The ZEN of Steve
Q : Steve, can you tell us how did you implement elements of ZEN in your life and work?
SJ: For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Q: Would you agree with Yamamoto Tsunetomo, who wrote the following words in Hagakure, the Book of Samurai: “If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.”
SJ: Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Q: Tsunetomo also writes: “Every morning a warrior should recommit himself to death. In morning meditation, see yourself killed in various ways, such as being shredded by arrows, bullets, swords, and spears, being swept away by a tidal wave, burned by fire, struck by lightening, dieing in a earthquake, falling from a great height, or succumbing to overwhelming sickness”. Isn’t it a bit too heavy shadow to live under?
SJ: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Q: The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself?
SJ: Things don’t have to change the world to be important
Q: What is important?
SJ: Focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Q: The beauty of Zen is also found in simplicity, tranquility and harmony. Meditation could be said to be the Art of Simplicity – simply sitting, simply breathing and simply being, says Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Is this all what is needed?
SJ: If you don’t love something, you’re not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life.
Q: Not everybody can be so focused and single minded as you.
SJ: You’ve got to find what you love and that is true for works as it is for lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t find it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you’ve found it.
Q: It reminds me what ZEN master Dogen said: “If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?. Do you agree?
SJ: Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Q. Simplicity, heart and intuition. Is this a base of your personal system?
SJ: The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t mean we don’t have process. Process makes you more efficient.
Q: Do you believe in linear progress based on process?
SJ: I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.
Q: How can you maintain such an attitude when everyone says that you failed?
SJ: You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Q: ZEN master Shunryu Suzuki said, that in Japan they use phrase shoshin, which means ”beginners mind”. The goal of practice is always to keep our beginners mind. Do you agree?
SJ: The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again — less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
Q: To be a beginner is the secret of all arts, but it seems to be against work based on skill and experience.
SJ: I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next. Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.
Tess wrote on Mar 24:
The Zen of Evil Businessmen compares Steve Jobs with Donald Trump. He is clearly an idiot.
The Zen of Evil Businessmen wrote on Mar 24:
I suggest creating an entire series of these. You can call it "The Zen of Evil Businessmen." You can do a similar interview with Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay (Enron), Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs), Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco), the Walton Family (Wal-Mart), Donald Trump, Hermann von Siemens…the list is endless. Steve Jobs, as the king of slave labor, would top the list, of course.
who cares about steve jobs wrote on Mar 24:
why people continually feel the need to talk about this clearly evil person is shocking...move on people
anonymous wrote on Mar 21:
For the record. Everyone has a Buddha nature. This is one of main ZEN principles. It applies to me, you and Steve Jobs. We all have right to opinions, so I don't mind sparring. However I won't further exchange opinions with my predecessor who clearly shows lack of balance and hysteria in his opinions. It is demagogy per se.
Zen of Steve ok, but how about the Buddha of Bill! wrote on Mar 21:
Steve Jobs clearly brings up extreme emotions: devotion and adoration on one side, and hatred and disrespect on the other. Perhaps some may find it interesting that he made statements which seem Zen. But it was sadly just an affect of a life philosophy that is not at all Buddhist. The Buddha said, "Do not commit evil; Do good devotedly...that is the precept of all Buddhas." Steve Jobs was certainly no Buddha. When you look at his life, he was an ingenious capitalist driven by primarily by greed who did not care for the welfare of others and who amassed an obscene fortune. There is no comparison between him and Gates, who is giving away his fortune to help save lives. Jobs had zero public record of philanthropy. ZERO. Jobs made cool gadgets via slave labor. And he said a few things that sound Zen while his slaves toiled away and his dedicated sheep bought his Macs and iPhones. Time to move on from Jobs. He did his damage, we are still seduced by his gadgets. Oh well. In the end, he was a bad person, arguably evil, who doesn't need more airtime now. It is more interesting to look at the Buddha nature of Bill Gates, someone who is a true humanitarian who follows the precepts of the Buddha.
M wrote on Mar 21:
Oh boy, what an outpour of negative energy flows after "The ZEN of Steve" interview! I am frankly taken aback. Too bad all of it comes as quotes from others. It is too easy and not very creative. My interview with Steve Jobs never took place . All his answers are made up from his quotes. I came up only with questions..
I don't want to judge Steve Jobs as good or bad person, or make him a saint or a hero. I simply noticed how close are his statements about death, simplicity and other subjects to ZEN principles. Perhaps he showed in his life traces of what Tibetan Buddhist call a crazy wisdom. It refers to unconventional and outrageous behavior, being either a manifestation of Buddha nature, or a method of spiritual investigation.
Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs? Basically good vs. evil . wrote on Mar 21:
"Steve Jobs was a hero only in the Ayn Randian sense. A living, breathing character out of Atlas Shrugged, he treated the people who actually manufacture Apple products like serfs and hoarded his $8.3 billion fortune to no apparent purpose. Apple is a wonderful company for its customers and investors...But Apple is also an engine of misery for its subcontracted Chinese workers...thirty-four-hour shifts, beatings, child labor, an epidemic of suicides and a general prison-camp atmosphere prevailed...How ironic that the media love to celebrate this alleged icon of ’60s idealism at the expense of poor, square Bill Gates, who is devoting the better part of his fortune to improving the lives of millions of the world’s poorest people. " -- The Nation
Jobs was a total asshole wrote on Mar 21:
Normally, I would not speak ill of the recently dead but all this gushing over this piece of shit human being has really disgusted me. Here are some examples of the gag inducing idiocy on the part of the masses that are devoted to this fucking asshole who certainly wouldn’t have given a shit if you, or I, died.
Apples and flowers and candles and notes littered the sidewalks in front of Apple stores around the world Thursday. In a rare show of emotion for an American CEO, the world reacted to the death Steve Jobs with an outpouring of devotion. -Washington Post
Even our idiot corporate-puppet president had his stupid say, he said,
Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators — brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.
Seriously? Changed the world? I’m sorry but making fucking cell phones and tablets for yuppies to show off to each other is not changing the world for the better, and it certainly isn’t a reason people should be mourning an asshole. His phones didn’t even have anything that groundbreaking about them, sure the UI was better, but its not like he discovered cold fusion people. Stop this bullshit. Even actual good people aren’t mourned like this when they die and they at least tried to help starving people or were doctors to people in Africa, or tried to help people in some other way. Instead, we don’t even know those people’s names, but we mourn an asshole who helped create the fucking iPhone, the most overrated piece of technology ever. This says a lot about our civilization and its messed up priorities. Steve Jobs, with his technological creepy marketing-created cult and the factories in China where slaves build the iPad and iPhone, only made the world worse, since humans become a bit more monstrous each time they exchange wholesome emotions for the empty worship of electronic gadgets.
To be honest, I am glad he is dead. It shows that while rich people have taken everything away from the poor; their hopes, their dreams, even their minds and their dignity, at least they still haven’t achieved immortality yet. They die just like us and for that I am glad. In the end, all the advanced medical technology and transplants of 3rd world children’s livers weren’t enough to fight off the great equalizer, death.
He wasn’t even a nice person, he was an arrogant, aggressive and temperamental jerk who just used people. He claimed to be a Buddhist, but there is nothing Buddhist about a greedy asshole who only cared about wealth and his own inflated ego. I think lots of people like him because he is epitomizes the values of our bullshit society. Our society which wants us all to just fawn over products, be bland people who love money, and, most importantly, not give a fuck about each other. He is like every bullshit asshole I meet in Manhattan, claiming to be part of some “counterculture” but in reality just being conformist money-grubbing egotistical pricks. Steve Jobs was what all the asshole hipsters and yuppies who worship him wanted to be, and that is both sad and horrifying. Changing the world indeed, changing it into something worse. Even his own once-illegitimate daughter lived on welfare for 2 years because he just didn’t give a fuck, he even denied paternity by claiming he was sterile.
He even fucked over the Woz, who is a much nicer person, on numerous occassions, one of which is,
Jobs noticed his friend Steve Wozniak–employee of Hewlett-Packard–was capable of producing designs with a small number of chips, and invited him to work on the hardware design with the prospect of splitting the $750 wage. Wozniak had no sketches and instead interpreted the game from its description. To save parts, he had “tricky little designs” difficult to understand for most engineers. Near the end of development, Wozniak considered moving the high score to the screen’s top, but Jobs claimed Bushnell wanted it at the bottom; Wozniak was unaware of any truth to his claims. The original deadline was met after Wozniak did not sleep for four days straight. In the end 50 chips were removed from Jobs’ original design. This equated to a US$5,000 bonus, which Jobs kept secret from Wozniak, instead only paying him $375.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Also, after resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs. So don’t be fucking stupid and cry for Steve Jobs, he wouldn’t care about you. He didn’t care about anyone except himself and his ego. Fuck Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was an asshole.
http://www.dystopiaearth.com/?p=645
LP wrote on Mar 20:
I think Malcolm Gladwell is wrong. Forgetting Jobs is like forgetting Gutenberg. It's not gonna happen. Statues of Bill Gates across the Third World?..yuck!
Alan W. wrote on Mar 20:
"Of the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. 'Who was Steve Jobs again?' But ... there will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World…There's a reasonable shot that -- because of his money -- we will cure malaria…I firmly believe that 50 years from now [Bill Gates] will be remembered for his charitable work. No one will even remember what Microsoft is." -- Malcolm Gladwell