Bank of the West Pt. IV – Misquoting The Buddha
Posted by The Zen Cueist on August 24, 2009
All posts in the “Shaming of Bank of the West” series can be viewed by clicking here.
Last Friday, I emailed John Stafford of the bank’s Corporate Communications department to advise him that region manager Selene Hall had not done her job, nor he his. He replied only with a borrowed aphorism:
Find your faults,
feel deep regret and correct your mistakes,
reform sincerely,
practice kindness,
concentrate the mind,
sever selfishness,
Awaken …~ The Buddha
I laughed and replied, “Namaste’!” But that didn’t sound quite like Siddhartha to me; he was not into fault-finding or regret. So I went Googling.
The aphorism originates from Heart of Buddha, a product of Amitaba Publications. I asked if the words were Gautama’s or another’s. Ven. Wuling, publisher, tells me,
“‘Heart’ contains wisdom from the Buddha and from my teacher, Ven. Master Chin Kung. I also wrote some of it. The quote you ask about is something I wrote.”
It’s not uncommon for things to be falsely attributed to The Buddha, or Mark Twain, or Loni Anderson, or Einstein. Stafford still deserves a bow for pointing me to a lovely source of dharma.
Stafford’s email address is of the unimaginative and insecure format firstname.lastname@bankofthewest.com. So I emailed region manager Selene Hall using that format, just a shot in the dark. I reminded her that I was awaiting her reply to my reply of last Friday.
She quickly responded, denying that the bank had said in its letters, as I summarized it, “pay up or we’ll close all your accounts and report you to the credit agencies”. So I asked her,
“Ms. Hall, If Bank of the West does not plan to close all my accounts and report me to the credit agencies, what does it plan to do if I do not pay these unwarranted fees by July 30?”
Oops. I meant August 31, the “end of the month” referenced in the letters. This whole thing started in July.
Haven’t heard back from Ms. Hall yet. Her note said, “This past week I have been in meetings all day.” I suppose that’s what region managers do, but if so why did she invite me to waste my time trying to return her phone call? When, exactly, will she find time to “discuss the situation with” me?
Do you see why I avoid the telephone when attempting to deal with corporate thralls?
