jeeps which would be used to deliver the vaccine into the most remote villages. It was the monsoon season, and many of those places were tough to reach. I went to see the secretary, who said, 'You have to change your order. You have to have the two-wheel-drive jeeps.' I knew the four-wheel-drive jeeps were the only ones that could reach the villages. He said, 'But if you buy the two-wheel-drive jeeps, you'll have my support. The two-wheel-drive jeeps are made in a factory that is owned by my brother.'

"I thought, now I'm carrying this burden of 'Do I piss off this secretary? Or do I buy jeeps that can't do the job?' I'm 28 years old, I've never even bought a jeep for myself, and here I have to make such a big decision. I agonized over that, and then I read the Bhagavad-Gita, which says, 'Don't take yourself too seriously; don't get attached.' But I was carrying such a heavy burden. I wondered how I could detach myself from this burden in order to see clearly. I told my guru about my problem. On one hand, if I bought the wrong jeeps, hundreds of thousands of kids would die because we wouldn't be able to get medicine to them. On the other hand, if I screwed up my relationship with this secretary, I didn't know if we would ever get help from him. And if I bribed him, my hands would be dirtied.

"My guru sent me to Lama Govinda, who said, 'Think things through very clearly. Ask yourself, number one, are you exaggerating? Are you exaggerating the importance of this decision and of your role in it? Are you milking the melodrama?' Whoops! I thought to myself, 'How does this guy know?'

"Then Govinda said, 'Once you've satisfied yourself that you're not milking the melodrama, then choose the decision that's best for the kids -- and don't worry about your hands.' And that's what the Gita says: Use the tools of spiritualism to clarify the mirror of your mind so that it's not fogged over, so that you see things as they really are. Don't let the melodrama of how seductive your importance is, or of how great the power of your decision is, beguile you into losing your ability to think things through. Then do the right thing -- and to hell with everything else.

"That's all at a very rational level. But here's the magic: I sat down alone and cleared my mind. I concluded that yes, I had psyched myself up, sipping my own whiskey and getting into it, as I'm wont to do. But I also decided that it really mattered that I get the government of India on my side. I could always raise more money for more jeeps, but if I antagonized that powerful secretary, he could kick the smallpox program out of India. I was prepared to give the secretary a bribe, which was something I had never done in my life. I drove to the secretary's office, only to find when I arrived that he had been transferred two hours earlier. The new guy said, 'Oh, four-wheel-drive jeeps? No problem.'

"That's the magic part of it. That's the inexplicable part of clearing your mind and of knowing just what to do. So now you can begin to sip your own whiskey again. Now you say, 'God created this lucky incident just for me.' "When you sober up again, you remember that you're entitled to the joy of work, you're just not entitled to the results. "As long as you devote the outcome to God, and you don't get confused about who the actor is, you're going to be fine. This message is brutal.

"Lao Tzu says that the Tao -- your life's way, or path -- is easy for one who has no preferences," Brilliant says. "Your preferences get you into trouble. If you believe that there is no difference between going to the left and going to the right, you won't have any trouble. You'll find the right way. That's fate, which is a good thing to accept."

Fast Track to Enlightenment

After two years and more than 2 billion house calls, the Army declared a victory over smallpox. Brilliant had started off as the mascot of the UN team. All of the people who knew what they were doing had moved on or had died off, so Brilliant wound up running a program in northern India with an army of 100,000 workers. It was one of the largest peacetime armies ever assembled. So much for planning. No one could have planned a mission like that.

"Greater things have happened to me by accident than by planning -- getting to India, meeting my wife, finding myself at the head of the India smallpox program. I could not have planned any of those things. And now, when I meet someone who can help me, I will have done all of my planning beforehand, but still I have to leave myself open to the unexpected."

To explain the difference between responding to fate and driving yourself through ambition, Brilliant sings the words to a little song that he had once heard sung by a Sufi choir: "I love the sadhus [holy men]. I love the way they pray. When the wind blows their hair in their face, they go the other way." Then he asks a rhetorical question: "Have I been passive, in the sense that life happens to you? Being passive is almost as bad as being indifferent. But accepting what happens, going with the flow -- that's a good thing."

Brilliant was deep into his love/hate affair with ambition. Every time that the conflict stirred, he directed his energy into something obvious and philanthropic. "How you get through this battle for your soul depends on where you're going to stick your photos of dead presidents," says Wavy Gravy. "You try and put your good where it will do the most."

That was the guiding philosophy of Larry and Girija Brilliant. When the war against smallpox in India was over, they came back to the United States, enrolled in graduate public-health programs at the University of Michigan, and started their family of three children. They also created the Seva Foundation and its mission to eradicate blindness -- a disease that they had seen firsthand while working in the smallpox program. Since Seva's beginning, doctors have performed 1 million free sight-restoring operations in Asia. "Seva started primarily as a spiritual organization," Brilliant says. "The work we did to alleviate blindness was a consequence of our spirituality. It was motivated by a desire to serve God by doing good."


In the meantime, almost by accident, Brilliant continued to ricochet from generational icon to generational icon. He had crossed paths with Steve Jobs in India, and now he tried to recruit the young entrepreneur to head Seva. "Steve had just started Apple. I tried to tell him that Apple was a terrible idea. Why didn't he become the executive director of Seva and do some good? He kept saying, 'Computers are going to change the world. We're going to take away the power of the priestly class that runs these mainframes.' He wouldn't lead Seva, but he did give us money and computers. We were trying to do Steve a good turn, so we bought shares in Apple."

Another unplanned opportunity: With money earned from Apple stock, Brilliant built one of the first Internet companies, Network Technologies. "We put together one of the first online communities and eventually sold the company," Brilliant says. He had under-estimated what it would take to build on the Internet, but the experience prompted his next brush with destiny: He conjured up the idea of the WELL. It became one of the first expressions of online community, a gathering place for many of the brightest minds, the fiercest pioneers, and the keenest explorers of the just-gathering new economy. "It was the first electronic community," he says.

But, having had the initial idea for the WELL, Brilliant didn't see himself as its keeper. "I went to see Stuart Brand, whom I knew in the 1960s to be one of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters. I wanted Stuart to run the WELL, which he agreed to do." Brand ran the WELL for 10 years before he and Brilliant agreed to sell it in parts in 1993 and in 1995. The idea was to avoid entanglements with the world of business. But Brilliant's younger brother, Barry, challenged him over a personal unpaid debt: Their father had died when Barry was only 17. Rather than acting as a surrogate father, Larry had gone off to India. Now Barry wanted his big brother's help in starting a smart-card business. He got it. They dubbed the venture "Brilliant Color Cards," ran it for eight years, and sold it in 1998.

Which brings us to Larry Brilliant's current adventure. "I met the kid who wanted to turn SoftNet into an Internet company," he says. "The company's stock was at $4, and it had a market cap of $30 million. I was recruited for the board. Now our stock is at $10, and our market cap is at $280 million. I agreed to be the interim CEO and to stay only six months. That was two years ago. I recently told the board, 'You'll have to pry me out with the jaws of life.' It's fun. Bringing in people of color, building a company, building a team, making good products, bridging the digital divide -- all of it is fun."

In the meantime, Brilliant was still doctoring the Dead when one of its members had a sprained ankle or a cold. Perhaps the only clinical failure of his career was Jerry Garcia. "The advice that Larry gave him, which we all gave him, was to take it easy," says Garcia's bandmate Bob Weir. "And that finally killed him."

Consider the parts of the body a person pays attention to. An inferior person, according to Confucius, pays attention to inferior parts of the body, while a superior person pays attention to superior parts of the body. In your choice of parts of the body is your destiny.

Brilliant chooses the stomach. He is not just in the belly of the beast: He is the belly of the beast. "I'm no different from most indulged CEOs," he says. He wants to win. He wants everything. Appetite is front and center at SoftNet. From the minute that you walk in the door you are not only invited to act with ambition but also to think about your own desires. Right next to ther receptionist is an 8-foot-tall bronze statue that dominates the entry: It's Ganesh, the ancient, elephant-headed Hindu god. Ganesh is carrying a complete set of communications tools: a pen made from his own tusk, a book, a bird for sending messages.

According to one legend, Ganesh had a troubled past. He was the victim of his own appetite and of his own unsatisfied ambition. He once walked in on his parents' lovemaking, and, as punishment, his father, the god Shiva, cut off his head. "Now, see what you've done?" Ganesha's mother complained to Shiva. "Our son has no head." Shiva was sent out to find the first head that he came across and to use it. He found an elephant's head, put it on Ganesh's shoulders, and, because the elephant was considered to be the wisest animal, Ganesh became the god of wisdom.

Ganesh is also the embodiment of desire. He's the one god who has seen the mysteries of love. He looks like a clown, with his big elephant nose and with his many arms--and, because he has a great appetite, he boasts a very big stomach. But Ganesh also has wisdom. "He's the god that people love to worship, not out of fear or out of respect but out of admiration," says Brilliant, standing next to the statue. You'd think they were brothers.

So who's going to win the battle for the soul: Briliant or Silicon Valley? Will the Valley corrupt him? Change him?

Every life takes the shape of this parable: an arrow coming home to the bow. True ambition is this: After you do something amazing, you do something ordinary--and you discover the importance in it. Compared with taking the slowest bus ride in the history of the world in order to save a country of victims, compared with curing smallpox in India, with inventing the WELL, with paying a family debt to your brother, compared with all of that, working as the CEO of an Internet company is nothing. But a man who is driven by ambition and by appetite sees it as more than that. If Brilliant can keep his soul alive here, his soul can survive anywhere. Silicon Valley is like a bad case of new-economy smallpox.

His mantra of ambition--to live ambitiously but without ambition--is the centerpiece of Nish Kan Karma yoga. "Yoga means 'being yoked,'" says Brilliant. "in yoga, the individual self is liked to the larger soul, Brahma, which, in Hindu, means 'the mind of God.' You have one job: to find out who you are. Like the asymptote, the mathematical function, you are always approaching your goal, but you never achieve it. You are always reaching for the flame, but you'll never be the flame. You always fail. You always aspire.

"Capitalism has wonderful lessons to teach us. I'm happy to be called a capitalist. To make a change in the world, you must creatively employ capital. You have to understand how the engines of commerce work. To lament that those engines concentrate wealth is not going to help you or anyone else.

"But as long as I have ambition, I will not have good judgment, because my ambition is based on trying to get something. That means I am attached to the results, to the fruits. That means I am violating a rule that I know is intuitively true. And that is the crucible. I need to be tested this way. I need to fail in the way that I fail. Every time that I get confused and see a person who works for me or with me as a customer, a competitor, a colleague, I fail. And every time that I am unable to see that person as a human being--and instead only see what's useful to me--I fail. In those moments, I fall victim to my ambition. But in those moments when I see people as human beings, as real people, I inspire them.

"When I get confused and exploit someone for who they are, I'll get something narrow or I'll get a gift that's not worth receiving. But my deepest and strongest relationships are in those moments when I see someone for who they really are. That's when I join them in a moment to try to create something far more interesting.

"Handling ambition this way, I can moderate the amount of craziness that I feel. Things by which we measure success or victory or achievement are by and large banal. The thing that gives true and lasting satisfaction is giving things to people."

"Larry takes his bedside manner where there is no bed, " says Wavy Gravy. "We're all in this big hospital, all of us people on the planet. The infusion of wealth, rightly directed, can cause great healing to occur. If he can activate more people to do that, he can create tremendous good."

Brilliant is doing good by working with Seva, which runs eye hospitals throughout Asia. He is on the board of a summer camp for inner-city children run by Wavy. He is delivering broadband to all corners of the earth, including India. Weir calls him a "budding saint," and says, "If Larry gets wealthy out of this, he will make it a manifest blessing for mankind." But most of all, Brilliant is keeping his soul alive in the inferno. He's still the poster child for a new way in which to be ambitious: deeply, spiritually. From Detroit to Silicon Valley, Larry Brilliant is still trying to save the world.

Buddha says; "By oneself the evil is done and it is oneself that suffers; by oneself the evil is not done, and by one's Self one becomes pure. He hears dharma and learns it by heart, examines the import of things so learnt and is in an ecstasy of delight over them; strong desire rises in him; he is emboldened; he weighs it all; he strives; being self-resolute, by means of body, he realizes the highest truth itself"

PARADOX OF OUR TIMES

Today we have bigger houses and smaller families
More convenience, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less common sense
More knowledge, but less judgEment.

We have more experts, but more problems
More medicine, but less wellness

We spend too recklessly
Laugh too little
Drive too fast
Get toO angry too quickly
Stay up too late
Read too little
Watch TV too much
And pray too seldom

We multiplied our possessions, but reduce our values
We talk too much, love to little and lie too often

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life
We've added years to life, not life to years.

We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers
Wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

We spend more, but have less
We buy more, enjoy it less.

We've been all the way to the moon and back
But have trouble crossing the street to meet our neighbors.

We've conquered outer space
But not inner space.

We've split the atom
But not our prejudice

We write more, learn less, -----plan more, but accomplish less,
we've learned to rush, but not to wait, we have higher incomes,
but lower morals.

We build more computers to hold more information, to produce
more copies
But have less communication

We are long on quantity,
But less in quality.

These are the time of fast foods and slow digestion
Tall men and short character.

More leisure and less fun....more kinds of food.....but less nutrition
Two incomes,,,,,,,but more divorce
Fancier homes,,,,but broken homes

That's why I propose, that as of today, you do not keep anything for special
occasion, because every day you live is a special occasion.

Search for knowledge, and more, sit on your front porch and admire the view
without paying attention to your needs.

Spend more time with your family and friends, eat your favorite foods,
and visit the places you love.

Life is a chain of moment of enjoyment, not only about survival.

Use your crystal goblets, do not save your best perfume, and use it every
time you feel you want it.

Remove from your vocabulary phrases like "one of these days".

Let's tell our families and friends how much we love them.
Do not delay anything that adds laughter and joy to your life.

Every day, every hour, and every minute is special.
And you don't know if it will be your last.

If you're too busy to take the time to send this message to someone
you love and you tell yourself you will send it "one of these days"

SO BELIEVE ME

"one of these days"

YOU MAY NOT BE HERE TO SEND IT .

BAD KARMA IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Cheney aide charged in CIA leak, resigns


WASHINGTON: Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby was indicted on Friday on five criminal counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements after a two-year investigation into the leak of a covert CIA operative’s identity.

Soon after the indictment, the White House announced that Libby had resigned. Libby “submitted his resignation letter earlier today. It was accepted, and he is no longer at the White House”, spokesman Scott McClellan said.President George W Bush’s top political adviser Karl Rove was not indicted along with Libby, but special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has made clear to Rove that he remains under investigation, legal sources said.Libby, who played a major behind-the-scenes role in building the case for the Iraq war, was accused of lying in 2003 about how and when he learned and disclosed to reporters classified information about the covert operative, Valerie Plame.

If convicted, Libby faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine, prosecutors said.Plame’s identity was leaked to the media after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to support military action against Iraq. Wilson said it was done deliberately to erode his credibility. reuters

A GLOBAL SCAM

2,200 firms implicted in UN oil-for-food scandal: report

www.chinaview.cn 2005-10-28 10:14:25

Paul Volcker, committee chair for the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-For-Food Programme, delivers findings during the presentation of the last report in New York, October 27, 2005.

BEIJING, Oct. 28 -- Investigators of the UN oil-for-food program issued a final report Thursday accusing more than 2,200 companies and some politicians of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk the humanitarian operation of $1.8 billion.

The 623-page document exposed the global scope of a scam that allegedly involved such name-brand companies as DaimlerChrysler and Siemens AG, as well as a former French U.N. ambassador, a firebrand British politician and the president of Italy's Lombardi region.

Under the program, Iraq sold a total of $64.2 billion of oil to 248 companies, of which 139 paid illicit surcharges. In turn, some 3,614 companies sold $34.5 billion of humanitarian goods to Iraq and 2,253 paid kickbacks, the report said.

The program, which began in December 1996 and ended in 2003, was aimed at easing the impact of UN sanctions imposed in 1990 after Baghdad's troops invaded Kuwait. It allowed Iraq to sell oil to pay for food, medicine and other goods.

But Saddam, who could choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods, corrupted the program by awarding contracts to and getting kickbacks from favored buyers.

The companies involved came from 66 nations, including large corporations in the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Switzerland. Russia, then an ally of Iraq, led the list of both legitimate and illegitimate oil contracts, getting $19.3 billion from Iraq, some 30 percent of all oil sales, according to the Reuters report.

The U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, also named politicians in Russia, France, Britain, Italy and elsewhere who were given favors by Saddam in his quest to get U.N. sanctions lifted.

The report blamed shoddy UN management and the world's most powerful countries for allowing it to go on for years, underscoring the urgent need to reform the United Nations.

"The corruption of the program by Saddam would not nearly have been so pervasive if there had been diligent management by the United Nations and its agencies," said Paul Volcker.

Buddha says; "If a man does something wrong, let him not do it again and again. Let him find no pleasure in his sin, painful is the accumulation of wrongdoings."

EMPOWERING SELF

You Have No Boss

Working as a business leader in Gore's military-fabrics division, Terri Kelly often finds herself disabusing outsiders of the notion that life in a world without authority figures is Utopia.

From: Fast Company By: Michael Kaplan

If you've nicknamed your boss the Walking Plague, Terri Kelly is a woman you will envy: she's never had a boss. After graduating from the University of Delaware in 1983 with a BS in engineering, Kelly went to work for W.L. Gore and Associates, a $1.1 billion company best known as a developer of high-tech fabric. If you've worn a Gore-Tex jacket, you've had a close encounter with a Gore product.

A visionary corporation, Gore is built from a blueprint that its founder refers to as a "lattice" (as opposed to a "ladder"). There is no visible hierarchy at Gore -- and no job titles. In fact, there are no bosses. Instead, there are leaders who achieve their positions by gaining followers. Business goals are established by consensus.

Gore's internal "structure" was put into place in 1958 by cofounder Bill Gore, an ex-DuPont exec who believed that leaders should be chosen by the people who follow them. Working as a business leader in Gore's military-fabrics division, Kelly often finds herself disabusing outsiders of the notion that life in a world without authority figures is Utopia.

Fantasy: You're responsible to no one.

Reality: You're responsible to everyone.

"Although I'm a business leader for military fabric, I'm a leader only if there are people who are willing to follow me," says Kelly. "A project doesn't move forward unless people buy into it. You cultivate followership by selling yourself, articulating your ideas, and developing a reputation for seeing things through." Here is Kelly's three-point plan for convincing fellow Goreans to buy in on her projects.

Resolve the potentially fatal flaw.

After conceiving an idea, Kelly scrutinizes the plan to find its weakest link and takes it to the person who oversees that part of the business. "Let's say I've come up with a design for a winter sleeping bag she says. "I'd go to the person responsible for marketing the bag and find out whether there's demand for it. If there isn't, I'd go back and try to reposition the plan. If he's excited by the idea and thinks it's viable, I'd bring him in on the project to help me develop it."

Give away ownership.

Once Kelly is convinced there's a market for the sleeping bag, she starts casting about for people from other divisions -- manufacturing, design, fabric, sales -- to form a core team and develop the product. "It's a process of giving away ownership of the idea to people who want to contribute and be a part of it. The project won't go anywhere if you don't let people run with it."

Connect the project with the Big Picture.

Unlike people in hierarchical companies, Kelly cannot simply draft the members of her team. She's got to win them over. Her most reliable tactic is to show how the project will improve Gore's bottom line.


Fantasy: There's no boss standing between you and a raise.

Reality: Everyone stands between you and a raise.

"Salary raises depend on the written reviews of your peers, not on a boss's recommendation," says Kelly, who adds that the reviews include a numerical ranking for each person within a particular department. "The idea is that employees are not accountable to the president of the company; they're accountable to their colleagues." Achieving a high ranking, Kelly explains, depends in part on your ability to work on high-profile projects.

Follow these steps:

Establish your credibility.

"You won't get invited to join the hot teams until you've already contributed to projects that weren't so attractive," says Kelly. "To get ahead, you must first demonstrate that you can take ownership of a project and stick with it. Anyone can talk about going the extra mile. First you've got to prove to everyone else that you can do it."

Pursue the team of your dreams.

"When it's not immediately clear who will be a good fit on a particular team, you hope that somebody will step up and express excitement about being a part of it. People here should never wait around to be asked to join a team. They've got to be proactive. They have to volunteer."

Buddha says; "Happy indeed are the men-of-worth, in them no craving's seen. The "I" conceit is rooted up; delusion's net is burst."

BUDDHA GOES TO COLLEGE

BUSINESS SCHOOLS RESPOND TO NEW GLOBAL REALITIES

Stanford University.s MBA Program Ranks #1 in Beyond Grey Pinstripes Survey

NEW YORK, NY, October 19, 2005 . A biennial report . Beyond Grey Pinstripes, released
jointly today at Citigroup by World Resources Institute and the Aspen Institute . finds that more business schools are doing a better job preparing students for the reality of tomorrow.s markets, equipping them with an understanding of the social, environmental, and economic perspectives required for business success in a competitive global economy.

The 2005 survey finds that an increasing number of business schools are offering courses
in ethics, corporate social responsibility, or environmental sustainability.

In today.s global business environment, there is tremendous opportunity to create social
and environmental value while doing what is right for the business,. said Scott Johnson, vice
president, Global Environmental and Safety Actions, SC Johnson. .More and more corporations
will demand leaders who understand these opportunities and can deliver results. So it is critical
that business schools meet this demand by stressing a focus on global stakeholders, not simply
shareholders..

In the survey, changes in coursework proved noticeable. Of the 91 business schools
surveyed on six continents, 54 percent require a course in ethics, corporate social responsibility,sustainability, or business and society, up from 45 percent in 2003 and 34 percent in 2001. Additionally, the report finds that some leading schools are launching innovative courses on such topics as exploring private-sector approaches for addressing problems in low-income markets.

The number of these courses offered has increased dramatically since 2003.
As a clear indication of the importance of these issues globally, three of the top five
ranked schools, and 12 of the top 30, are located outside the United States.
Jonathan Lash, president, World Resources Institute, added, .To be competitive,
corporations need to recast social and environmental problems as business growth opportunities.

These schools are leading the way in providing students with the skills that are becoming
increasingly valuable to the bottom line. Such skills are needed to meet the emerging challenges
of climate change, water scarcity, labor issues, and poverty alleviation with innovative
technologies and entrepreneurship..

Although the business schools surveyed are making important progress, the report's authors note that teaching and research on these topics often remain limited to disconnected
pockets of innovation. While students at schools ranked in the top 30 were exposed to ethical,
social, and environmental issues in an average of 25 percent of their required coursework, other
students saw these issues only 8 percent of the time. Only 4 percent of faculty at the surveyed
schools published research on related issues in top, peer-reviewed journals during the survey
period.

MBA programs still have a silo mentality when it comes to teaching business ethics as
well as social and environmental stewardship,. added Judith Samuelson, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program. For MBA students to be truly prepared for the challenges they will face as executives after graduation, these topics need to be integrated across the business-school curriculum and in other required courses such as accounting, economics,finance, information technology, marketing, operations, and strategy..

The Beyond Grey Pinstripes report identified the Top 30 MBA programs by inviting
nearly 600 MBA programs to report on their coursework and research; 1,842 courses and 828
journal articles from leading peer-reviewed business publications were analyzed.

The MBA program at Stanford University distinguished itself not only by offering a large
number of courses that addressed social and environmental issues in business, but also by the
relatively large proportion of students who actually took those classes.

The top 30 programs as ranked by Beyond Grey Pinstripes are:

1. Stanford, USA
2. ESADE, Spain
3. York (Schulich), Canada
4. ITESM, Mexico
5. Notre Dame (Mendoza), USA
6. George Washington, USA
7. Michigan (Ross), USA
8. North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler), USA
9. Cornell (Johnson), USA
10. Wake Forest (Babcock), USA
11. UC Berkeley (Haas), USA
12. Nottingham, UK
13. Virginia (Darden), USA
14. Western Ontario (Ivey), Canada
15. Boston College, USA
16. Erasmus (Rotterdam), The Netherlands
17. Colorado (Leeds), USA
18. New Mexico (Anderson), USA
19. Asian Institute of Management (SyCip),
The Philippines
20. Portland State, USA
21. Yale, USA
22. McGill, Canada
23. Case Western (Weatherhead), USA
24. INSEAD, France
25. Calgary, Canada
26. Jyväskylä, Finland
27. Navarra (IESE), Spain
28. Wisconsin-Madison, USA
29. Minnesota (Carlson), USA
30. Georgetown (McDonough), USA

The report is the only global survey that evaluates MBA programs for their efforts to
prepare graduates on social and environmental stewardship in business. A full description of the
report, its methodology, and MBA program rankings are available at

www.BeyondGreyPinstripes.org.

Buddha says; "The glorious chariots of kings wear out, and the body wears out and grows old; but the virtue of the good never grows old, and thus they can teach the good to those who are good."

I'M LOVIN IT!

10/18/2005
Press release from: CERES

Fast-Food Giant McDonald’s Wins Approval as Ceres Partner; Pledges Further Improvements in Social & Environmental Programs

(CSRwire) BOSTON – Citing the company’s progress on sustainability reporting and commitment to continuous enhancement of its social and environmental performance, the Ceres board of directors today announced it has approved fast food giant McDonald’s Corp. as a Ceres company.

McDonald’s is among 65 companies – including nearly a dozen Fortune 500 companies – to be accepted into the Ceres network of companies. Boston-based Ceres is a 16-year-old coalition of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies to tackle sustainability challenges. “From energy efficiency, to food resource sustainability, to ‘greening’ its supply chain, McDonald’s has made great strides improving its social and environmental performance,” said Ceres President Mindy S. Lubber. “More importantly, the company wants to do even more.

Working with investors, environmental groups and other stakeholders, Ceres and McDonald’s are excited about future opportunities to take sustainability deeper into the company and its supply chain, and to encourage improvements and share their expertise across the rest of the fast food industry.” “We are especially excited about joining Ceres because they’ll help us continue to strengthen the linkage between CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) performance and its relevance to the investment community,” said Ken Barun, Senior Vice President, Corporate Responsibility, McDonald’s Corporation. “Ceres brings forth a unique expertise and a terrific network to help McDonald’s advance its social and environmental efforts.” McDonald’s has instituted various programs to reduce its environmental footprint and make its global operations more sustainable and transparent.

Among these efforts:

McDonald’s issued its first Corporate Responsibility Report in 2002 and a second, more substantive Corporate Responsibility Report in 2004. Both of the reports follow reporting guidelines in the Ceres-created Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the de-facto international standard for reporting on environmental, social and business issues.

Responsible purchasing programs designed to protect fishing stocks, animal welfare and forest resources. Fish sourcing environmental guidelines, for example, were implemented in 2003 and 2004 after a close collaboration with fish suppliers and Conservation International.

Balanced lifestyle and nutrition initiatives that focus on more menu choices, additional food and nutrition information, and the promotion of physical activity. These include expanded salad and fruit offerings and the phasing out of “Super Size” options. Since 2003, McDonald’s has sold over 400 million salad meals and is now buying more fresh apples – estimated at more than 50 million pounds in 2005 – than any other restaurant chain in the country.

Implemented a far-reaching Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure safe and healthy work environments and fair compensation and work schedules for employees. The company carried out more than 1,500 external assessments this year to ensure that the code is being complied with. Many of the company’s programs are the result of close stakeholder engagement and collaboration with animal welfare experts, environmental groups, paper suppliers, shareholders and dozens of others.

Among the stakeholders the company has worked closely with is the New York City Comptroller’s office, which has a large financial stake in McDonald’s as part of the $90 billion in assets it manages for five retirement funds. "I applaud McDonald’s for taking this important step towards continuous improvements of its global business impacts,” said New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., referring to the company’s decision to become a Ceres company. "Collaboration with Ceres helps to assure investors of McDonald’s commitment to employ best practices of corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting. This relationship will serve to enhance the long-term interests of the company and its shareholders."

Companies that join Ceres must commit to engage with shareholders and other stakeholders on sustainability issues, to report publicly on sustainability performance and to make additional sustainability improvements. For more information about Ceres, visit www.ceres.org

Buddha says; This is the beginning of the life of the wise monk; self-control of the senses, happiness, living under moral law, and whose life is pure and who are striving."

SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT

Press release from: Novethic
Oct. 19, 2005
Major Investors Driving SRI in France

73% of all investors surveyed that have assets in excess of one billion euros have already made a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI)

(CSRwire) France’s major institutional investors invest a growing share of their assets on the basis of a socially responsible approach. This trend is gaining strength. 73% of all investors surveyed that have assets in excess of one billion have already made an SRI investment, compared with 35% for other investors.

The major investors intend to increase their SRI investments: three-fourths of those that have already invested on the basis of SRI criteria say they will continue to do so, and 46% say they plan to invest more than 5% of their total assets on the basis of extra-financial criteria within three years. Nearly half of them feel that this approach should eventually apply to all their investments.

Currently pending, the FRR’s request for proposal (600 million euros) is being followed with interest by those surveyed. In fact, 60% think that they will gain valuable insight from the FRR’s program. A majority of institutional investors consider that SRI meets their needs in terms of ethical values as well as their financial performance goals. Through SRI, institutional investors are looking for a way to invest their reserves in a way that is consistent with the values of their institution and their responsibility as investors.

Some 40% of those who practice SRI consider that it offers a better way of taking financial risks into account over the long term. In addition, the survey reveals a strong rise in satisfaction with the financial returns offered by assets invested on the basis of SRI criteria: 52% say they are satisfied, versus 17% in 2004. 70% of investors expect performance levels that equal or surpass those of conventional funds.

Investors that have yet to make SRI-based decisions remain somewhat skeptical of the approach, which they consider to be too “marketing” oriented. In addition, they feel they lack sufficient visibility, particularly in terms of performance. Reputation of asset managers When they choose an asset manager, institutional investors are particularly attentive to the quality of the SRI management process (the top criterion for 69%). While DEXIA AM, I.DE.A.M and MACIF Gestion top the list of the most well-known SRI specialists this year, AXA IM, BNP Paribas AM, Groupama AM, IXIS AM and Sarasin Expertise are tied for fourth place. These close rankings reflect the strong commitment that several players have made in recent months to SRI.

About Novethic: A subsidiary of Caisse des dépôts et consignations, Novethic is a leading center for resources, information and expertise pertaining to SRI and corporate social and environmental responsibility. Its web site (http://www.novethic.fr/) is a comprehensive resource for responsible economic actors. About Amadeis; Amadeis is an independent investment consulting firm. In addition to working with institutional investors and asset managers, Amadeis conducts analysis and research extending to all aspects of asset management.

About BNP Paribas AM BNP Paribas Asset Management; one of Europe’s leading asset managers, got an early lead in the field of socially responsible and sustainable investment. Leveraging the expertise of a dedicated team and its independent approach, BNP Paribas AM helps institutional clients understand the importance of extra-financial criteria, and offers a full range of products aligned with the underlying principles of socially responsible and sustainable investment.

GREEN GIANT

The next force for business transformation won't be digital, it will be horticultural. That's the disruptive idea behind the awe-inspiring Eden Project.


By: Ian Wylie , Fast Company, Oct. 19, 2005
Who: Tim SmitAffiliation: Cofounder and chief executive, the Eden ProjectLocation: St. Austell, Cornwall, England

The next great force for business transformation won't be digital, argues Tim Smit; it will be horticultural. Smit is an archaeologist turned musician turned botanist who is planting the seeds of change at the Eden Project, his awe-inspiring, $120 million facility in Cornwall, England. Eden is the world's largest greenhouse, containing 250,000 plants in two giant, enclosed biomes.

But Eden is about more than watching a garden grow. Smit believes that over the next 20 years, in-depth research on plants will result in new materials of unprecedented strength and flexibility, new sources of food and medicine, and new approaches to renewable energy. "We are on the verge of a revolution that is greater than any in the 20th century," says Smit. "There are now composite materials that you can make from plants that are stronger than steel and Kevlar. The implications are phenomenal. Every country in the world could have access to advanced materials created from their own plants."

Barely a year after it opened, the 34-acre facility has become one of Europe's most popular and celebrated tourist attractions. Meanwhile, Smit is hard at work on his next big project: a campus where business leaders, artists, scientists, engineers, and bureaucrats will commit to spending five days a year sharing their knowledge. "Tithing College is central to my manifesto," Smit explains. "It will attract those who want to imagine a new beginning and contribute to the debate, What does 'great' look like, and how do we get there?"

Visit the Eden Project on the Web (www.edenproject.com).

Buddha says; "One in All, All in One- if only this is realized, no more worry about you not being perfect.

FROM BAR MITZVAH TO BUDDHA

or......"From Fountain Pen to Impoverished Prince"

Dr. Graham Howe, one of Britain's top ranking Psychiatrists said; " To read a little of Buddhism is to realize that the Buddhists knew, two thousand five hundred years ago, far more about our modern problems of psychology than they have been given credit for. They studied these problems long ago and found the answers also. We are now discovering the Ancient Wisdom of the East."

The Buddha was the first to throw intelligent light on the mind process. The important thing for us to remember is that the mind controls the speech and body action, so that the nature of the mind determines what we say and do.

Because the Buddha taught his followers, that they themselves make or mar their own happiness, it becomes necessary for us to rely on our own efforts and not seek salvation from a deity or supernatural being. Now if a man must rely on himself, it is weakness to seek aid and favours by praying. Instead of prayer, He taught his students to meditate and develop the mind so that we would be able to to face the difficulties of life, and overcome them.

Neither suffering nor happiness is permanent. It only requires a little patience and fortitude to wait for things to change. This was a very difficult process for me to achieve. Since I was a small child I grew up with the belief that God would either protect or punish me. If I did good, he would protect me, if not I would pay the ulitmate retribution. In the Jewish belief system, there is one day when we must atone for all our sins of the year, and that is indeed the holiest of days, Yom Kippur.

On this day, we are told to admit to all our sins, and we will be forgiven by God, and he will write us into the book of life for another year. If not, dire consequences will befall us. Until a Jewish boy has his Bar Mitzvah, his parents are responsible for all of his sins, but when he reaches the age of thirteen, he is considered entering manhood and therefore becomes totally accountable. The mind bogles with all the things we got away with as kids. But can you imagine the rude awakening after your Bar Mitzvah speech, that you are now being judged for everything you do....I immediately went home and hid my Playboys. Because of an over-reactionary Mother, all things physical became catastrophic. So Mother and I would engage in ongoing prayer sessions with every minor cold and scratch.

Another inherited trait with European Jews is "superstition". I was never allowed to say I was well or happy, because to do so would cause an "anhora"..meaning an evil spell of some sort. If somebody asked me how I was and I said I was doing great, my Mother would immediately invoke a protective clause by uttering the words "canahora..poo poo poo."...roughly speaking..spitting three times. Hence the reason, why the majority of Jewish men are in therapy or psychiatrists themselves. And you think your path to buddhahood is challenging, welcome to my world.

The Buddhist is at a great advantage with this knowledge, because he does not lose sight of reality during the happy moments and he does not give away to despair in the face of misfortune. The Buddhist knows that existence is controlled by balanced natural laws and prayer can only be to express a desire that these shall change for one's individual benefit, or that we wish for something we have not earned or are entitled to. If natural laws could be upset in this way we would be obtaining things at the expense of someone else.

In practically every one of the great religions of the world, "faith" is required of the followers, because many of the teachings and doctrines are incompatable with reason. Buddhism strikes a great contrast in this respect. the Buddha asked only for confidence, based on understanding and reason. Blind acceptance is of no use to an individual because it does not require the depth of knowledge which makes it of value or serve as a guide on the Path. This broad outlook is probably one of the reasons why it is now finding so many ready converts in the West.

So is this the true story of the Jew who became a Buddhist? Not really, I'm just a fellow traveller on the journey seeking the same things you are. This then, is my ongoing invitation to join me.

Buddha says, " If one find a friend with whom to fare, rapt in the well-abiding rapt, surmounting dangers one and all with joy fare with him mindfully."

CORPORATE RIGHT ACTION

We have spoken many times about the eight fold path of the Buddha in leading us into this new era of "Enlightened Capitalism" RIGHT ACTION and RIGHT LIVELIHOOD are fundamental as we begin our journey.

Right Action is a direct result of refined ideas. If our words are of the nature of greed, hatred and delusion then must our action be likewise. How different are actions that arise out of their opposites: generosity, compassion, and understanding.

Right Livelihood encourages us to seek a way of sustaining ourselves which minimizes the impact we have on others and the world in general. It encourages us to think differently, to appreciate the interconnectdness of all things and to tread lightly with due care and compassion.

Here are a number of organizations that are committed to these principles, along with corporate governance, ethics and social responsibility. Through their effforts we can hold the business world accountable.


Alliance for Democracy www.thealliancefordemocracy.org

The mission of the Alliance for Democracy is "to free all people from corporate domination of politics, economics, the environment, culture and information; to establish true democracy; and to create a just society with a sustainable, equitable economy." The Alliance is a new Populist movement--not a political party--aiming to end the large corporations' domination.

Corporate Governance www.corpgov.net

Provides news, internet links, a small reference library and a discussion forum and network for stakeholders who believe active participation by shareowners in governing corporations will enhance their ability to create wealth. We believe broad based of systems of accountability must be built into the governance structures of corporations themselves.

Positive Futures Network www.futurenet.org

An independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting people's active engagement in creating a just, sustainable, and compassionate world.

ReclaimDemocracy.org www.reclaimdemocracy.org

Dedicated to restoring democratic authority over corporations, reviving grassroots democracy, and revoking the power of money and corporations to control government and civic society. ReclaimDemocracy.org works proactively for systemic change, rather than react to the agendas of corporate and moneyed interests. They work in both grassroots organizing and public education by introducing models for systemic change into public discussion through mass media, public presentations, editorials, single-issue primers, and skill-building workshops.

Team Production www.teamproduction.us

The Team Production model of corporate governance, a new framework for analyzing corporate law and corporate governance, counters the "shareholder primacy" response to recent corporate fraud and failures. Its authors instead assert that a healthier response acknowledges the many contributors to a corporation. In addition to shareholders, this "team" can include employees, creditors, consumers, and others.

Transparency International www.transparency-USA.org

A non-governmental organization dedicated to increasing government accountability and curbing both international and national corruption. TI's movement has multiple concerns: humanitarian, as corruption undermines and distorts development and leads to increasing levels of human rights abuse; democratic, as corruption undermines democracies and in particular the achievements of many developing countries and countries in transition; ethical, as corruption undermines a society's integrity; and practical, as corruption distorts the operations of markets and deprives ordinary people of the benefits which should flow from them.

Business Ethics Magazine www.business-ethics.com

The premier publication of the movement for greater social responsibility in business.

Caux Roundtable www.cauxroundtable.org

A global network of senior business leaders committed to principled business leadership, who believe that business has a crucial role in developing and promoting equitable solutions to key global issues. CRT's mission is to advocate implementation of the Caux Round Table Principles for Business through which sustainable and socially responsible prosperity can emerge as the foundation for a fair, free and transparent society.

Business for Social Responsibility www.bsr.org

Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) is a global organization that helps member companies achieve success in ways that respect ethical values, people, communities and the environment. BSR provides information, tools, training and advisory services to make corporate social responsibility an integral part of business operations and strategies. A nonprofit organization, BSR promotes cross sector collaborations and contributes to global efforts to advance the field of corporate social responsibility.

Institute of Noetic Sciences www.noetic.org

A nonprofit membership organization that both conducts and sponsors research into the workings and powers of the mind, including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. Inquires about phenomena that don't fit into the conventional scientific model. IONS sponsors publications, conferences and their website and supports community building by providing ways for members and colleagues to share their experiences and ideas with one another through community groups, online discussion groups, and other networking opportunities.

Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership www.greenleaf.org

Supports those who, through the practice of servant-leadership, seek to create organizations in which individual stakeholders become healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous; and in so doing, build a better, more humane society which welcomes the full diversity of the human family. Originally founded in 1964 as the Center for Applied Ethics, Inc., the center was renamed the Robert K Greenleaf Center in 1985.

Social Venture Network www.svn.org

A non-profit organization of entrepreneurs dedicated to changing the way the world does business so as to create a more just, humane and sustainable society. Promotes progressive solutions to social problems. The Network provides opportunities to exchange ideas, share problems and solutions and collaborate on an ad hoc basis with a group of thoughtful peers. Activities include two national conferences a year, regional and local events, bimonthly newsletters, an interactive website, and other services. Founded in 1987, SVN has grown to a community of over 400 business owners, investors and social activists.

World Business Academy www.worldbusiness.org

A global, membership-based, nonprofit, nonpolitical organization centered upon the role and responsibility of business in relation to critical environmental and social dilemmas. They assist business leaders in addressing some of the most serious dilemmas, e.g. unemployment, corruption, ecological abuse, through sustainable business strategies. The Academy provides self-learning educational resources, research results and publications to members; offers forums and seminars in the areas of Corporate Social Responsibility, Leadership, and the Development of Human Potential at Work in virtually every country; and conducts research projects.

Buddha says; "And those in high thought and in deep contemplation, with ever-living power advance on the path, they in the end find nirvana, the supreme peace and infinite joy".

SOCIAL INVESTING

Here are links to social investing:


Calvert Social Investment Foundation www.calvertfoundation.org

Calvert Foundation offers a professionally managed investment note that individuals and institutions utilize to finance local community programs. Activities fund affordable housing, micro-credit and non-profit social enterprises across the country and around the world - creating jobs, building homes and changing lives through your investments.

Green Money Journal www.greenmoney.com
A bimonthly newsletter (24 pages) featuring socially and environmentally responsible investing (SRI) business and consumer resources. The web site- greenmoney.com contains all the articles in the newsletter plus much more. Links to other socially and environmentally responsible companies and organizations are included.

Investors' Circle www.investorscircle.net
A non-profit national network of angel and institutional investors, foundation officers and entrepreneurs who seek to balance financial, social and environmental returns. IC is dedicated to catalyzing the flow of capital to private companies that deliver commercial solutions to social and environmental problems. Each year IC sponsors venture fairs and a national conference, in addition to circulating deal flow to its members. Since 1992, Investors' Circle has facilitated the investment of over $80 million in 120 socially responsible companies and small venture funds. Behind each of these investments is the belief that business -- not government or philanthropy -- must lead the transition to a sustainable economy.

Social Investment Forum www.socialinvest.org
A national nonprofit membership association dedicated to promoting the concept and practice of socially and environmentally responsible investing. Comprised of more than 600 financial professionals and institutions, including financial professionals, institutions, researchers, foundations, community development organizations and public educators. Membership is open to any organization or practitioner who wishes to participate in the socially responsible investing field. Member benefits include networking opportunities, information, advocacy and benefits.

Trillium Asset Management www.trilliuminvest.com
For over twenty years, Trillium Asset Management Corporation has been a leader in socially responsible investing. We are an employee-owned firm, guided by a belief that investing can return a solid competitive profit to the investor while also promoting social and economic justice. Our professional staff, in four offices across the country, carries on a mission begun in 1982: To help our clients meet their financial goals and have a positive impact on society through socially responsible investing. Trillium Asset Management manages investment portfolios for a broad array of individuals and institutions, including high net worth families, foundations, churches, endowments, and the entertainment industry. We manage equity, balanced and fixed income accounts with a client-driven, highly personalized management style.

COMPASSION

Despite its wealth, the United States, as a percentage of its population, has the smallest middle class and the greatest gap between rich and poor of any industrial nation. As more and more Americans fall through the cracks into privation and poverty, they also fall prey to the predatory economic institutions that Howard Karger examines so thoroughly and powerfully in his book"Shortchanged". Like such classics as "Nickel and Dimed", this book is a wakeup call for action to redirect our economy towards fairness and ethics.

What is fundamentally right about the above statement and so precariously wrong? Well, if we take a hard look at the underbelly of America we might not like what we see. A nation priding itself as a land of great opportunity and wealth. A land where immigrants came and staked their claim to the American dream. All things are possible in America, just start a business and it will be followed by enourmous wealth. That was the poster. An inviting scenario....Jim Jones said..."Drink the Kool Aid and you'll reach Nirvana". Somebody lied!

I remember 40 years ago when I graduated from the University of Montana, my Uncle Leon who lived in Philadelphia asked me a pretty direct question. Are you going to stay in the U.S. or go back to Canada? I said I hadn't made up my mind yet. His response was equally vocal and demonstrative. "How could you possibly think of returning to Canada". You will not have the same opportunities to get rich as you can in the good ole USA. Also, Canada is so backward and America is blessed with so much more of everything. He left out the part about having more "poverty" in America than Canada, and a health system that helps you get better as opposed to a system that enables the rich to get well and the poor to get sicker, and the middle class to go bankrupt. But hey, more incentive to make more money...right? Wrong What price glory?


My Uncle and his family and for that matter all my American relatives equated a high degree of success in life to the acquisition of wealth and personal fortune. Becoming a successful lawyer and doctor or owning a multi milliion dollar company with the accompanying "nice" Jewish girl and split level mansion in the burbs was the ultimate goal and deserving of bragging rights with the rest of the family. God forbid you should be a truck driver or shoe salesman. Much pity would befall your parents for producing such a social misfit.

It's the "Goodbye Columbus" syndrome of Jewish dating with Richard Benjamin and Ali Macgraw. A Jewish man and a jewish woman meet and while attracted to each other find that their worlds are very different. She is the archetypical Jewish-American-Princess, very emotionally involved with her parents world and the world they have created for her while he is much less dependent on his family. They begin an affair which brings more differences to the surface.

Neil Klugman works in the public library and lives in New York with his Jewish aunt rather than in Arizona with his parents. College-girl Brenda Patimkin very much lives with her well-to-do Jewish family. Even so, the two are attracted and start seeing each. As the relationship gets more serious, Brenda's mother gets increasingly hostile to Neil, thinking her daughter would end up marrying beneath her.

There was a great joke circulating the Katskills in the 50's by that famous Jewish comedian, Mickey Katz, better known as the Borscht Jester. "Two elderly Jewish women were walking with their granchildren on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and each one turned to the other and said, what beautiful grandchildren they had. Then, Mrs Goldstein asked Mrs. Rabinovitch how old they were? To which Mrs. Rabinovitch replied, "Well the doctor is three and the lawyer is two. "

There is a certain degree of logic and rationale to this syndrome. After all most Jewish immigrants that came to the States had escaped the unspeakable horrors of the Nazis in concentration camps, and so they were holocaust survivors. My belief is that they wanted a life for their kids thst was totally opposite to what they had experienced. So they went a little overboard, and wanted their kids to have EVERYTHING.

Also, there was a belief that the only way a Jew could escape anti-semitism was to work for themselves. I took that belief wth me into society and became paranoid every time I had a gentile boss. Would he find out I was Jewish and then find a reason to fire me. The best decision I ever made was to go away to an American college with a population on campus of 10 Jewish students and 3,200 gentiles. My first roomate was Tom Gillon from Chester, Montana who never heard of a Jew and my second was George Paige, a black football player from Portland, whose father was a judge. When I tried out for the basketball team, I met Ray Lucien, the only black guy on the team. Ray was from Baton Rouge and his was a poverty striken family. The only jacket Ray had, was the letterman jacket he got for being a jock.

How wonderful those days were...no color blinders...George and Ray and I having dinner together talking about our futures. We obviously took different paths, but I believe we had one thing in common, a geuine compassion for each other and our trust and love for one another. In that moment in time I could not understand the resentment my realtives had for the blacks in South Philadelphia and a view of them being no more than second class citizens. I would say to them, how can you persecute them, when we have been the persectued ones from generation to generation. Their answer was a subtle form of racism...."You don't know how they live because your'e not around them".

I love my extended Philadelphia family, but I don't have to like their beliefs. The scary part is that I honestly believe they represent a lot of thinking of mainstream white Americans in large urban cities. They moved three times from their South Philly home, and each time it was to an all white suburban neighbourhood. When Overbrook Park became inhabited by blacks they moved to Overbrook Hills and then finally to an all- white gated retirement comunity in Florida.

I began to become less paranoid and more accepting of the equalty in us all. Having grown up entirely in a protective "Jewish only" environment, I began to assimilate with the rest of the world. Thus begun my ascent into having "compassion" for all beings. Not an easy task for a "brain washed" only child who believed everything his mother and father told him. This is not to say I did not experience my own share of bullying and anti-semitism as a child. I did, but my Dad , God Bless him, always told me to not fight back and just walk away and feel sorry for the attackers. It was in that moment that I became more passive than aggressive in the resolution of conflict. That's not to say that I was a classic "wimp", but more judicious in my understanding of people, their motivation to anger and the price to pay for fighting and war.

Buddha says; "To feel true compassion for all beings, we must remove any partiality from our attitude toward them." Our normal view of others is dominated by fluctuating and discriminating emotions. We feel a sense of closeness toward loved ones. Toward strangers or acquaintencances we feel distant. And then for those indiviudals who we perceive as hostile, unfriendly, or alloof, we feel aversion or contempt.

The criterion for our classifying people as friends or enemies seems straightforward If a person has caused us difficuty or harm, he or she is a foe. Mixed with our fondness for our loved ones are emotions such as attachment and desire that inspires passionate intimacy. Similarly, we view those whom we dislike with negative emotions such as anger and hatred. Consequesntly, our compassion toward others is limited, partial, prejudicial, and condiitoned by whether we feel close to them Genuine compassion must be unconditional. Now I'm sure, if you are reading this on the New York subway, it's pretty difficult to adopt this concept and attempt to view the stranger sitting next to you with compassion.

However , if we are to begin this journey towards enlightenment and follow the eight fold path of Buddha, compassion is high on the list. From personal experience, I can tell you that once you become aware of this it really does open your eyes to the way we are used to interacting with all beings. Every conversation I have now, every busines meeting, every discussion with whomever; my interaction with the grocery clerk at the check out, the guy filling my tank, the pharmasict and the postal clerk. I catch myslef only partially listening to their answers, as I am alerady moving ahead with my agenda. Now I pay particular attention to what they are saying, who they are, what they have to say about their business and their life. I have discovered you can connect with people at a deeper more compassionate level, without becoming their therapist. And you can be free to just LISTEN!

There is one last consideration, and it comes from the Dalai Lama; "As human beings, our well-being very much depends upon that of others, and our very survival is a result of contributions made by inumerabe fellow human beings. Whether directly or indirectly, countless others are involved in our survival---not to mention our happiness".

If we extend this line of reasoning beyond the confines of a single lifetime, we can imagne that throughout our previous lives---in fact, since time without beginnng---countless others have made inumerable contributions to our welfare. We conclude, "What grounds have I to discriminate? How can I be close to some and hostile toward others? I must rise above all feelings of partiality and discrimination , I must be of benefit to all, equally!"

How do we train our minds to perceive the essential quality of all living beings It is best to cultivate the feeling of equanimity by first focusing on relative strangers or acquaintances, those for whom you have no strong feeling one way or the other. From there you should meditate impartially, moving on to friends and then enemies. Upon achieving an impartial attitude toward all conscious beings, the Dalai Lama encourages us "to meditate on love, the wish that they find the happiness they seek". What a concept, to actually want someone else to achieve happiness before you do. Another equally challenging task for the selfish, only child, narssistic author of this prose. A huge awakening, but the seed has been planted in me.

And what I have learned is that the seed of compassion will grow as the Dalai Lama says; "If you plant it in fertile soil, a consciousness moistened with love." "When you have watered your mind with love, you can begin to meditate upon compassion. Compassion, here is simply the wish that all conscious beings be free of suffering."

Buddha says; "Not to be helpful to others, not to give to those in need, this is the fruit of samsara. better than this is to renounce the idea of self".

ENLIGHTENED CAPITALISTS

INVESTOR'S CIRCLE CONFERENCE TO FOCUS ON SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS


Speakers To Discuss Community Development, Food, Health, Media, Renewable Energy


(CSRwire) BOSTON, Mass. – Panel discussions on "Preserving and Restoring the Commons," presentations by the founder of the country’s leading brand of natural household products and the son of baseball great Jackie Robinson, and a venture fair are among the features of the Investors’ Circle (IC) 2005 National Conference, which will take place Nov. 1-3, 2005 at the Hyatt Regency Boston.

The conference, which will be based on the theme, "Patient Capital for a Sustainable Future," celebrates the investment of $100 million through the IC network. In collaboration with the popular PBS radio show eTown. Speakers at workshops on Nov. 3 will also discuss the state of double-bottom-line investing and enterprise creation in the context of community development, food and organics, health, media, mission-related investing and renewable energy.

Keynote speakers will include Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation of Burlington, Vt., and David Robinson, Director Of Marketing for the Mshikamano Farmers Group in Tanzania. In addition to founding his successful household products company, Hollender is the founder of Network for Learning, an adult education program and audio publishing company, and author of How to Make the World a Better Place: A Guide for Doing Good.

Robinson, son of Jackie Robinson, formed United Harlem Growth Inc., a self-help housing development and renovation company, then moved to Tanzania in the 1980s and started a 29,000-tree coffee farm. He helped form the Mshikamano Farmers Group, a cooperative of coffee farmers and serves as its Director Of Marketing.

Some of the other scheduled speakers include Peter Barnes of the Tomales Bay Institute and Founder of Working Assets; Joan Bavaria, President of Trillium Asset Management; Connie Best, Managing Director, The Pacific Forest Trust; Mark Donohue of Expansion Capital Partners; Barbara Kibbe, Vice President for Program Effectiveness at The Skoll Foundation; David Kirkpatrick, Founding and Managing Director of SJF Ventures; David Robinson, founder of Sweet Unity Farms; Don Shaffer, National Coordinator of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies; Paul Shoemaker, Executive Director of Social Venture Partners International, and Greg Steltenpohl, founder of the Interra Project and co-founder and former CEO of Odwalla.

Thirty-four companies will be featured in a venture fair on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2005, and two panels on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005 will discuss the use of private capital and networks to enhance bioregional, cultural and economic health and diversity. The Investors’ Circle National Conference and Venture Fair is the premier meeting place for angel investors, professional venture capitalists, philanthropic investors and entrepreneurs who are using private capital to promote the transition to a sustainable future.

This year’s conference is supported with contributions from Health Care Without Harm, the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, the Phoebe Haas Charitable Trust, the Skoll Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Investors’ Circle of Brookline, Mass. and San Francisco, Calif. is a leading social venture capital intermediary whose mission is to support early-stage, private companies that drive the transition to a sustainable economy. Founded in 1992, IC has become one of the nation’s largest investor networks, and the only one devoted specifically to sustainability. Its members and active affiliates are high net worth individuals, professional venture capitalists, family offices and foundations. In its first decade, network members invested over $100 million into 160 early stage private companies and venture funds working to deliver commercial solutions to social and environmental problems.

Buddha says; "If a man do something good, let him do it again and again. Let him find joy in his good work. Joyful is the accumulation of good work"

WHAT WOULD BUDDHA SAY?

As you all know this blog has been filtering through the news of the day to see how it reflects on the teachings of not only Budhha but how we can live our lives better and on purpose.

Corporate America has been riddled with criminal CEO's wreaking havoc with the stabliity of an entire nation. Now we are are faced with an individual that defies logic. There are those who have been both appauled and bewildered by the behaviour of a man who holds the most powerful office in America. In this latest revelation of George W., we find God being used in the most affrontive way I can imagine. To justify a war and the loss of even one life in the name of God is repulsive. When the President justifies his actions he tells us that the terrorists use the name of Allah to justify their killings. Unless there is something missing in the translation....to the Muslim, Allah is God.

As you know we have had many articles re-printed under the title "White Collar Corporate Criminals". Well, this past month in Washington, they have given new meaning to the term "Political Criminals", and just as we have witnessed the trials of Ebbers, Fastow, and Stewart, perhaps it is time to bring the "Elected Criminals" of our society to justice; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and of course DeLay & Frist . However Buddha says we must show compassion to all beings. And so I offer you this....what would Buddha say about George?


God told me to invade Iraq: 'George, go and fight'

Agence France-Presse
October 7, 2005


LONDON - Palestinian leaders appearing in a BBC documentary say George W. Bush told them he had been instructed by God to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, according to details of the program released yesterday.

The U.S. President made the statement when he met Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and then-foreign minister Nabil Shaath in June, 2003, the ministers say in the documentary Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, to be broadcast in Britain this month.

Mr. Bush also told them he had been ordered by God to create a Palestinian state, the ministers said. "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God,' " Mr. Shaath, now the Palestinian Information Minister, says in the program.

Mr. Shaath goes on to quote the President as saying: "God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.'

"And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.' And I did.

"And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.'

"And by God I'm gonna do it," Mr. Shaath quotes Mr. Bush as saying.

Mr. Abbas, who was also at the meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheik, recalled how the President told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

A BBC spokesman said the content of the program had been put to the White House but it had refused to comment on a private conversation.

Yesterday, however, White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied Mr. Bush ever made such statements, calling claims that he had done so "absurd."

The three-part series charts the attempts to bring peace to the Middle East, from former U.S. president Bill Clinton's peace talks in 1999-2000 to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
The program speaks to presidents and prime ministers, and their generals and ministers, about what happened behind closed doors as the peace talks failed and the intifada grew.
The series is due to be screened in Britain on Oct. 10, 17 and 24.

Buddha says; "A man is not a great man because he is a warrior and kills other men; but because he hurts not any living being, he in truth is called great man"

MASTERS OF DECEPTION

Master of Deception


Police veteran Dennis Marlock has written the book (several of them, actually) on scams, cons, frauds -- all shapes and sizes of street-level deception. Which makes him an expert witness to what's gone wrong in the executive suites of corporate America. Does everyone lie? Aren't we too smart to get conned? Some honest talk about dishonest business.

From Fast Company:


Issue 66 January 2003 Page 106 By: Linda Tischler


You'll never mistake him for the untouchable Eliot Ness or even for crusading New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. But Dennis Marlock is a pioneering crime fighter, passionate about righting wrongs in his specialized field. A 31-year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department, Marlock has seen -- and busted -- nearly every sort of street-level scam the criminal mind can devise: the pigeon drop, three-card monte, bank-examiner fraud. More than 15 years ago, impressed by the skills of the con artists whom he was trying to arrest and frustrated by how his fellow officers kept getting outsmarted, he founded Professionals Against Confidence Crimes. He remains the group's chairman.


And he has written the book on deception -- literally. In License to Steal (Paladin Press, 1994) and, most recently, in How to Become a Professional Con Artist (Paladin Press, 2001), Marlock takes his readers into the nimble minds and cold hearts of the criminals that he has encountered. Our challenge to this master of deception: Lead us through the nimble minds and cold hearts of executives who cook the books by misallocating billions of dollars' worth of expenses, analysts who "pump and dump" stocks, and CEOs who spend lavishly on their own behalf and then portray themselves as champions of the shareholder.


Fast Company traveled to Milwaukee for some much-needed honest talk about dishonest business, and here's what he had to say:


Many of our readers are asking themselves, "Why was I stupid enough to invest in Enron or Tyco?" Well, why were they?

"The biggest misconception about fraud is that the victims are stupid. The truth is, con artists prefer intelligent people. First, smart people are more likely to have money. Second, smart people are easier to fool precisely because they think they're too smart to get scammed. We deal with victims who are doctors, lawyers, judges -- even cops. The easiest people to deceive are those who think that they are immune to deception."


But what about the cliché, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"?

"Actually, if it sounds too good to be true, you're probably dealing with an amateur con artist. At the heart of any good con -- whether it's bank-examiner fraud or some scheme on Wall Street -- is plausibility. The fact that there are plenty of scams that you would never fall victim to doesn't mean that they're bad scams. It just means that they weren't designed for you. Good con artists invest a lot of time figuring out which kinds of people are most vulnerable to which kinds of scams."

What's the mark of a great con man?

"He's arrogant. He's cocky. He's brazen. And he loves his work. I remember when one guy who I'd been after for a long time finally got convicted. He got six years in jail, and I was there for the verdict. As they were leading him out in handcuffs, he said to me, "Nice game! You win." Earlier, he had told me that if he got convicted, he'd be back on the street the day he got out. "The money's too good," he said. "Plus, it's what I enjoy doing."

So is it too easy to compare Andrew Fastow from Enron or Dennis Kozlowski from Tyco with that sort of character?

"A lot of the people I deal with are every bit as clever as those executives. But there is a big difference. Executives have a built-in excuse: "I'm doing what everyone else is doing." Maybe they were the unlucky ones who got caught; maybe they feel as if the government changed the rules on them. Few white-collar criminals hold themselves personally accountable. Street-level con artists know that what they're doing is a crime.


When you put it that way, the street-level huckster almost sounds more honorable than the executive.

"I wouldn't say that. A lot of the con artists I've arrested are unbelievably charming. I've wanted to hug a few of them myself! But once the game is over, and they know it's over, you see who they really are, and it's not pretty. They're vicious, they're vindictive, they're hateful. Fraud investigators get incensed with how Hollywood portrays these people. If you're a serial killer, you're Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs with a mask on your face. If you're a swindler, you're Paul Newman or Robert Redford in The Sting."

By the way, "con man" is a funny term. Where did it come from?

" It's more than 150 years old. On July 8, 1849, the New York Herald reported the arrest of a swindler named William Thompson who would approach his mark by saying, "Sir, do I have your confidence?" Then he'd perpetrate his scam. The newspaper headlined the story "The Arrest of the Confidence Man." That's still the key element of these kinds of crimes: gaining your confidence, even if it's just for a moment.

"That word "moment" is key. One of the biggest giveaways that you might be part of a con is a sense of immediacy: You have to make this decision now. If a stock is a good deal today, it will be a good deal tomorrow. When you're dealing with any scheme that involves money, you should ask yourself two questions: Is it possible that this person could be lying to me? And if they are, what do I stand to lose? If the answers are "yes" and "a lot," take some time to investigate further. "

"Con artists are great at spotting our vulnerabilities. What's their biggest vulnerability? What kills them is that they can't tell other people how smart and slick they are. Eventually, they have to talk about it. Interrogation is my specialty. I get more confessions from con artists than from any other kind of criminal. It drives defense attorneys nuts! They can't understand why these people confess and then ask for a lawyer. But if con artists believe they have a sympathetic ear, someone who understands them, then they love telling you their story. They want to compare notes with you. They want to gloat. You know the old saying, "You can't con a con"? Well, I have proven that wrong countless times. "

Linda Tischler (ltischler@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer. Contact Dennis Marlock by email (fraudtech@justice.com).

Buddha says; "If a fool can see his own folly, he in this at least is wise; but the fool who thinks he is wise, he indeed is the real fool"

THE SOUL OF CAPITALISM

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism (Hardcover)by John C. Bogle

Book Description
A financial expert explains what’s wrong in corporate, investment, and mutual fund America, the reasons behind the problems, and what should be done about it.

About the Author
JOHN C. BOGLE is founder and former CEO of the Vanguard mutual funds. In 2004, Time magazine named him one of the most influential people in the world. In 1999, Fortune magazine named him one of the four investment giants of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite its inflated title, this volume is a worthy jeremiad against corporate excess, especially the kind hastened by the mutual fund industry that Bogle, former CEO of low-cost Vanguard, knows well. Among the problems: inflated executive compensation and creative accounting that allows companies to claim profits even when they're in the red. Mutual fund companies, Bogle charges, care more about short-term results than long-term value, and many of them gain profits for larger parent corporations by charging investors unnecessary fees that undermine the funds' net returns.

To remedy such problems, Bogle writes, mutual fund owners and their fiduciaries must exercise the corporate responsibility they now shirk, and fund boards must be reshaped to serve the interests of shareholders. He advances in all seriousness Warren Buffett's once-joking idea for a high tax on short-term trading gains and calls for a federal commission to examine the way pension funds are managed, as well as the state of our retirement systems in general. While other recent books, such as David Swensen's Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment, marry similar criticisms with more advice for individual investors, Bogle—a rock-ribbed Republican businessman—still deserves attention in the precincts of power. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ACHIEVING BUDDHAHOOD

We have spoken a great deal about compassion and equanimity and what it means to cultivate these qualities in our everyday lives. When we have developed our sense of compassion to the point where we feel responsible for all beings we are motivated to perfect our ability to serve them. Buddhists call the aspiration to attain such a state bodhicitta, and one who has achieved it, a bodhisattva.

There are two methods for bringing about this attitude. In his book. "An Open Heart", the Dalai Lama describes them: "One, called the Sevenfold Cause-and-Effect Method, hinges on viewing all beings as having been our mother in the past. In the other, Exchanging Self for Others, we view all others as we do our ourselves. Both methods are considered practices of the method, or path."

For many of us who are just beginning on the path, the message unflolding here is new territory. It may require some of us to alter our belief and thinking 90 degrees, but in so doing we are opening ourselves to a greater opportunity. An opportunity to view life with a panorama lense rather than a finely tuned microscope. Our world is being tested as never before and along with it; our values and traditional beliefs about everything. Massive change is immenent and it will lead us in a direction that will guide not only our children but our children's children to a kinder, more peaceful and compassionate world. So let's begin our journey to achieving Buddhahood and let's not forget that patience is required, for as we have been told, it may take this lifetime and perhaps several more to achieve the noble state of Buddhahood.

THE SEVENFOLD CAUSE-AND EFFECT METHOD

"If we have been reborn time after time, it is evident that we have needed many mothers to give birth to us. It should be mentioned that our births have not been limited to the planet Earth. According to the Buddhist view, we have been going through the cycle of life and death for far longer than our planet has existed. Our past lives are therefore infinite, as are the beings who have given birth to us. Thus the first cause bringing about bodhicitta is the recognition that all beings have been our mother."

"The love and kindness shown us by our mother in this life would be difficult to repay. She endured many sleepless nights to care for us when we were helpless infants. She fed us and would have willingly sacrificed everything, including her own life to spare ours. As we contemplate her example of devoted love, we should consider that each and every being throughout existence has treated us this way. Each dog, cat, fish, fly, and human being has at some point in the benningless past been our mother and shown us overwhelming love and kindness. Such a thought should bring about our appreciation. This is the second cause of bodhicitta".

"As we envision the present condition of all these beings, we begin to develop the desire to help them change their lot. This is the third cause, and out of it comes the fourth, a feeling of love cherishing all beings. This is an attraction towards all beings, similar to what a child feels upon seeing his or her mother. This leads us to compassion, which is the fifth cause of bodhicitta. "

"Compassion is a wish to separate these suffering beings, our mothers of the past, from their miserable situation. At this point we also experience loving-kindness, a wish that all beings find happiness. As we progress through these stages of responsibility, we go from wishing that all sentient (conscious) beings find happiness and freedom from suffering to personally assuming responsiblity for helping them enter this state beyond misery. This is the final cause. As we scrutinize how best to help others, we are drawn to achieve the fully enlightened and omniscient state of Buddhahood."

Buddha says; "A man is not a great man because he is a warrior and kills other men; but because he hurts not any living being, he in truth is called great man".