SuttaCentral
Here in the west, we’re living in a very different world to Iron Age India 2,500 years ago.
Giving employees a chance to meditate and be calmer in their everyday lives isn’t necessarily something negative, or even always labelled as being"Buddhist".
I know Hindus, Jains, and Christians who meditate, for example, as well as people who don’t identify with any religion at all.
Alas, its all too easy to criticise the practice and the supposed motivations of others, while neglecting our own imperfections and misperceptions.
I do it all the time.
Meditating regularly and looking for the goodness in so-called “ordinary beings” (puthujjanas) can often help to prevent one from getting too screwed up and angry with the rest of the world for being different to oneself in one way or another. 
Thanks for that reminder. It’s something I often forget, but that attitude IMO one of the most important and practical teachings in the suttas, something worth reflecting upon, remembering and putting into practice.
Then Ven. Sariputta addressed the monks: “Friend monks.”
“Yes, friend,” the monks responded to him.
Ven. Sariputta said: “There are these five ways of subduing hatred by which, when hatred arises in a monk, he should wipe it out completely. Which five?
“There is the case where some people are impure in their bodily behavior but pure in their verbal behavior. Hatred for a person of this sort should be subdued.
“There is the case where some people are impure in their verbal behavior but pure in their bodily behavior. Hatred for a person of this sort should also be subdued.
“There is the case where some people are impure in their bodily behavior & verbal behavior, but who periodically experience mental clarity & calm. Hatred for a person of this sort should also be subdued.
“There is the case where some people are impure in their bodily behavior & verbal behavior, and who do not periodically experience mental clarity & calm. Hatred for a person of this sort should also be subdued.
“There is the case where some people are pure in their bodily behavior & their verbal behavior, and who periodically experience mental clarity & calm. Hatred for a person of this sort should also be subdued.
“Now as for a person who is impure in his bodily behavior but pure in his verbal behavior, how should one subdue hatred for him? Just as when a monk who makes use of things that are thrown away sees a rag in the road: Taking hold of it with his left foot and spreading it out with his right, he would tear off the sound part and go off with it. In the same way, when the individual is impure in his bodily behavior but pure in his verbal behavior, one should at that time pay no attention to the impurity of his bodily behavior, and instead pay attention to the purity of his verbal behavior. Thus the hatred for him should be subdued.
“And as for a person who is impure in his verbal behavior, but pure in his bodily behavior, how should one subdue hatred for him? Just as when there is a pool overgrown with slime & water plants, and a person comes along, burning with heat, covered with sweat, exhausted, trembling, & thirsty. He would jump into the pool, part the slime & water plants with both hands, and then, cupping his hands, drink the water and go on his way. In the same way, when the individual is impure in his verbal behavior but pure in his bodily behavior, one should at that time pay no attention to the impurity of his verbal behavior, and instead pay attention to the purity of his bodily behavior. Thus the hatred for him should be subdued.
“And as for a person who is impure in his bodily behavior & verbal behavior, but who periodically experiences mental clarity & calm, how should one subdue hatred for him? Just as when there is a little puddle in a cow’s footprint, and a person comes along, burning with heat, covered with sweat, exhausted, trembling, & thirsty. The thought would occur to him, ‘Here is this little puddle in a cow’s footprint. If I tried to drink the water using my hand or cup, I would disturb it, stir it up, & make it unfit to drink. What if I were to get down on all fours and slurp it up like a cow, and then go on my way?’ So he would get down on all fours, slurp up the water like a cow, and then go on his way. In the same way, when an individual is impure in his bodily behavior & verbal behavior, but periodically experiences mental clarity & calm, one should at that time pay no attention to the impurity of his bodily behavior…the impurity of his verbal behavior, and instead pay attention to the fact that he periodically experiences mental clarity & calm. Thus the hatred for him should be subdued.
“And as for a person who is impure in his bodily behavior & verbal behavior, and who does not periodically experience mental clarity & calm, how should one subdue hatred for him? Just as when there is a sick man—in pain, seriously ill—traveling along a road, far from the next village & far from the last, unable to get the food he needs, unable to get the medicine he needs, unable to get a suitable assistant, unable to get anyone to take him to human habitation. Now suppose another person were to see him coming along the road. He would do what he could out of compassion, pity, & sympathy for the man, thinking, ‘O that this man should get the food he needs, the medicine he needs, a suitable assistant, someone to take him to human habitation. Why is that? So that he won’t fall into ruin right here.’ In the same way, when a person is impure in his bodily behavior & verbal behavior, and who does not periodically experience mental clarity & calm, one should do what one can out of compassion, pity, & sympathy for him, thinking, ‘O that this man should abandon wrong bodily conduct and develop right bodily conduct, abandon wrong verbal conduct and develop right verbal conduct, abandon wrong mental conduct and develop right mental conduct. Why is that? So that, on the break-up of the body, after death, he won’t fall into the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, purgatory.’ Thus the hatred for him should be subdued.
“And as for a person who is pure in his bodily behavior & verbal behavior, and who periodically experiences mental clarity & calm, how should one subdue hatred for him? Just as when there is a pool of clear water—sweet, cool, & limpid, with gently sloping banks, & shaded on all sides by trees of many kinds—and a person comes along, burning with heat, covered with sweat, exhausted, trembling, & thirsty. Having plunged into the pool, having bathed & drunk & come back out, he would sit down or lie down right there in the shade of the trees. In the same way, when an individual is pure in his bodily behavior & verbal behavior, and periodically experiences mental clarity & calm, one should at that time pay attention to the purity of his bodily behavior…the purity of his verbal behavior, and to the fact that he periodically experiences mental clarity & calm. Thus the hatred for him should be subdued. An entirely inspiring individual can make the mind grow serene.
“These are five ways of subduing hatred by which, when hatred arises in a monk, he should wipe it out completely.”
AN 5.162
IMO the OP of this thread contains content that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or a violation of our community guidelines.
I would like to consider myself reasonable and see nothing offensive in the title. It is funny.
I sometimes think psychology and sometimes positive psychology has been funnelled to ‘increase productivity’ and fan the flame of personal ambition, with the blinkers on for what impact it has for the people around that person or the environment.
But for the worker maybe every little helps. It becomes a path into the dhamma.
These complex situations are neither just black or just white- they have shades of grey which needs time and reduced reactivity, to appreciate. Growth year on year, has got to be a really bad idea, right?
With metta
well people at Tupperware seem to be very smart already in psychology (their techniques of persuasion are described in Robert Cialdini’s study on psychological manipulation); meditation might give even more insight to them so watch out! 
Anyway more seriously I do think there is a problem in reducing the eightfold path to one or two factors only (Ajahn Brahm spoke on this recently in Sri Lanka) but I also think that sometimes meditation is a good way to introduce people to Buddhism as a whole (as noted by some people above); at least that’s what happened to me; I started practicing breath meditation and it was only later that I realised that much of this path is really about purity.
So IMO it’s probably a good thing that CEOs meditate, both for them and perhaps eventually for their employees. BTW I have also seen posts of someone who has been a monk for 7 years (I think) and who is now teaching bankers how to meditate, and has spoken favourably of hedge fund managers like Ray Dalio who practice TM to gain greater clarity in the way they manage their billions of AUM.
I think the OP is phrased just a bit too provocatively for this forum! 
However, IMO it contains a valid point. Meditation, especially when shorn of context and supporting ethical framework, isn’t necessarily, per say, a good thing.
The old “Beyond McMindfulness” article in the Huffington Post comes to mind.
It even quotes Bhikkhu Bodhi:
Bhikkhu Bodhi, an outspoken western Buddhist monk, has warned: “absent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stabilize the status quo, becoming a reinforcement of consumer capitalism.” Unfortunately, a more ethical and socially responsible view of mindfulness is now seen by many practitioners as a tangential concern, or as an unnecessary politicizing of one’s personal journey of self-transformation.
Meditation has the potential to tranquilize valid dissent and confrontation, or perhaps sweep uncomfortable situations under the carpet. Buddhism and meditation ended up in dark places historically in Japan (the book “Zen at War” comes to mind). I’ll admit that a tupperware CEO isn’t quite in the same league as a bunch of fierce sword wielding Japanese samurai! Still!
There’s also an interesting, and also somewhat provocative, list on the wiki page for “Zen at War” listing how Japanese Buddhism helped contribute to that militaristic period (it originally probably helped “civilize” the Samurai class to some extent, but that relationship ran both ways, not necessarily to the good for Japanese Buddhism). Imagine replacing “state” with “corporation” and “Emperor” with “CEO” when reading the list. I know I’m being rather extreme here, but IMO there’s still a grain of something to the comparison.
Even the noblest of beliefs and practices can end up being or helpfully used or negatively abused. I don’t think Buddhism, meditation or even Buddhist meditation can be excepted. That said, I don’t discount the possibility the meditation may help the Tupperware CEO or even his employees! (though I don’t think that’s a sure thing)
Well, here are a few articles about the current discussion. There are some good criticisms and some bad ones, in my opinion.
https://www.alternet.org/mindfullness-buddhism-capitalist-ends
No, but he did go forth out of a desire to find a way that people could reduce dukkha.
Offering free meditation classes in the work place can do that.
It could … as long as it is not trying at the same time to teach them to be warriors. There is an irreconcilable psychic contradiction between the dhamma of peace and harmlessness and the rod of violence.
But he wasnt opposed to people being productive and efficient was he? I think its important to differentiate between productivity and efficiency on the one hand, and exploitation of workers and corporate greed etc…on the other.
The Samuri were some of the biggest cut throats in history, and they were big into meditation.
I don’t think the Buddha went forth from the household life to boost productivity.
So what?
If my employer, motivated by increased profits, puts out free fruit in the kitchen to raise morale, the vitamins in the fruit give me the same nutrition than if he puts it out of pure generosity.
I think there is an undercurrent of “spiritual materialism” – snobbery, running through the comments in this thread.
“My meditation is better than your meditation because I learned meditation from a bald man wearing a sheet and I read dusty old books that would make a grad student cry”
Yes, but there is a different between simply meditating without ethics and meditation with ethics.
with metta
Specifically because it helped them hyperfocus on killing people more effectively.
IMO meditation in itself is a neutral thing (like science/technology). I’m all into scientific/technological things, which have made human life a lot more comfortable, but has its darker sides too. Meditation is a tool and, as such, can be used in various ways.
I’m very much with @DKervick on this one. While we can’t tell people to meditate or not we can point out in which context meditation is truly beneficial: dispassion, mental liberation, benevolence. Certainly I do that in our lay meditation group.
For the economic system ‘meditation’ is completely irrelevant. It’s just ‘X’, two days ago it was NLP, yesterday Yoga, today mindfulness, tomorrow life-hack… whatever. The ‘horizon of meaning’ for the economic system is generating turnover/surplus. It’s not concerned with people at all - if machines can do better people will be replaced.
Btw. drugs and psychotherapy are equally co-opted, just like ‘meditation’. People take anti-depressants, alcohol, or do anti-burnout therapy/coaching to get them productive again…
Haven’t we learned that the value of kamma comes by its intention? If people want to ‘hack their system’ in order to be more productive and compete better - is that still sati, samadhi, and part of the Buddha magga?
Yes, I suppose there are different ways in which meditation could be offered. The employer could just offer purely optional meditation classes along with the jazzercize, nutrition workshops or whatever other preventive health care they are offering these days to avoid lost productivity, burnout, etc.
But they could also have mandatory sessions for managers where meditation is mixed in with PowerPoint presentations on the Seven Leadership Secrets of the Sumurai, or The Five Foundations of Mindful Bossing, or whatever.
SN 7.17:
On one occasion the Blessed One was staying among the Kosalans in a certain forest thicket. Now at that time the brahman Navakammika Bharadvaja was getting some work done in that forest thicket. He saw the Blessed One sitting under a sala tree — his legs folded crosswise, his body held erect, with mindfulness set to the fore. On seeing him, the thought occurred to the brahman: “Here I am, taking delight in getting work done in this forest thicket. But what does this contemplative take delight in getting done?”
So he went to the Blessed One and on arrival recited this verse:
"What jobs are getting done,
monk in the sala forest?
Alone in the wilderness,
in what does Gotama
find delight?"
[The Buddha:]
I have no work
to do in the forest.
The forest of restless dancing about
I’ve cut
at the root.
Though in the forest, I’m
deforested,
de-arrowed.
I delight alone,
discontent cast away.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn07/sn07.017.than.html