Meditation – A Disruptive Innovation for Business Leaders?
Can ethical leadership be encouraged through meditation?
ESRC Seminar 2, 24th Oct 2014
Buddhist Meditation and the
Challenge of Leadership
Professor Peter Case
University of the West of England
Theravada Buddhism: Thai Lineage in the UK
Christmas Humphries
with Kapilavaddho Bhikkhu
- UK Buddhist Society1955
Phra Mongkhonthepmuni
-Luang Pu – Wat Paknam.
-Founder of Dhammakaya school
Alan & Jacqui James c.1985
Samanera ordination of
Alan James - 1968
Outline
• Very brief overview of dhamma-vinaya
(Buddhism): the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold
Path.
• Two forms of wisdom/three dimensions of truth.
• What is Buddhist meditation for?
• How does one meditate?
• Implications for those in leadership roles.
The Buddha once observed:
In this world… substance is seen in what is
insubstantial. [Sentient creatures] are tied to
their psychophysical beings and so they think
that there is some substance, some reality in
them. But whatever be the phenomenon through
which they think of seeking their self identity, it
turns out to be transitory. It becomes false, for
what lasts for a moment is deceptive. The state
that is not deceptive is Nibbāna… With this
insight into reality their hunger ends: cessation,
total calm.
(Saddhatissa, 1994, p.89 – Sutta Nipata)
Gotama the Buddha (c. 563-483 BC)
Buddhism (Dhamma-Vinaya) 101:
The Four Noble Truths
1. There is suffering (dukkha)
2. There is a cause of suffering, namely, all
forms of craving and attachment
3. There is the cessation of suffering
(nibbāna, which means literally
‘extinction’)
4. There is a path to the cessation of
suffering, known as the ‘Eightfold Path’
The Eightfold Path
• Pannā (Wisdom)
– Right view
– Right
‘thinking’/intention
Purification of view
• Sila (Ethical
discipline)
– Right speech
– Right action
– Right livelihood
Purification of conduct
• Samādhi (Meditation)
– Right effort
– Right mindfulness
– Right concentration
Purification of mind
Two forms of wisdom (pannā – Pali)
• Mundane: that pertaining to everyday
human and non-human worlds.
• Supra-mundane: that pertaining to the
phenomenological realm of meditation and
insights deriving from meditative practice
(culminates in nibbāna – super-normal
‘knowledge of the destruction of the
cankers’).
Three forms of truth in Buddhist philosophy
1. Conventional truths (vohāra-sacca) that relate to
consensus reality as socially conditioned and
constructed.
2. So called ‘ultimate’ truths (paramattha-dhammā),
which pertain to the constituent phenomenological
events and processes that make up conscious
experience.
3. Nibbāna or nirvāna (Skt.) which refers to an intuitive
knowledge of Reality that transcends duality and
representation. It is simultaneously transcendental and
immanent knowledge (not born of human
consciousness).
Buddhist Meditation
• Samatha meditation: concerned with
concentrating the mind - leads to
temporary states of bliss/release.
• Vipassanā meditation: aimed at
permanent release from suffering through
cultivation of insight.
Overcoming ‘Distracting Thoughts’ aka
‘Hindrances’ to Meditation
• Hatred (ill-will)
• Sensual craving
• Worry
• Sloth & torpor (laziness)
• Doubt
Meditative States
Levels of concentration
Normal level of consciousness
‘Access’ concentration
Hindrance free – bare attention
Deeper levels of concentration
leading to ‘fixed absorptions’
Mindfulness
Investigation
Energy
Development of
5 Faculties
Confidence
Concentration
What to do with a concentrated mind
• Investigate, investigate, investigate!
• Three delusions/’hallucinations’:
– Permanence
– Lasting happiness in the world
– A separate self that is the locus of experience
• Three non-delusions (truths):
– Impermanence
– Un-satisfactoriness
– Non-self (non-separate-ness)
Meditation & the Challenges of Leadership
• Meditation is not a panacea for effective leadership. It does
not generate worldly skills that are not already present.
• At a mundane level: Buddhist meditation requires
scrupulous attention to personal ethics. Someone in a
position of power and responsibility who follows the training
would thus develop an ethical sensibility and apply this in
their role.
• At a supra-mundane level: insight knowledge
revolutionizes the mind. It results in deep levels of
equanimity, the abandonment of selfishness and a
profoundly compassionate disposition. Such qualities in a
leader might be highly desirable!
• ‘Walking through the world lightly’: direct experiential
apprehension of holism and interconnectedness leads to a
changed sensibility - links to contemporary sustainability and
responsible leadership agendas.
Meditation – A Disruptive Innovation for Business Leaders?
Can ethical leadership be encouraged through meditation?
ESRC Seminar 2, 24th Oct 2014
Buddhist Meditation and the
Challenge of Leadership
Professor Peter Case
University of the West of England