Thoughts Happen

How is Meditation Like Marketing?

Meditation — Marketing. It doesn’t seem that there should be any connection between the two. Think of a meditator and you probably picture a person sitting serenely cross-legged on a cushion with his or her eyes closed, hands resting gently or holding a pose with thumb and middle finger lightly touching to make a circle. Perhaps the setting is a quiet meditation hall or under a spreading tree in a magazine-worthy nature shot.  

Think of a marketer and the picture might not be so serene. Perhaps an underpaid desk jockey in India with a headset microphone, or a slick, aggressive Mad Men-type shyster trying to get people to buy things they don’t need. 

But in reality we are all meditators and marketers, whether we realize it or not.  

I ran across a discussion in a LinkedIn writers group recently that touched on this exact topic. One of the posters posited that even if we protest that we don't like marketing and don't want to have anything to do with it, all our public statements, including those on message boards and in person, are in fact part of our marketing and branding.

Writers who are too lazy to do the digging around to figure out what type of articles a market typically publishes, and simply email editors asking them to look at their website to ask what type of work they could get, are also marketing — in a negative way — to their intended audience. In essence, we can't escape marketing, so we might as well approach it consciously and productively. 

Hmm ... you mean I’m always marketing myself, consciously or unconsciously? Yikes. Better watch what I put out there!  

But what about meditating? Surely I am not meditating all the time.  

Well, it depends on how you see the word “meditation.” Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the spiritual leader of Shambhala Buddhism, in his video clip, "Learning to Meditate," (also shown below) says the word in Tibet has roots in the word “familiarity,” and so it really means getting used to something. 

“I always think that in a sense we are always meditating, meaning we are always getting familiar. Our mind is getting used to something. We may be getting used to the thought of anxiety, worrying, anger. Our mind is getting used to something. So in a sense we are meditating.”

It makes sense: whatever you place your mind on during the course of the day, you are getting familiar with. We can meditate on thoughts of being wronged, feeling impoverished or on our own fantasies and desires by constantly coming back to them during the day. Or, we can familiarize ourselves with kindness, curiosity and humor, and meditate on those.

Which kind of meditation and marketing would you choose?

 

 

The Art of Being Human

 A little over three years ago, I downloaded an audiobook to my iPod shuffle, pushed Play, and heard the author’s reassuring voice saying, “This very moment is the perfect teacher.” It felt like she was speaking directly to me. I’m sure I’m not the only one to have this experience upon hearing the opening words of Pema Chodron’s “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times,” but the book seemed to be a custom-made prescription for my own difficult times, and it was on steady rotation on my iPod for months. I also eventually picked up the hardcopy too in order to refer to specific passages.

Chodron is an American-born Buddhist nun in the Shambhala tradition who teaches about the very human aspects of the spiritual journey, and emphasizes developing lovingkindness towards oneself and a “fiercely compassionate attitude” towards the pain and the joys we all experience. She also talks a lot about bravery and the courage of the spiritual warrior.

I didn’t feel like a spiritual warrior when I started listening to Chodron. I felt like someone who was trying to make it through the next day without falling into a pit. But I was intrigued by her approach to meditation, which didn’t emphasize benefits such as lowering your blood pressure, but rather that meditation can be a method of consciously training the mind in developing a nonjudgemental attitude of unconditional compassion towards ourselves. This is a very powerful thing, because in order to have compassion for others, we must first genuinely experience it from ourselves.

 So I tried it, and began meditating on my own at home. But eventually I felt the need to reach beyond my own living room, so I turned to the almighty Google and found the San Diego Shambhala Meditation Center. I took the plunge (developing my bravery!), showed up for a Sunday morning sitting meditation and was given initial instruction from a senior member there. To my relief and delight, the people I met at the Center were welcoming and friendly without being (as I had feared) hippieish or just plain weird. In fact, they were refreshingly normal, and I felt right at home.

A few months later I attended my first Shambhala Training weekend, titled “The Art of Being Human,” and the rest, as they say, is history. The Shambhala path has been incredibly enriching to both me and my husband, without claiming any kind of exclusive rights to the one best way. Plus, nobody has ever expected me to wear a shapeless robe, become a vegetarian or give up my Christian affiliation.

For readers in the San Diego area (or those willing to travel to our fair city), the San Diego Shambhala Meditation Center is again offering The Art of Being Human as a weekend training on March 5-7, 2010. From the brochure:

The program is a secular meditation training that develops fearlessness, confidence and openness toward ourselves and others. By looking directly at our own experience, we discover a continuity of awareness underlying the changing conditions that make up our lives. Connecting with this wholesome, wakeful presence enables us to experience life fully and directly. In Shambhala this is referred to as “basic goodness” and is seen as our birthright.

Making this opportunity known is one small offering I can give to the Center in gratitude for the thoughtful engagement, gentle encouragement and genuine camaraderie I have found there. Click here for more details

For those outside the San Diego area, the Shambhala.org web site lists directories of centers around the world.