Now that Condé Nast editorial director James Truman has reached a higher stage of enlightenment, status-conscious staffers are worrying about a new pecking order. After returning from his spiritual retreat, Truman revealed that he'd spent the month reading Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön's The Places That Scare You. The book promptly leaped 176 places up the Amazon.com rankings. Could the new buyers all work in 4 Times Square? Chödrön teaches that through meditation, one can become a "warrior-bodhisattva," or one who unflinchingly embraces suffering to the point of renouncing her inner self. Sounds like the editorial drones have been in Nirvana all along -- and never even knew it.

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