Shunryu Suzuki and Steve Jobs

                Listening to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi speak is a very different experience than Steve Jobs. Suzuki has a very humble and soft way of expressing himself as opposed to Jobs’ crassness he is so well known for. What I found instantly similar was how Suzuki says his teacher said that to be successful he should leave, so he moved to his teacher’s temple at age 13 and later moved to America where he founded the San Francisco Zen Center. Jobs, similarly, was able to decide when it was time for him to move on (leaving school etc) with ease.

                Shunryu Suzuki has a certain fluidity about him, every word is carefully chosen to give the fullest meaning to what he is trying to teach. In one of Suzuki’s lectures he talks about meditation and how a Buddhist meditating may be look four or five feet ahead but they are not looking at anything they are simply meditating. I think Jobs would have a hard time with that, he is constantly having ideas and is always very intense. In one part of the chapter “Atari and India” it is mentioned that Jobs struggled with meditation, probably because he is almost frantic in trying to find a sense of meaning, and that is counterproductive to Buddhism. They say in Buddhism that the only people with issues are the ones who think they have issues, Jobs was definitely one of those people, he had some clear baggage about being adopted, that event obviously prompted his search for an inner self.