Mahakala At Work | Tricycle Magazine

Mahakala At Work | Tricycle Magazine
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The workplace presents us with some tough challenges that require both professional skill and spriritual wisdom. Giving difficult feedback to a colleague, confronting an offensive boss, motivating a disillusioned coworker, losing a job, exposing a fraud or a petty office theft—such challenges are real and unavoidable aspects of our jobs. Managing such difficulties can make us feel anxious or disillusioned and, at times even arrogant, inadequate, or fearful.

But navigating such workplace difficulties need not be distressing. In fact, managing conflicts skillfully can be a powerful opportunity for personal and professional growth. What I’ve found particularly useful is a traditional Buddhist way of working with conflict: the Mahakala method.

Carrying a weapon in each of his four arms, the Tibetan deity Mahakala strikes a threatening pose. But Mahakala is actually a protector deity, and meditators have long relied on his powers to help them through difficulties of all kinds in their daily lives. He represents our natural ability to promote what is sane and decent and to eliminate what is unreasonable and harmful. His weapons—a medicine-filled skull cup, a hooked knife, a sword, and a trident—represent four inner resources, traditionally called the “four actions,” for skillfully working with conflict by pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and destroying.

Being impulsive or arrogant about what is right and wrong, especially during a conflict, can be disastrous. We may think we’re doing what is best for everyone, but often we are only demonstrating our own inflexibility and aggression. Mahakala’s fierce pose reminds us to be alert and mindful—to manage conflicts precisely, and to act with sanity and decency. Here are the four principles that underlie the Mahakala method:

1. Pacifying

Pacifying, represented by the skull cup filled with a calming medicine with magical properties, is our ability to work with conflict peacefully. Often we view business conflicts as confrontations. We tense up, wanting to prove our point or possibly show our coworkers how clever or tough we are. Sometimes we may try to escape the discomfort (and avoid blame) by resorting to excuses or white lies.

Mahakala’s pacifying weapon is our ability to drop this struggle altogether. Pacifying starts with acknowledging that our defensiveness is an unnecessary psychological weight that is getting in the way of working with the problem. Rather than focus on winning or losing, we can permit our defensive energy to transform into curiosity about the conflict itself. What is actually at stake here? What does the other person really want to say, to see happen? Why is the other person so upset, and what would eliminate this distress? Listening, asking questions, appreciating the other’s point of view, expressing gratitude, and seeking clarification are all pacifying activities.

WAR

What was the Goddess and my inner self trying to tell me about how to relate to the cancer cells in my neck? It came to me this morning. "Fight like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita or Spartacus in the Starz Movie Channel". What the wife of Spartacus said to him when faced with their enemies, is what I say to my T cells, looking at the cancer cells, "Kill them, Kill them all!!!"

It is time for yet another adventure

Sufis say, "Greet every stranger that comes to your door with the awareness of who sent them and act accordingly. All people and situations are ultimately gifts from the Goddess." Or some such thing. So I got a gift today. My biopsy exploration shows a small centimeter module of cancer in my throat.

OK Goddess I know this gift is from you and you want me to remember that and act on it. Being your lover I will do so to the best of my ability, so thank you dear Beloved and let's DANCE! (laugh) If you who read this do not get maudlin on me. inshAllah!

Maudlin- adjective 1. tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental: a maudlin story of a little orphan and her lost dog. 2. foolishly or mawkishly sentimental because of drunkenness.

I say, Bring out the flutes and drums and sing and dance! Who knows where this adventure gift will lead. I trust it to be good whatever and when ever it is because She sent it to me as a gift, inshAllah!

We spent a weekend with the Bon Tibetans April 18, 2010

My and I had the pleasure and good fortune to spend a weekend with Temp lama leader of the Olmo Ling Tibetan Bon Center in Pittsburgh and Menri Ponlob Rinpoche head teacher of Bon monastery, the main monastery of the Tibetan Bon tradition. It was a beautiful and life changing experience. When Menri Ponlob Rinpoche did what they call a Transmission I had an experience I was not expecting. I felt my whole body and especially my heart area vibrate and become very warm. The last time I felt anything like that was when I was accepted into a Sufi order and the teacher startled me with the intensity of the loving energy I felt flow from him to me during the initiation ceremony.

Come visit the Olmo Ling Center sometime and get a feel for what I mean. If you are good at feeling energy just be open to feeling it as you look at the photographs below. What a wonderful gift for the people of Pittsburgh to have such a place as Olmo Ling and a man like Tempa Lama.