Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

A path with Heart, one human’s story

Bill Landauer
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Palo Alto, CA

Late Friday afternoon, a couple years ago, a customer of my company, Cadence Design Systems, called with an urgent problem that was delaying the production of their chip. I was able to work with some of my co-engineers to get their issue resolved. The satisfied customer hung up the phone and I went home. Although I had handled the crisis, I didn’t feel much richer on the inside. A couple months ago, I led a yoga class, and after the class, a student expressed his appreciation for how much better his previously-sore body felt. This time, I could feel the warmth inside my heart, resonating with this student’s newfound comfort.

In order to support my family, I got my master’s degree in Computer Science. Then I worked as a software engineer for 25 years, helping my company improve its product, software which tests the design of chips. Although this occupation was not my ideal way to earn a living, it did bring in the paycheck. It also met the requirements of Buddha’s fifth step on the 8-fold path, right livelihood, since the company I worked for was not directly responsible for damaging the earth or harming human beings. Although I did not derive complete inner satisfaction from my career, I was still living from the heart because I was supporting my wife and family.

As a creature living on planet earth, I believe I am truly blessed in that I have been able to retire from my engineering career in favor of teaching yoga. This new career path resonates so easily with my innermost core. It is in teaching yoga that I can touch others’ lives in a meaningful way, helping them improve the health of their bodies, the knowledge of their minds, and the wholeness of their spirits.

I want to make another point about the time when I was a software engineer. Not only was that a time when I was living from my heart, but it was also a time of spirituality, in a sense, just as much as now, when I teach yoga. Why do I say that? Because although I was in more stressful situations trying to solve customer problems and did have more so-called “negative” thoughts, I also sometimes had the wisdom to see that they were just thoughts. Having those “negative” thoughts was not as powerful as the experience I had come to have of a place inside me that is always o.k. This place is full of peace, wisdom and love. Its existence does not depend on the type of work I do, what I do with my body, or even what I do with my mind. This place exists in each of us. Wonderfully, it is an automatic part of being human. And each one of us, at any moment, has the potential to experience it.