Chapter 7. The Buddhist MBA
Buddhism is not merely a philosophy; it is a religion that consists of a philosophy together with a system of practice leading to its religious goal, i.e. attaining wisdom to see everything the way it is in each breath of life. Its system of practice shall be coined the “Buddhist MBA”. Here, MBA is an abbreviation for Mental Business Administration. Attainment of such wisdom will follow from culmination of one’s skills in one’s administration of one’s own mental business. The tools of administration are IM and EM.
Since one’s I (the Internal World of Senses) is complex and intricate, starting out as the CEO overseeing the whole I may be overwhelming. One may need to start out as a trainee, practicing simple tasks to develop skills and gain experiences before one takes on the entire enterprise.
Simple exercises of training for development of one’s skills in applying IM and EM can be invented by restricting IM and EM to subsets of I . For example, consider a subset of N15 X N25 X N33, which is itself a subset of I , consisting of ordered triples of breath consciousness, breath perception, and neutral sensation. As one breathes in, focus one’s attention to the breath in the nostrils and count 1. As one breathes out, focus one’s attention to the breath in the nostrils and count 1. Represent these first two counts by (1,1). Continue in the same manner and count (2,2). Then continue and count (3,3), (4,4), and (5,5). Consider these five pairs of counting as the first round with five inhalations and five exhalations. Repeat the first round and append it with another pair of count (6,6). This is the second round with six inhalations and six exhalations. The third round will consist of seven inhalations and seven exhalations. Continue until reaching the sixth round with counts up to (10,10). This completes the first exercise that can be represented as follows:
(1,1) (2,2) (3,3) (4,4) (5,5)
(1,1) (2,2) (3,3) (4,4) (5,5) (6,6)
(1,1) (2,2) (3,3) (4,4) (5,5) (6,6) (7,7)
(1,1) (2,2) (3,3) (4,4) (5,5) (6,6) (7,7) (8,8)
(1,1) (2,2) (3,3) (4,4) (5,5) (6,6) (7,7) (8,8) (9,9)
(1,1) (2,2) (3,3) (4,4) (5,5) (6,6) (7,7) (8,8) (9,9) (10,10)
To complete the above exercise, one must be both intensively and extensively mindful with one’s counting as one breathes in and out. Should one lose track of one’s counting at any time, recollect and start all over until one completes the exercise. Then immediately proceed to the second exercise by repeating the first exercise and so on. All these exercises can be performed anywhere at any time in any posture one may wish. Bed time before one goes to sleep is perhaps a convenient time. One may set one’s own goal as to how many such exercises one wants to perform each time. As one starts seeing the benefits of these exercises, one will want to do more and more. Such an exercise may sound rather simple, but those who have not tried it before will quickly find out concerning their concentration ability.
To be continued . . .
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