Acknowledgments
If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
—Isaac Newton
Hey, there is some guy standing on our shoulders.
—Giants
This book is about applying wisdom in the real world, but none of that wisdom actually came from me. The wisdom is already everywhere, practiced, taught, and embodied by countless generations of wise men and women, many of whom live among us. I see great people. Walking around like regular people. They don’t even know they are great.
No, I did not generate wisdom. All I did was translate it into terms that even I can understand. I am merely a translator for the wise ones. In a way, they are the real authors of this book and I am just the guy typing on the keyboard.
First and foremost, I want to give thanks to my main drinking source of that wisdom. He is a man so dear to me and whose teachings I have become so intimate with that, in my heart, I endearingly refer to him as “the Old Man.” Others know him as the Buddha. I am also deeply grateful to those who have passed down his teachings and especially those who passed those teachings directly to me. Among them are the late Godwin Samararatne (my first meditation teacher); the Venerables Sangye Khadro, Bhikkhu Bodhi, S. Dhammika, and Matthieu Ricard; the Very Venerable Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche; Zen Masters Thich Nhat Hanh, Norman Fischer, Shinzen Young, and Joan Halifax; and lay teachers Jon Kabat-Zinn, Shaila Catherine, and Alan Wallace. I am grateful to His Holiness the Dalai Lama for exemplifying great wisdom, compassion, and humor in the modern world, and also for giving me a hug for my fortieth birthday. He made turning forty almost bearable for me. I am thankful to all of them and many others for deepening my mind.
I am thankful to many who showed me the same wisdom and compassion in the context of faith traditions. I was deeply touched reading the Sermon on the Mount and learning about the life of Jesus Christ. I am thankful to a beautiful woman I met in college, Cindy, for introducing Him to me. I later managed to con, I mean, convince her to marry me. Many other dear friends reinforced my attraction to Jesus. One of them is a Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast, who impressed me with his deep serenity and gentle humor. Another is Dr. Stuart Lord, a Baptist minister who also manages to be a Buddhist meditator running a major Buddhist university. Other dear friends like Norman Fischer showed me that you can be a practicing Jew and Buddhist (in his case, a classically-trained Buddhist Zen master) at the same time. I am thankful to all of them and many others for opening my mind.
There is a story I need to tell: Once upon a time, there were three highly talented young men who wanted to serve the world and who became close friends with each other. Their names were Danny, Richie, and Jon. When they grew up, they each became world famous in their own unique ways, but the success of each one beautifully complemented the success of the other two. Danny is Daniel Goleman. He became a highly successful author who popularized emotional intelligence. Richie is Richard J. Davidson. He became a highly respected scientist who, among numerous achievements, pioneered much of the science behind contemplative practices. Jon is Jon Kabat-Zinn. He became the first person to bring mindfulness into mainstream medicine and, in the process, brought mindfulness into mainstream modern culture. My work would have been impossible without any one of them. If Danny hadn’t popularized emotional intelligence, or Richie hadn’t pioneered the neuroscience, or Jon hadn’t introduced mindfulness into the mainstream, Search Inside Yourself would not be successful. I stand on the shoulders of these giants. I’m happy for them that I’m not too fat, at least not yet.
I am grateful to the Search Inside Yourself team for the work that directly inspired this book. I want to thank Daniel Goleman again, whose active support made Search Inside Yourself possible. I want to thank the Search Inside Yourself instructors for not only creating the curriculum but also being my teachers. They are Norman Fischer, Mirabai Bush, Marc Lesser, Yvonne Ginsberg, and Philippe Goldin, every one of whom taught me something valuable. I thank the core Search Inside Yourself team for doing the actual work of making it happen: Hongjun Zhu, Joel Finkelstein, David Lapedis, Rachel Kay, Albert Hwang, Monika Broecker, Jenny Lykken, Terry Okamoto, and Sara McCleskey, and many others who have volunteered their help in some way. Albert and Jenny deserve special mention for creating some parts of the curriculum and helping us teach some classes even though they were not formally on the instructors team; they are both talented far beyond their years. I would also like to thank the early bosses of GoogleEDU (known back then as Google University) for approving Search Inside Yourself, especially to Peter Allen for being our first “patron saint” as the then director of Google University and, his manager, Paul Russell for giving us the final approval and his subsequent unrelenting support. Paul modestly jokes that his biggest contribution to Search Inside Yourself is “not saying no.” I also want to thank other managers at Google for their vital support at various times: Jun Liu, Erica Fox, Stephan Thoma, Evan Wittenberg, and Karen May. I want to especially thank Karen not just for being the best manager I have ever had but also for being an example of what a highly empathetic manager is like. Karen is the most empathetic person I have ever worked with; I call her the Queen of Empathy. She is one of those rare senior managers who is widely beloved by her people.
I am thankful to all the highly talented people who, in their moments of weakness, agreed to work with me on this book. Chief among them is Colin Goh, my friend, advisor, and illustrator. Colin is an award-winning cartoonist and filmmaker with a law degree—what’s not to love about that? Christina Marini was my talented and tireless research assistant—if any of you ever need to employ anybody, you’ll be lucky to have her. Jill Stracko advised me on various aspects of writing and gave me her time to edit various iterations of early drafts. Jill used to head the White House writing staff, so I feel really honored to be on the receiving end of her generosity and wisdom. My agent, Stephanie Tade, was a rare find. When I advertised for an agent, I set an unreasonably high bar for who I wanted to work with. Among many requirements, I wanted somebody with a solid meditation practice who is driven primarily by compassion, is highly successful at what she does, and yet is open to doing things in entirely unconventional ways. I didn’t expect her to even exist, but I found her within two weeks. Thanks to Jim Gimian and Bob Stahl for helping me find her. I have learned a lot from my editor, Gideon Weil, and have really enjoyed working with him and everyone else at HarperOne, including the publisher, Mark Tauber. I want to thank Philippe Goldin and Thomas Lewis for giving me valuable scientific advice. Last but not least, I am thankful to friends who took the time to read through my early drafts in their entirety and have given me many useful suggestions, including HueAnh Nguyen, Rich Hua, Olivia Fox, Audrey Tan, Tom Oliver, Kian-Jin Jek, Tomithy Too, and Kathrin O’Sullivan.
I am deeply thankful to my parents for keeping me nourished and sheltered (no small feat during my early Asian childhood) and for keeping me out of trouble for all my formative years. I am also deeply thankful to my lovely wife, Cindy, for (still) keeping me. Last but not least, I am grateful to my daughter, Angel, for being the greatest love of my life and for loving me back.
For those of you whom I owe a lot to, let me repay you partially with this poem, mostly because it costs me nothing:
Let’s go, vamanos.
Beyond the limited mind.
Everybody let’s go.
Welcome to enlightenment!
(In original Sanskrit: Gate, gate. Paragate. Parasamgate. Bodhi svaha!)