What kind of buddhist was Steve Jobs, really? | Hacker News Reader

What kind of buddhist was Steve Jobs, really?

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128 pointslarve65 comments

An imperfect one, like the rest of us.

Edit: since I'm getting downvoted into oblivion, let me elaborate: no Buddhist is perfect, if they were perfect, they probably wouldn't see a need to study Buddha's teachings.

It's not like Jobs was out criticizing how people lived their lives in "sin".

Steve was perfect as he was, he just needed some improvents.

To those downvoting my comment, get off the Internet and go read the books the post is talking about, specifically Zen Mind, Beginners Mind. Then maybe you'll get what Steve actually believed.

Steve Jobs, imperfect.

His core, perfection itself.

Old pond, droid jumps in.

plop!

For the silly people downvoting, this is a reference to a Japanese Haiku.

Old pond, frog jumps in - plop!

Not much of one. I read the bio too, and got a different picture - Jobs used Buddhism because he had such problems. We'll probably never know what problems specifically, just like we'll never know what his eating issues were (Isaacson says Jobs was urged to see a therapist about it, but refused) - narcissism as one woman speculated? Bi-polar?

To me, the most insightful anecdote was:

> 'Our consumer desires are unhealthy, he told her, and to attain enlightenment you need to develop a life of nonattachment and non-materialism. He even sent her a tape of Kobun Chino, his Zen teacher, lecturing about the problems caused by craving and obtaining things. Egan pushed back. Wasn’t he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted? “He was irritated by the dichotomy, and we had exuberant debates about it,” Egan recalled.'

Yes, I guess that's one way to describe it...

"Wasn't he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted?"

Buddhism expresses a distinction between a thing in and of itself and an individual's interpretation of a thing.

"Computers and other products" are simply things in and of themselves. However, it is the individual that applies an interpretation to these things, such that the individual can allow these things to define him or her.

In essence, there is nothing "defying that philosophy", as the question asks. If an individual covets or self-identifies with a thing, Buddhism says that this attachment is what ultimately causes suffering. This attachment is the result of an individual's interpretation of a thing, and not due to a thing in and of itself.

> "Computers and other products" are simply things in and of themselves. However, it is the individual that applies an interpretation to these things, such that the individual can allow these things to define him or her.

It is also an individual who devotes his life towards working on ever more desirable consumer products, and also individuals who devise and support ad & PR campaigns based on the idea of defining oneself with a brand and associating with it and all the insidious consumerism ideology that comes with 'lifestyle' brands.

> In essence, there is nothing "defying that philosophy", as the question asks.

The philosophy in question was not Buddhism's ontology, which varies drastically from Madhyamika-style emptiness to older karma entities; nothing can defy that philosophy because they are consistent with all possible actions and observations. The reference was to the moralizing; for all you wrote, I still see tension between a stance based on eliminating cravings and a life spent stoking and satisfying for cash cravings.

> The reference was to the moralizing; for all you wrote, I still see tension between a stance based on eliminating cravings and a life spent stoking and satisfying for cash cravings.

It seems as though that tension arises in you simply imposing your misunderstandings of what Buddhism seeks to do in eliminating worldly desires, though. Buddhism fundamentally offers the proposition "if you are dissatisfied with life, and if you agree that certain things are responsible for that dissatisfaction, here is what you can do about it." It isn't proselytory. It doesn't require that you impose that view on others, or work to reduce their attachment, whether they want it or not, out of some need to save them from some Western concept like sin.

The fact that you think the right livelihood for a Buddhist ought to be one that in no way involves creating or selling things that people might form worldly attachments to, doesn't mean that Buddhism itself teaches that, or that people doing so are behaving inconsistently with the teachings of the Buddha.

There are Buddhist teachings surrounding what the right livelihood is and is not. Being a salesman doesn't fall under the "inconsistent with the teachings of Buddhism" livelihoods, even though it, by definition, means making others want to buy things from you.

So you're saying Buddhism as you see it teaches you to screw other people over (cause them to become more attached to material things) in order to benefit yourself at their expense? It's not that Apple is about selling things that people might form attachments too - that's the business model, to make people become attached to them in order to continue to sell to them.

That doesn't mesh with the, admittedly very limited, reading/experience of Buddhism I've had.

> So you're saying Buddhism as you see it teaches you to screw other people over (cause them to become more attached to material things) in order to benefit yourself at their expense?

No, not at all.

Attachment isn't like sin. To a Buddhist, attachment is more like lactose to a lactose-intolerant. You can recognize that lactose is the root of your difficulties, and work to eliminate it from your life, while still working for the Milk Council without that being some kind of deep moral hypocrisy. Just because it causes suffering for you doesn't mean other people have a problem with it, and even if they do, it doesn't mean they can't choose to drink the occasional glass without over-doing things.

You can work a job and buy an iPod and sleep with your wife without being attached to those things in the unhealthy way that Buddhists mean by attachment.

Err, there isn't just "the thing" but a dedicated and directed marketing program to make you absolutely covet the product. Everything about capitalism, marketing, and advertising is about making us covet things so we buy them. Sorry, but there's no easy cop-out here. 99.9% of what Jobs did was marketing and its even more important than the product, imho.

What's your point?

Buddhism is not Christianity. It does not assert that it is the One True Path, and that it's teachings are the One Size Fits All solution to everybody's problems.

It does not follow that what Buddhism teaches is bad for Buddhists (attachment to objects) is therefore bad for everybody, and that if you market something that someone may allow themselves to form attachments to, you have therefore harmed them. If a Buddhist allows themselves to become attached to their iPod, then Buddhism offers them tools to deal with the suffering that might arise from that; there is no attached 'sin' committed by the marketing team at Apple.

Jobs didn't fail to meet any standard that Buddhism sets out for Buddhists (Buddhism sets very few such standards. You can be angry and discompassionate and attached to worldly things, and be Buddhist. The idea is that Buddhism helps you deal with the problems you have, not that Buddhism requires you to be a perfect being or kicks you to the curb).

You're simply inventing your own arbitrarily high standards based on fundamental misunderstandings of Buddhist concepts.

So if Buddhism does not assert that it is the One True Path, what's the Fourth Noble Truth?

In America, Buddhism tends to be portrayed in this sort of light: basically, that Buddhism makes no exclusivist truth claims. But for a Mahayana Buddhist to make the Bodhisattva Vow in the context of the Four Noble Truths necessarily entails teaching others about certain things which are True, to the exclusion of things which are false (belief in Jesus or Allah or Vishnu etc) Perhaps the missionary form of this is not quite equivalent to, say, Evangelical Protestantism, but it's there.

One concept within Mahayana Buddhism is that of Skillful Means, the idea that sometimes a teacher has to use or allow an expedient practice even if it's not the "highest" truth. So the Zen Buddhists say that all the Shin Buddhists are ok, because it's just skillful means for them to believe in the salvific power of Amida Buddha and next life they'll have a better chance at encountering the fullness of Zen. Or maybe their recitation of the nembutsu is just some sort of meditative practice that happens to produce desirable Buddhist qualities. Nevermind that this is totally revisionist to the Shin understanding.

Yes, you can be angry and discompassionate and attached to worldly things and "be Buddhist." But if you die that way you probably won't be reborn as a human. Maybe as a hungry ghost or a fighting demon. :)

So if Buddhism does not assert that it is the One True Path, what's the Fourth Noble Truth?

The hand pointing to the moon is not the moon.

``Come, Salha, do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with a liking for a view after pondering it or with someone else's ability or with the thought 'The monk is our teacher.' When you know in yourself 'These things are unprofitable, liable to censure, condemned by the wise, being adopted and put into effect, they lead to harm and suffering,' then you should abandon them.''

AN 3.66

The Buddha is saying not to follow something on the basis of externals, but rather on one's own self testing. That the Buddha arrived at the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path through such testing is of importance.

If we return to the Pali scriptures, we can see that although the Buddha states that the question of God/gods is in the realm of "unanswerable questions," that even if they did exist they would ultimately undergo death and rebirth, albeit perhaps in an unimaginably long time frame from the perspective of humans. He considers debates over deities pointless, _because even they are subject to the truths he espouses_. Is this not a truth claim that contradicts most theistic religions? Is this not a truth claim to the supersession of Buddhist truth over others? (Forgive me, but my copy is in another location so I can't give an exact reference.)

Although the view of deities in Buddhism differs between schools, the general understanding of Buddhism is that such belief is not conducive to enlightenment. This is indeed an exclusivist truth claim to the superiority of the Buddhist practice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism

So, Buddhism agrees with Einstein rather than Heisenberg?

Einstein: The moon is there whether or not anyone is looking at it.

Heisenberg: The moon may not be there if there isn't anyone looking at it.

Buddhism: The hand pointing to the moon is not the moon.

"The pointing finger is not the moon" has never, IME, been taken to make ontological claims of any kind about the moon, except that it's not the finger pointed at it. It means the same thing as, "The map is not the territory," and not, "Because this map shows rivers and towns in these locations, such rivers and towns must exist."

Your idea of a thing is simply and solely your idea of the thing; the thing, itself, is simply and solely the thing, itself. Buddhism just suggests out that you conflate them at your peril (to the extent, of course, that Buddhism has a notion of "peril").

Oh. I took it to mean that Buddhism is the quest for truth not the truth.

Buddhism may assert that there is a true path. The difference between it, and many other religions, is that you don't have to be Buddhist to walk the eightfold path.

What you've said is just an instance of skilfull means. Ultimately, the followers of other religions (or no religion) will suffer rebirth in Samsara and continue to experience suffering. To the degree that they walk the eightfold path via their current paradigm, that will determine the quality of rebirth.

Edit: My point is that Buddhism proclaims that the Four Noble Truths are applicable to _all sentient beings_. Not that they are applicable only to Buddhists. If that was the case, then the Bodhisattva Vow could be resolved simply by the cessation of Buddhism! But the Bodhisattva Vow is a vow to save all sentient beings, not all Buddhists.

Luke 11:23 - "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters."

Some religions are more exclusive than others. If you've been (or are) a Protestant Christian (depending on the denomination, of course), you may think of religions as exclusive belief systems. It's like political parties - you join one because it's right about everything, then sneer at the others which are just there to mislead the innocents. Then you join a faction in the party, because the rest of the party has fallen from the true path (though presumably not enough to damn them to hell).

"Religion" is an abstract word, not a concrete one. It can have different meanings. Some religions are exclusive belief systems (like many political parties); others are more like philosophies with a bit of mysticism thrown in. It's only their ability to retain adherents, and their attempts to explain the mystical that make us call them "religions".

I don't think I've ever met a self-identified ex-Catholic, or ex-Buddhist, just non-practicing ones; because they don't seem to think that their lack of faith and practice excludes them from their religion. As an ex-Protestant, I used to ask how they could still say they were part of a religion they obviously didn't practice or believe in. Then I realized that my definition of "religion" was different to theirs, because my religion stated that you had to believe to be part of the faith.

Christianity has one way into heaven, baptism, but beyond that things diverge quickly. It's better (IMO) than believing different religions but acting the same in practice. As Chesterton put it:

"So in Christendom apparent accidents balanced. Becket wore a hair shirt under his gold and crimson, and there is much to be said for the combination; for Becket got the benefit of the hair shirt while the people in the street got the benefit of the crimson and gold. It is at least better than the manner of the modern millionaire, who has the black and the drab outwardly for others, and the gold next his heart. But the balance was not always in one man's body as in Becket's; the balance was often distributed over the whole body of Christendom. Because a man prayed and fasted on the Northern snows, flowers could be flung at his festival in the Southern cities; and because fanatics drank water on the sands of Syria, men could still drink cider in the orchards of England. This is what makes Christendom at once so much more perplexing and so much more interesting than the Pagan empire; just as Amiens Cathedral is not better but more interesting than the Parthenon. "

Apple and Jobs damn well know their marketing exploits societal pressures and individual shortcomings that also results in their devices being sold to people that can't afford them and suffer as a result of buying them.

Many philosophies allow you to defend such behavior, by pointing out the net advantage the devices have for all people that buy them combined. Buddhism doesn't, because it expects you to act in non-harmful ways.

In these days of mass communication, that basically means from abstaining from using mass-communication devices, because you can know, within reasonable doubt, that many kinds of communication will cause some harm. It's only within personal interaction with a small number of people that you can honestly attempt not to cause any harm.

Apple has made a business selling smartphones to people who covet them.

Guinness made a business selling beers to people who covet them.

Marlboro made a business selling cigarettes to people who covet them.

Smith and Wesson made a business selling guns to people who covet them.

No one needs an iPhone. No one needs a beer, or a cigarette, or a gun. People want them, and some people covet them.

You're not doing harm when you're selling a gun to a farmer who want to stop coyotes killing his hens. You're not doing harm when you sell a smartphone to a businessman to make his life and job easier, or more productive. You aren't doing harm selling a beer to a guy who drinks every other saturday night, and not when the kids are out and you might have to drive. You aren't doing harm when you sell a cigar to a guy who smokes one every new years.

You are doing harm when you sell a iphone or an ipod to someone living in poverty, because they don't want to look different from their coworkers or friends. You are doing harm when you sell a gun to an 18 year old in Detroit who's going to use it to rob a convenience store. You are doing harm when you sell a pack of cigarettes to a chain smoker. You are doing harm when you sell a bottle of vodka to an alcoholic.

It's easy to say Steve Jobs is 'evil' because he made people covet iPhones. But I don't covet iPhones, or iPods. I think he marketed them excellent, but he didn't make me buy one when I couldn't/shouldn't or didn't want to. I drink two beers maybe one night in a month. I've gone through half a pack of cigarillo's in a year and a half.

I don't blame tobacco companies because smokers wan't to smoke. I don't blame distilleries because alcoholics want to drink. I don't blame Blizzard because Warcrafters want to WoW. Just like I don't blame Gillette because people want to shave every morning.

If you covet something just because someone marketed it, then you've got something really wrong with you.

If you purposefully exploit known shortcomings of people, to their own disadvantage, there's something very wrong with you as well.

If Budhhism claims that attachment to physical things is bad for people, and that it is bad to have a livelihood based on doing bad things to people, then having a livelihood based on encouraging physical attachments is contrary to being a good Budhhist.

Of course, I've heard Eastern thought shuns black and white logic, so maybe my argument is wrong because it is logical.

That's Theravada Buddhism. The Mahayana branch which includes Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism embraces attachment. How are you supposed to cultivate empathy and compassion without attachment?

Cultivating "witnessing detachment" is still fundamental to these traditions. It's just considered incomplete without a cultivation of heart.

The "market" is actually a big element of Buddhism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls stage 10

Buddhism typically evokes the image of monks sitting in caves. This is more characteristic of Theravada Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism is about bringing the Buddhist way into all aspects of life. In Zen(Mahayana branch) temples for example, simply washing the dishes is an art in itself.

clearly, 99.9% of what Jobs did was not marketing.

"Wasn't he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted?"

Just to add to this, buddhism actually has the idea of "right livelihood" which is one part of the noble 8-fold path. The 'wrong' livelihoods are enumerated: Business in weapons, human beings, meat, intoxicants and poison. essentially things that do physical harm to other life. Attachment is all around us, not just consumer goods. It is no particular "sin" for Jobs to make a livelihood selling things people want, overcoming our desire for consumer goods is just a small step in many life times process of liberation.

>It is no particular "sin" for Jobs to make a livelihood selling things people want //

The success is that people don't want things, you make them want them and then you sell them and then you make them feel that what you sold them wasn't quite as good as they thought. Then you can sell them the same idea that they're unfulfilled but will be completed by your latest product.

Manufacture of cutting edge gadgetry has long involved dealing in intoxicants and people; mostly manufacturing without care for harms to the environment and those living in the areas that are harmed. Dealing in people as near worthless entities to be dismissed as simply a cog in the machine that makes the machines that you sell to become a better capitalist.

In retrospect, that biography is quite lacking on a lot of points. It seems like Isaacson was not able to get through to jobs in any other way than Jobs allowed. Maybe this is due to him rushing the book to be released 2 weeks after his death, there is almost no analysis of Jobs.

I also wonder how Jobs, as buddhist as he was, would rationalize his anger. In the book he repeatedly says "that's how I am", which is pretty much what buddhism tries to undo. He definitely was an irrational man.

There are limits to Buddhism. It can't change your sexual orientation; it can't make you immune to pain, and, apparently, it can't eliminate temper--especially if you're ancestors are from herder societies, which evolved temper to protect their vulnerable assets. Certain things are predominately innate.

How do you know what the limits to Buddhism are? Have you tested the limits?

Letting go of conceptions was one of Buddha's teachings. "Certain things are predominately innate" is a conception and holding on to that limits progress [1].

[1] Progress in this case means deliverance (enlightenment).

There is no certainty, only degrees of belief. I don't "know" that the world is round--I haven't seen it from space and I haven't circumnavigated the globe, and I can't construct a proof. However, I'm "pretty damn sure" the world is round. If the human race restricted its belief to only those things it could be 100% sure of, we would still be in the Bronze Age.

Similarly, I can't know that Buddhism can't levitate you off the ground and make you immortal, but I'm "pretty damn sure" it can't, and I wouldn't get any flack for saying so.

There are many preconceptions I am comfortable letting go of, but not the ones I mentioned--at least not without extraordinary evidence.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304395907...

That was only a pilot study, but it does appear that meditation is useful for pain. A recent fmri study suggested that one year of meditation caused quite large changes in the experience of pain.

I've worked with researchers studying how mindfulness can ameliorate chronic pain. Here are some references- the mind is a powerful thing.

http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/medpain.pdf http://www.neuro.cjb.net/content/31/14/5540.short

Thanks to all for the informative replies. The point I attempted to make is that while you can change the mind, you can't change it completely. Buddhists still feel pain, albeit less pain, and tempers can still flare. I suspect Steve would have been even more intolerable without Zen, and his comments reflect the limits he encountered attempting to change himself.

I don't know if this is true, but it's irrelevant.

Sexual orientation: Buddhism's stance on sexual morality is pretty simple. No rape and no deception (cheating on a partner, sex with someone underage, and misleading a person to acquire sex all qualify as "deception"). There aren't rules about before vs. after marriage or gender. Buddhism is focused on practicality and harmony, not adherence to assertedly eternal rules.

Immunity to pain: not sure of that one. The brain is a powerful thing, and accomplished yogis (not to claim equivalence between yoga and Buddhism) can get power over their bodies in pretty unusual ways. However, Buddhism's main concern is the reduction of dukkha, which translates as "mental suffering". Focusing on the elimination of physical pain is not a primary goal. This wouldn't even be desirable.

Temper: I think you put your foot in your mouth here. Spend some time around some seriously accomplished meditators. Yes, there are difficult personalities and some strange (even arrogant) people. However, if you look at aggregate differences, the serious practitioners (and it has more to do with depth of practice than identification with "Buddhism" per se) are remarkably (on average; these are aggregate comparisons) calmer, less neurotic, and less self-absorbed than people without practice.

It's of note that the Dalai Lama said that homosexuality "is generally considered sexual misconduct" for Buddhists.

http://www.quietmountain.org/links/teachings/gayrites.htm

Something that complicates this discussion is that there are many varied forms of Buddhism, sometimes saying seemingly contradictory things. While it's important to be able to use the term "Buddhism" for the sake of conversation, we have to be careful of our scope in making claims.

To place this in perhaps more culturally familiar terms for Americans: the Hinayana (even this term is controversial) vs Mahayana branches are as different as Catholics and Protestants, with the Mahayana schools being basically as diverse as Protestantism.

I can relate to this "Jobs wasn't a real Buddhist" nonsense because I practice Buddhist meditation and still can have a difficult personality. (I'm extremely intense and opinionated, to the point of being moralistic.) I was a lot worse when I had no spiritual path. The fact that I still have personal difficulties (as nearly everyone does, including most Buddhists) does not mean that my practice has been without value.

Spiritual progress is intensely personal and hard to measure, but the existence of anger in a person doesn't make that person "a bad Buddhist". It's not like Western concepts of religion where you're a bad $RELIGIOUS_DEMONYM or a good one. There are skilled people and unskilled people. Steve Jobs was using Buddhist teachings and practices to develop skills that most people don't have and that he probably lacked, to some degree, even unto death. No shock there. Getting to Enlightenment takes a long time.

sorry for not being clear in my choice of words (english is not my native language). i didn't mean that jobs wasn't a real buddhist, but on the contrary, that he was a very serious and dedicated practitioner. I would have liked to know a bit more about how he saw his personality and style, as he obviously more than often had to ponder that in his zen retreats. Yet the only thing we get from isaacson is jobs saying "that's the way i am". I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity, and shows that isaacson was in the reality distortion field for pretty much most of the book.

This is a bit off topic, but can you suggest accessible meditation resources for the beginner? Are books sufficient, or is a teacher necessary?

You don't need a 1:1 teacher but I recommend starting with a community of sorts, with classes led by a teacher. Find a Buddhist prayer center. Don't worry if you don't believe in God or religious dogma; none of that's important with the communities you're trying to enter. (Buddhism is theologically agnostic, and although the religious believes in past lives, you won't be rejected by Buddhist communities if you don't believe in past lives or reincarnation.)

Once you've gained a sense of what approaches work for you, it's a good idea to get some books and study them. One great thing about zen/meditation books is that you can read them every year and they're still fresh-- there are things in them that you didn't pick up the last time because you weren't ready for them.

You can start practicing meditation using books. But joining a meditation group helps enormously.

While the instructions for meditation are truly simple, taming the mind is not :). There are some pitfalls we all walk into, like attachment to serenity that meditation can bring or getting discouraged by roadblocks. Having a teacher or joining a group helps you not getting stuck.

In cities, there are groups in different traditions (e.g. Vipassana, Zen, Diamond Way). These traditions have similar goals and methods, they can 'feel' very different. So, it's good to sit in with different groups once or twice to see where you feel at home.

With respect to books, I really enjoyed "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", but it can be a bit daunting. Philip Kapleau Roshi's "Three Pillars of Zen" is said to be a good introduction.

The OP article is as good exposition of Buddhist thought and practice as you will find. Shunryu Suzuki mentioned in it was an exponent of the Soto school of Zen which emphasizes 'just sitting'. Just that, sit with straight back. Look up 'seiza' for more information if you wish, but no need to get too technical. Also, I believe there are online meditation support groups if none are available near you.

zen buddhism could have been a treatment program for this dude ,

as the character was not the most loved one among his employees, competitors etc. , needed some improvements

To me Zen seems like a lot of vague mumbo-jumbo. It can be interpreted any which way you want, making it sometimes seem wise and profound. The Buddhism I learned is quite simple and clear. It just boils down to two Golden Rules:

1. The Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish to be treated. 2. The Golden Mean: Everything in moderation, nothing in excess.

and the related commentary as to why these are good policies to follow.

Another rule I think makes sense in the world is a sort of temporally shifted golden rule: try and leave things better than when you found them to do unto future people what you would wish them to do had they gone before you.

This could be Dunning Kruger effect at work ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect ).

From what I know, there isn't much (any?) major debunking of zen from people who've studied it closely, the way it's easy to find on Christianity.

Zen first flowered in Japan during the Kamakura period because it appealed to samurai as a no-nonsense approach to dealing with that time period's problems (i.e. Mongol invasion) Over the years, the mumbo-jumbo factor accrues, but there are always reformers who try to keep Zen practice relevant (e.g. Shunryu Suzuki).

No, it's a lot more than that. It is a practical method for awakening to aspects of life which most people hide from. Though you wouldn't know it from content-free, gossippy BS like in the OP article.

Re #1: what if you're a masochist?

"There's nothing holy about mindfulness" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri2hA1TqDT4

  Wake Up!
  Life is transient
  Swiftly passing
  Be aware
  The Great Matter
  Don’t waste time.

Wow there is a lot of misinformation here, especially about Zen.

If making beautiful things is encouraging attachment then I guess all of the Zen poets and painters weren't (and aren't) very Zen either. Nor are the architects, florists or writers.

And to say that he wasn't or couldn't be a Buddhist simply because he had imperfections and flaws? What?!

Also, look up Vimalakirti. You don't need to renounce the world and material possessions to be a 'good' Buddhist, whatever that is.

Let me clear a couple of basic things related to this issue.

The origin of Zen comes from greater vehicle Buddhism. In Buddhism, we have two main derivatives: greater vehicle Buddhism and small vehicle Buddhism.

Small vehicle Buddhism devotedly focuses on what Buddha done to reach nilvana. So, they execute tough ascetic training in shrines.

But, as we know, not everyone can execute such training because of many reasons. So, greater vehicle Buddhism was born. And Zen was established in China by indian Buhddist, Daruma because it was heretical in India. After Confucianism became major religion in China, Japan was the successor of Zen. This is the history.

This story is pertially closed to the origin of Christianity.

Zen is the practice everyone can do. Controlling anger, relieving oneself from anxiety, and exploring answers inside, not outside. That's all. The meditation is one of the methods. We can do it everywhere.

One of the key concept in Buddhism is "changing ever". Everything is unstable.

And, I realize that one of the Jobs's greatest management philosophy is to release his past. This philosophy is very closed the above concept in Buddhism. As we get old, we easily stick to our past achievement. But, it doesn't mean anything, even will be bottleneck for us to step forward simply because everything changes, which also means everything is imperfect.

I think this is why Jobs used to said "the death is the great invention" because we are forced to step forward by death.

I think it's not about religious thing, it's about philosophy every one should have.

For me, it's not important whether Jobs is a kind of Buhddhist or not. He taught us "to release past". That's a most important thing.

The kind that believed meditation was something he did sometimes.

It is none of your business, leave him alone. I think he would be sick of that idolatry.

That would seem to contradict Steve Jobs' ad his wife's desire to publish an un-candy-coated (as quoted in the book) biography of the man's life, both his successes and his serious failures.

The man clearly wanted people to know and ponder all of these things.

Would he? His private life was indeed very private while he was alive. But, the guy sat down for hours of interviews with Isaacson so that a book could be produced about him. If he didn't to be the centre of any kind of attention, he choose strange ways of showing it.

So he was an atheist. It would come as a shock to a number of Apple fanboys in the US. Edit : so downvoters think a buddhist is not an atheist ? or that it would not shock anyone in the US ? or what ?

I don't know why people have downvoted you but ... Buddhism doesn't contradict there being a deity and some Buddhists worship figures as if they were gods and certainly consider some to have supernatural powers.

So it would seem based on the story here that you've not a strong starting point. Perhaps he was a deist/agnostic/atheist/apatheist I don't know or particularly care.

As to your second assertion, how is it relevant to peoples regard for the devices/software he was party to? How is that line of enquiry pertinent to HN?

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