The
West Australian - November 13th 2004 (Australia)
High Flyer slows down for happiness
Corporate high-flyer David Michie had it all - a top job in London's rarefied world of PR, expensive city apartment, luxury car and holidays abroad. But he still wasn't happy. And the he found religion - Buddhism, to be exact - and everything changed.
Sound like a familiar story? Well it is but Michie, now based in Perth and the author of several books, including The Invisible Persuaders: How Britain's Spin-doctors Manipulate the Media, makes it a fresh and compelling tale.
And along the way he gives some valuable insites into Buddhism and the never-ending human quest for happiness and how that might be achieved in his book, Buddhism for Busy People.
Michie is still involved in corporate communications as well as being a practicing Tibetan Buddhist. So he knows about the difficulties of balancing a busy life with the need for some stillness of mind and heart.
Keeping busy has become a hallmark of personal success in the Western world If you're not busy, there's something wrong.
Being busy, though, might be the solution to some of life's challenges but it doesn't bring happiness. Nor does the other Western penchant for the "I'll be happy when..." syndrome. When I get the job I always wanted; when i find the perfect partner; when we get the kids off our hands...
Michie calls it the "self-defeating art of postponed happiness" and quotes George Bernard Shaw: "There are two disappointments in life: not getting what you want and getting it."
The mistake, he points out, is to expect and external event to make us happy. The problem is that when we get what we want, we find out after a while that essentially nothing has changed. "We discover we're still us."
Michie's progress towards happiness came in a rash which conventional medicine couldn't fix. A naturopath told him that his life was too stressful, his body full of too many toxin and that he needed to cultivate some calm and tranquility and try a meditation class.
Which is how he ended up at the Tibetan Buddhist Glem Stree Gompa in Kensington in the tutelage of Trungpa, know as Rinpoche, and on a life-changing journey.
And that involved making time for meditation: a key part of Buddhism practice which, as Michie discovered, even the busiest person can do.
As Rinpoche explained to the mediation class: "Practiced properly, over a period of time, meditation changes our whole interpretation of reality. It helps us break free from the superstition that we need certain things and people to make us happy. It allows us to find our true nature."
Of course, the mad to bliss is not always easy and it requires patience and perseverance.
Buddhism is sometimes described as a road to salvation without the aid of divine grace. The grace we need, however, is patience, which we can only supply ourselves.
Which is one of the great strengths of Buddhism, the ability to equip its practitioners with the tools to find happiness from within. It's also one of the strengths of what Michie has to say in this book.
And his story has an interesting twist. As he progressed in his practice of Buddhism, his writing career took off. Was this a beneficial by-product, a "ripening" of his individual karma? It looked like it. Two novels were published and were selling well and prospects for publication of a third were looking good.
In a strange quirk of fate Michie went to New York to discuss the new book with his agent. It was September 11, 2001 and shortly before he met her, the sky fell in with the attack on the Twin Towers. In a surreal atmosphere the meeting went ahead and all seemed well in regard to the book.
Six months later Michie and his wife celebrated his success and his birthday in Margaret River. But on their return, his world started to fall apart. His books were no longer selling and the draft of his third novel, his editor said, has nothing to recommend it. She suggested he get another publisher.
It was a profound lesson in the folly of the "I'll be happy when" approach to life.
But, Michie says, at least had had learnt enough of the Buddhist approach to realise that this was not the end of his world. In the last analysis, he could interpret its significance in a positive or negative way.
"I could make myself miserable in the confines of my sesame-seed sized self or I could relax into a much truer recognition of reality: boundless, pristine, interconnected, blissful."
If you read this book, you might eventually be able to come to a similar sense of equanimity: At least it will be a good start