Zen View on the Diary of a CEO: Simon Sinek Interview

Today I would like to look at an interview clip from the Diary of a CEO website where Steven Bartlett is listening to Simon Sinek talk about the moment when he said he realized the meaning of life.

The clip is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0k6X8aB7LA

The story Sinek tells is about how in a state of extreme panic and fear for his life in war-torn Afghanistan, he realized the peace and comfort he felt at the idea that “true purpose in life is to serve those who serve others.”

Leaving aside this conclusion for now, I was interested in how Sinek reached and expressed his experiences and insights. Sinek tells his story vividly and emotively, and that is the source of its power. But I noticed from his storytelling that essentially, he was describing his emotions, and the meaning and significance he drew from the situation was basically a rationalization or explanation of his emotion reactions. In the West, truth is seen as lying in the underlying emotions. If a person feels something deeply, it is the truth for them.

  Moreover, experiencing emotions deeply allows people in the West to experience a sense of true self. The experience of an emotional self overpowers and overrides anything else. It is very difficult for a Western person to contemplate the idea of no self because their felt experience indicates that they have a self, a true self, an emotional self. Emotions are evidence to a Western person that they have a self.

When a Western person feels emotions, it is like saying “This is true!” “This is me!”

If it were to be described in terms of art, a Western person experiencing the truth and self they feel from their emotions is like a portrait painting. Each individual is different and each individual is unique and true. But the focus is on the individual.

Next, I would like to think about the Zen idea of no self and the Zen perspective on emotions and the meaning of life.

In Zen, a pure expression of no self might be “Its so hot!!!” or “I’m so sad!!” or “I’m so happy!”

This seems contradictory to a Westerner because we tend to think if a person is feeling sad or hot or happy there must be a self that is feeling it. But Zen says no, when a person is so completely sad or happy or unthinkingly natural in taking off their clothes because they are hot or putting them on because they are cold, there is no self. It is truth.

So a moment when a Western person might feel deep overwhelming all-consuming emotions that they are unable to see anything beyond is described by a Western person as “This is me! This is self! This is true!” BUT would be described in Zen as “No self! No me! No truth (truth beyond expressible truth)!!”

But the insight, the moment is the same thing.

Zen would see truth in Sinek’s panic and fear and relief and gratitude, all the emotional stop-off-points of his story.

But Zen would not rationalize the emotions into a meaning-laden story, full of concepts and derived ideas.

In Zen, the irrepressible emotional moments are evidence of no self, because the emotion can be observed, so the emotion cannot be the self. Because a person can see themselves being happy or sad, they are not that emotion, even as they feel it. The ability to observe emotions is evidence of no self, separate from the emotions and experiences.

When a Zen practitioner experiences emotions, for them it is evidence of a no self: “This is not me!” Therefore, they can abide with the emotions or continue to experience them. They are free to be emotional or to let them pass. In Zen, truth is the interconnected landscape of emotions and everything else. If it were to be described in terms of art, a Zen practitioner experiencing their emotions is like a landscape painting. There are no particular actors. Everything acts. Everything is interconnected and sufficient. Every brushstroke, every leaf is essential as it is.

But what of Sinek’s conclusion that life’s purpose (although Zen says we don’t need one) is to “serve those who serve others?” Well, apart from sounding like a piece of overthinking by a person in a time of stress, first, there are no “others.” We are all one. We all already serve each other, even when we don’t serve each other. But yes, we could all do well to serve each other. So I think the Zen view would be a casual: “Well, why not, if you want to!”