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Talk: 19840920-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-buddhas_ancient_med_path_a_modern_challenge_part_ii-1516 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 13:52 Display_question: How do we balance having goals and striving in a competitive work environment? Keyword_search: competitive, goal orientation, Gandhi, striving, competition, competent, judged, transform, Buddha, energy, meditation, death Question_content: Questioner: I thought back to this idea of… I'm in a competitive work environment, and I think…or I guess a question I want to ask you, is there a point we can take that striving, and that goal orientation, and turn it as Gandhi did, so that it's working for you with it, and empowering, so that we don’t have to separate ourselves, from our goal? Larry: Yes, very important. See, if we don't learn how to do what you're talking about, we're finished, because the striving, and the competition, is not going to go away. Okay, so let's say you've been meditating. You come here, you hear this, and it makes total sense to you, but you still want to keep your job, you still have to eat, et cetera. So, then the question isn't… setting up an opposition. You could quit, and think you're solving it that way, and maybe that's one solution, and get into areas which are not as competitive, but the competition is in your heart… so that you can be effective on your job. That would be a tremendous challenge for you to free yourself from within yourself, and have all the energy that you need to be competent. Break_line: Now, look, what you'd have to go with everyone around you is using language about getting somewhere, and that might push a button in you. I won't get there. So you'd have fear or feeling of being judged. So you'd have to free yourself from a lot of toxins. So I would say, at least theoretically, it would be possible for you to stay exactly where you are. But you spiritualize it, you transform it from within, and maybe no one even knows except you. But you're not getting all of the psychosomatic ailments, et cetera, and you might even be successful. Break_line: After all, the Buddha is a successful person. And many of these, some of the teachers I've had, have had tremendous boundless energy. They know how to get things done in the world, and where's that energy coming from. The odd thing is, if you can let go of that, there's more energy available. The whole universe is just waiting to be tapped. The competition comes from strive… from friction. They're that way, and I'm this way, and if I can pass them, so the energy comes from that. But there's an energy that comes from where both those segments are coming from. Questioner: (inaudible) And part of this is there's so much energy with that striving in that environment. Rather than what you said earlier. The part to move yourself, and get to the more low key, or less active environment. Now you can turn the very active competitive environment your way to get low. Larry: Okay, if I could generalize from what you're saying, one of the things that meditation can help us with… is to free ourselves from the tyranny of our situation, of our circumstance. We find ourselves in a good situation, in a bad situation, it's very easy to be happy, in a good situation. And then suddenly we find ourselves in not such a good situation. Is there some way in which we don't have to be, let's say, as tyrannized or perhaps even totally free of it, doing what's appropriate at the time. And the ultimate challenge, of course, is freedom from death, from the fear of dying. So you have a good arena to practice in. End_time: 17:06
