Choosing Mindful Work

Creating Right Livelihood

What Are the Advantages of Mindful Work?

Since there is nothing to attain, the bodhisattva lives by the perfection of wisdom with no hindrance in the mind; no hindrance and therefore no fear.

—The Heart Sutra

WHAT ARE THE advantages of mindful work? The Buddha would simply say they’re the advantages of awakening, because mindful work brings awakening to the workplace. This is true because, fundamentally, awakening is the state of being fully aware—fully mindful, having your mind full—of reality. The first person to see the Buddha after he was awakened asked, “What are you?” The Buddha answered, “I am awake.” Enlightenment is being awake to the reality of reality.

So the question becomes, “Reality—what’s that, and why would I want to awaken to it?” And the answer is, “Reality is the interconnectedness of all things, and you want to awaken to this because it frees you from your limitations.”

Awakening/enlightenment, full mindfulness of reality, is the core of Buddhism, and there is no reason why it cannot be the core of work as well. Mindful work wakes up the workplace and the world. The “perfection of wisdom” that the Heart Sutra describes is a Buddhist spiritual practice, but what does that mean? Work practice can be spiritual practice. And Buddhist spiritual practice comes down to mindfulness. So these spheres of life are not separate. And this non-separateness is not about attaining anything; it’s about being there, at work or at home, without hindrance and without fear.

“Which comes first,” you might ask, “mindfulness or mindful work?” Well, where are you, right now? Do the work of the moment. Take a first step. Sure, a first step is not a whole journey; nor is a first answer a whole book. Keep on.

How Do You Choose the Right Career or Job?

A bird catcher said to the Teacher, “My family’s always been bird catchers. If we stop, we’ll starve. But doing this [evil] work, can I still reach Buddhahood?”

The Teacher answered, “The mind goes to hell, not the body. So when you kill a bird, take your mind and kill it too. Doing this, you can reach Buddhahood.”

—Suzuki Shosan, Roankyo

ALMOST EVERYONE AT one time or another has asked, “How do I find the right career, the right job, where I will be fulfilled and happy?” If you are seeking to learn from the Buddha’s teachings, this question is especially important, because part of the very core of Buddhism, the eightfold noble path, is right livelihood. Simply put, that means doing work that helps, rather than harms, all living things. As the Buddha brought work into the spiritual life, he brought spirituality into work life. Right livelihood is being the Buddha at work.

For many people, this is a serious problem. What if you work for a company that makes instruments of destruction? What if you work for an organization whose fundamental mission is not aligned with your own values? Can you still do mindful work? Can you still pursue right livelihood?

The Zen teacher Suzuki’s answer here is very interesting. He taught that we should try hard never to harm other living things, and yet he reconciles enlightenment with bird catching. How can this be? The key issue, it seems, is not so much what your body is doing but what your mind is doing. Of course, the mind and the body are intimately connected, and one often follows the other in day-to-day life. But this need not always be so. It is possible to have the body engaged in one activity and the mind focused on something else. Here, he advises the bird catcher to kill the bird if he absolutely must (he recognizes that people have to make a living), while keeping the mind not on killing the bird (which would be wrong livelihood) but on killing the mind—that is, killing desire and attachment. A creative solution, and one that acknowledges the power of our environment over us. There are times when we cause harm without meaning to.

Of course, the Buddha would never accept this as a long-term solution. He would encourage the bird catcher to change jobs if he could. Bird catching simply is not right livelihood. But perhaps for the time being, there is no choice. You must feed yourself and your family, and this means you must make a living in a compromised fashion. You’ll simply have to work that much harder to keep your mind pure until you can find work that is right livelihood.

You can pursue enlightenment no matter what job you have, and you can often transform your boring or unfulfilling work into mindful work by changing how you think about your work, by changing your spirit. You can be a garbage collector, in the spirit of love and service, and be well on your way to Buddhahood. There’s no question that garbage collecting is right livelihood, while a creative and high-paying position in a corrupt and greedy field is not. Whatever your job is, start there; adopt the right mind and take that first step on the path. Yes, the path may lead you to change careers, but the Buddha does not demand that you harm yourself in doing so. In the end, only a career that helps will make you truly fulfilled.

What Does It Mean to Be a Great Employee?

A good employee serves her employer in five ways: by getting up and starting work before her; by stopping after her; by taking from her employer only what is given; by striving to do her work well; and by upholding her employer’s name.

—Digha Nikaya 31

IF YOU’RE WONDERING what you can do to endear yourself to the boss, to be a great employee, the Buddha has some words of wisdom for you. Get back to basics. Forget about kissing up—no one is impressed by that. To be a great employee, start by doing great work. Here are the five suggestions that the Buddha gave:

1. Get up and start work before your boss. It never hurts to arrive at work a little bit early; you will be calm and collected as you start your day.

2. Stop work after your boss does: being willing to stay a little longer to tie up loose ends or to help a coworker is a great way to show that you are willing to go the extra mile. And, so often, this quieter time is the most productive in the day.

3. Take from your employer only what is given. Not taking what is not ours is one of the five basic Buddhist precepts. It may seem harmless to take home that pencil or that wrench or some other little thing, but it really is stealing, and it’s the first step on a long downward spiral. Everyone may do it, but you don’t want to be just like everyone, do you? You want to be authentically you.

4. Strive to do your work well. This may seem obvious, but many people do just enough work to get by … and then wonder why they aren’t doing better in their careers. Don’t waste time on scheming or daydreaming; the Buddha always focused on effort. The bottom line: above all else, do great work!

5. Uphold your employer’s name. To many people you meet, you are your organization. Whether you are on the job or off, speak well of your employer and represent them well in the community; it will come back to reward you in surprising ways.

What does it take to be a great employee? You can always add more things to this list, of course, but the Buddha lays it out plain: start with the basics.

Can You Have Self-Esteem and Still Be Buddha?

As a solid rock doesn’t quaver in the wind,
So the wise are moved by neither praise nor blame.

—Dhammapada 81

YOU MAY HAVE heard that the Buddha denied the existence of the self. Let’s be clear: the Buddha never denied that we experience the world and our lives through a sense of self. This self matters and needs attention. What the Buddha denied was that this self is enduring. Our selves arise and pass away; they exist in their relationships and experiences, and these are constantly changing.

The Buddha respects the need for self-esteem. The self in this world needs to feel positive about itself. He warns you not to be swayed by other people’s opinion of you or your work. You know when you have done your best work, and you are the best person to judge your own actions. Do not give away your self-confidence by letting others’ opinions determine whether you feel good or bad about yourself. If you let others’ praise or criticism affect your sense of self-worth, you will forever be a slave to public opinion. In a sense, what they think of you is none of your business. Does a rock care what the wind thinks of it? A rock just goes on doing its thing. So do Buddhas. So can you.

It is a truism that people who feel good about themselves produce good results. It is also true that people who produce good results feel good about themselves. Which comes first, the self-esteem or the good results?

The Buddha would tell us it doesn’t matter which comes first. If you feel good about yourself, chances are, you are already producing good results. If you don’t feel good about yourself, try producing good results and see how your self-esteem improves. Instead of the contemporary “power of positive thinking,” Buddhism emphasizes the “power of positive doing.” Get into action, and see how it improves your mood, sometimes immediately. Action alleviates anxiety. It also helps elevate self-esteem and can even lighten depression. So, if your self-esteem isn’t all you’d like it to be, get your butt in gear. Perhaps the Buddha would phrase it differently, but no less bluntly. Act in the awareness of the rightness of action, even if you don’t feel positive. In this scenario, thinking will follow acting.

Dealing with Distractions

Reaching for the silence
he hears
every single sound.

—Steven Sanfield, “A Poem for Those of You
Who Are Sometimes Troubled by Barking Dogs
and Low Flying Jets,” in American Zen¹

THE POET STEVE SANFIELD is not a psychologist, but he is a Buddhist, and he is certainly onto the irony of the vexed relationship between concentration and distraction.

If we are so easily distracted, what can we do to focus in order to see projects through to completion? The Buddha advises us to train our minds, specifically through meditation and other forms of spiritual discipline. Having a trained mind is good because it lets us focus on the important things. A trained mind brings ease because it is uncluttered. We no longer feel the anxiety of the monkey mind, chattering endlessly, or hear the thousand sounds that assail us. We cannot stop up our ears, but we can stop—or at least calm—the mind.

How? Take up a spiritual practice. Whether this is a martial art like aikido, a meditation practice like zazen or Transcendental Meditation (TM), a physical discipline like hatha yoga, a devotional practice like reciting scripture or prayer, or even a complex game like chess is not important—just practice something. It can even be simple mindfulness while you eat or drive or brush your teeth. Practice trains the mind, and a trained mind is a good thing. Your best choice is to look around and pick something you like. If you train in a way you like, you’ll simply do it more. As you do, your mind will focus better and longer.

Within the confines of this book, we can’t train your mind for you, but here’s one suggestion for beginners: when you feel distracted or angry or sleepy, acknowledge it; don’t deny it. That begins the training: react to the negative with the positive. Now, strengthen the positive by bringing the mind back to breathing. Stop moving; relax. Take a deep breath. Don’t think; just feel the breath. Don’t try to breathe in any special way; just breathe naturally and let your mind rest in that breathing. You can count your breaths if it helps you. Count to ten. Let the myriad things rest. Now come back to the moment. You have trained yourself to find strength in the face of distraction. Take the strength of that focus on the breath and apply it to your task.