Spotted: The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life by Geshe Michael Roach

Cover of the Mandarin edition

Where: N-train
Who was reading: A young woman of South Asian descent, holding a paperback folded cover to cover. She had cropped, curly hair, still damp from the shower, giving her a dewy kind of glow.

What gives Roach the right to speak on behalf of the Buddha? He's a fully ordained Buddhist monk.

Excerpt: "Your ethical way of living and doing business must be driven by a clear and conscious awareness of what kind of imprints this behavior will plant in your subconscious, and how this will determine the very reality of the rest of your business career."
Midway through the train-ride... an old man came shuffling down the aisle of our car, pulling a stereo in a wheeled leopard print suitcase and asking for money. His voice was forlorn—like a question that's had all the hope stamped out of it but still must be asked—and it mingled seamlessly with the old Russian tune emanating from the suitcase. The woman looked up from her book, but she couldn't spare a quarter. No one could. And so the old man shuffled on to the next car.
Ethical Ambiguity: It's not unethical not to give, but I do think there's something ethically unsound about a socioeconomic system that drives so many to beg.