the diamond cutter
Geshe Michael Roach is a Princeton graduate and Buddhist monk. After graduation, he spent seven years studying the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism. At the suggestion of his teacher, he joined a fledgling diamond business in New York to test his ideals in real life. He remained with the company as a member of the core management team for seventeen years.
The company grew from a start-up with two owners and two employees to $100 million in sales and 500 employees in offices around the world. The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life tells the story of how Geshe Michael Roach built the diamond division of this company, using principles drawn from ancient Tibetan Buddhism as the driving force behind his decision-making.
Drawing on the lessons he learned in the diamond business and years in Buddhist monasteries, Roach shows how taking care of others is the best way to take care of yourself, even, especially, in business. As he says, you have to engage in “mental gardening,” which means doing certain practical things that will form new habits that will create an ideal reality for you. If this sounds a bit outrageous, his very precise instructions are realistic and address numerous specific problems common to the business/administrative world.
Through this practice, you will become a considerate, generous, introspective, creative person with immense integrity, and that will be the key to your wealth…
Some of the many ideas in The Diamond Cutter are as follows:
A business must be successful; should earn money. There is no conflict between spirituality and success in business. Successful entrepreneurs have the resources to do more good in the world than people who don’t have the same resources. Also, the same people who are drawn to business are the same people who have the strength to grasp and carry out the deepest practices of the spirit.
Money must be made honestly and with absolute integrity. How we make money is more important than anything else. It determines our ability to continue making money, as no one can indefinitely run a business based on dishonesty or deceit. It also significantly affects our ability to enjoy the money we earn.
Nothing is good or bad in itself; everything has hidden potential. This is what the Buddhists call emptiness. What is bad news for you may be good news for someone else, and vice versa. We must not jump to conclusions about events, but rather stop to consider what potential they really hold for us. Even competitors can be seen as fairy godmothers challenging us to find the right path to greater achievement. It is a matter of perception. With the right frame of mind, we can turn our problems into opportunities.
We must look to the inevitable end of our days in the business and put ourselves in a position where we can honestly say that our years in the business had some meaning. The idea here is to anticipate our future and move in a direction that allows us to look back on our past with complete joy and satisfaction.
The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life by Geshe Michael Roach (Author)
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