PART II

Cultivating Mindful Work Relationships

When awakened by all things, the separateness of you and others drops away.

—Dogen Zenji, Genjo Koan

“HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE,” wrote the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. He was half right. The other half is “Heaven is other people, too.” To work in an organization necessarily means working with other people—coworkers, bosses, customers, vendors, the public. Our relationships with other people are what give us most of our headaches—but these relationships can also give us much joy.

Bankers have been heard to mutter, “This would be a great place to work, if it weren’t for the customers.” University staff people sometimes comment, “This would be a great place to work, if it weren’t for the students.” Book publishers (not ours, of course, never never) occasionally gripe, “This would be a great place to work, if it weren’t for the authors.” Wherever you work, we are sure that you too can identify groups of people that make your life difficult. Bosses complain about their workers; workers complain about their bosses.

Isn’t it funny how everyone seems to think that someone else is the problem? And yet, many people who work from home complain that the thing they miss the most is other people!

What are we to do? We can’t seem to live with one another, but we can’t live without one another. Woody Allen summarized our predicament nicely at the end of his movie Annie Hall, when he turned to the camera to comment on an old joke.

This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy—he thinks he’s a chicken.” And the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” And the guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd and … but I guess we keep going through it … because … most of us need the eggs.

The Buddha understood this dilemma, and much of his teaching addresses how to live in community with other people. How we can work together in organizations, getting the “eggs” we all need and not hurting each other in the process. The following pages will help you accomplish this difficult goal, without having to walk on eggshells.

The Buddha teaches that we truly exist only in our relationships. This is why their power is so great. This is why they can be heaven or hell for us. Relationships are eternal; we are not. Whether picking leaders or building teams or training employees or ending conflicts, we are creating relationships; we are working through relationships. The Buddha’s teaching can make those relationships the path of awakening itself.