Present! offers a 26 minute video on teachings from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Roshi taught many lessons that are easily seen in the way Jobs lived his life. Especially important was Roshi's lesson on zazen, which was when a person sits absolutely still and does not think. Ideas may come into one's mind, but these ideas may also go out, and that is all OK. I think this relates to Jobs because of the concept of focusing on these ideas. When Jobs thought a product was shit, he did not think about the consequences of voicing his thought, he simply reacted, as if he was in this state of zazen and did not think about what was coming in or out of ones mind. However, this state of zazen is also interesting when thinking about Jobs because of his constant manipulation of people. One day he would say they were brilliant, and then the next day he would go behind their back and call them stupid. He always seemed to be trying to control situations by outsmarting/overthinking people who he believed stood in his way.
Another teaching that is interesting to me was a common Buddhist characteristic, to go beyond things, to go beyond the subjective and objective worlds and the various beings and ideas that we have. When working with Apple, Jobs always demanded perfection from every single person. He wanted people to go beyond what the norm was, to go beyond what was already formed, and to create something that nobody had ever heard of before, something nobody thought was even possible. I think this characteristic was something that had a drastic effect on the way that Steve Jobs lived his life.
Important 3 minute clip relating to this blog:
Zazen and Buddhist characteristic
The 26 minute youtube clip of talks of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center:
No comments:
Post a Comment