As the photo caption notes, “Meditation and mindfulness are the new rage in Silicon Valley. And it’s not just about inner peace — it’s about getting ahead.”
This is from the article: In Silicon Valley, Meditation Is No Fad. It Could Make Your Career by Noah Shachtman, Wired, 06.18.13.
Here are some excerpts:
“Chade-Meng Tan is perched on a chair , his lanky body folded into a half-lotus position. “Close your eyes,” he says. His voice is a hypnotic baritone, slow and rhythmic, seductive and gentle.
“Allow your attention to rest on your breath: The in-breath, the out-breath, and the spaces in between.”
“We feel our lungs fill and release. As we focus on the smallest details of our respiration, other thoughts—of work, of family, of money—begin to recede, leaving us alone with the rise and fall of our chests.
“For thousands of years, these techniques have helped put practitioners into meditative states.
“Today is no different. There’s a palpable silence in the room. For a moment, all is still. I take another breath.
“The quiet is broken a few minutes later, when Meng, as he is known, declares the exercise over.
“We blink, smile at one another, and look around our makeshift zendo—a long, fluorescent-lit presentation room on Google’s corporate campus in Silicon Valley.
Shachtman notes Meng and most students are Google employees, and “this meditation class is part of an internal course called Search Inside Yourself.
“It’s designed to teach people to manage their emotions, ideally making them better workers in the process.”
He adds, “More than a thousand Googlers have been through Search Inside Yourself training. Another 400 or so are on the waiting list and take classes like Neural Self-Hacking and Managing Your Energy in the meantime.
“Then there is the company’s bimonthly series of “mindful lunches,” conducted in complete silence except for the ringing of prayer bells, which began after the Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh visited in 2011.
“The search giant even recently built a labyrinth for walking meditations.”
Book: Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan, Forewords by Daniel Goleman and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
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See related articles:
Mindfulness as a powerful strategy for entrepreneurs
Meditation for Emotional Health and Creativity
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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