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Living Buddhas lighten labor
By Wang Yong |
March 23, 2013, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHERE there is office, there is office politics: greed, grudges, gossip.
As BJ Gallagher and Franz Metcalf, co-authors of "Being Buddha at Work," explain, these aspects of office politics are generally what Buddhism believes poison a life into a vicious cycle of frustration and tribulation.
Franz Metcalf is a religious studies professor at California State University, and BJ Gallagher is a business writer.
In their book published in 2012, they borrow Buddhist principles to help employers and employees to stay enlightened at the office.
Although some of their suggestions derive from their debatable inferences from Buddhist scriptures, on the whole the authors have made a good effort at meshing Buddhist ideas with modern work ethics.
The book's central message is: one can be a professional worker and a Buddha at the same time. You don't have to be a monk or a nun to discover the Buddha in yourself.
As the authors find out, Buddhism teaches that everyone can be a Buddha in this life and everyone can end suffering by ending desire.
Buddhism is not really against business, but against what makes business relationships sour: greed, grudge-holding, and gossip- all arising from desire that in turn arises from illusory pursuits of egotism and things permanent.
For example, an employee tends to pick rather than take jobs, as if only he or she deserves a certain position and the position will never vanish.
Your job is not ?yours?
"Your job is not 'yours' or anybody's. It arose according to conditions that had nothing to do with you, and it passes away when conditions change," say the authors.
Indeed, if we learn to practice the Buddhist teaching of "no selfhood," we will all be happy doing anything the boss assigns us.
In a similar vein, don't boast when you are promoted. It's not "you" that should be feted, it's your boss, because he or she creates the position for you as he sees fit.
Don't focus on yourself and dwell upon the illusion that you deserve the job. We deserve nothing and we are nothing, as Buddhism says, but in this nothingness we can become a Buddha.
By Buddha is not meant a monk or a nun, but a man or woman apart from egotism, even selfhood.
Before I wrote this review, I had told some friends about the book and they raised their eyebrows. "How can someone not mind his or her job?" one quipped.
Here my friend twisted a concept: mind.
In the author's opinion, "minding one's job" means being a mindful worker - dedicated to learning through doing in the here and now. It does not mean being meticulous about the security of one's job.
"Don't look for security ... Security and safety (of a job) are illusions," point out the authors. Once the reader understands that change is the only constant ("impermanence" in Buddhist vocabulary), he will stop begrudging others their advancement or gossiping about changes in his or her own job assignments.
Many of my acquaintances quickly dismiss Buddhism as superstition, without knowing that much of it relates to truths of life.
Throw out egotism and embrace changes, and you will be more enlightened at work.
Being a Buddha at work is not that easy, nor that difficult. It all depends on whether you are willing to treat yourself as nobody and others as somebody.
As BJ Gallagher and Franz Metcalf, co-authors of "Being Buddha at Work," explain, these aspects of office politics are generally what Buddhism believes poison a life into a vicious cycle of frustration and tribulation.
Franz Metcalf is a religious studies professor at California State University, and BJ Gallagher is a business writer.
In their book published in 2012, they borrow Buddhist principles to help employers and employees to stay enlightened at the office.
Although some of their suggestions derive from their debatable inferences from Buddhist scriptures, on the whole the authors have made a good effort at meshing Buddhist ideas with modern work ethics.
The book's central message is: one can be a professional worker and a Buddha at the same time. You don't have to be a monk or a nun to discover the Buddha in yourself.
As the authors find out, Buddhism teaches that everyone can be a Buddha in this life and everyone can end suffering by ending desire.
Buddhism is not really against business, but against what makes business relationships sour: greed, grudge-holding, and gossip- all arising from desire that in turn arises from illusory pursuits of egotism and things permanent.
For example, an employee tends to pick rather than take jobs, as if only he or she deserves a certain position and the position will never vanish.
Your job is not ?yours?
"Your job is not 'yours' or anybody's. It arose according to conditions that had nothing to do with you, and it passes away when conditions change," say the authors.
Indeed, if we learn to practice the Buddhist teaching of "no selfhood," we will all be happy doing anything the boss assigns us.
In a similar vein, don't boast when you are promoted. It's not "you" that should be feted, it's your boss, because he or she creates the position for you as he sees fit.
Don't focus on yourself and dwell upon the illusion that you deserve the job. We deserve nothing and we are nothing, as Buddhism says, but in this nothingness we can become a Buddha.
By Buddha is not meant a monk or a nun, but a man or woman apart from egotism, even selfhood.
Before I wrote this review, I had told some friends about the book and they raised their eyebrows. "How can someone not mind his or her job?" one quipped.
Here my friend twisted a concept: mind.
In the author's opinion, "minding one's job" means being a mindful worker - dedicated to learning through doing in the here and now. It does not mean being meticulous about the security of one's job.
"Don't look for security ... Security and safety (of a job) are illusions," point out the authors. Once the reader understands that change is the only constant ("impermanence" in Buddhist vocabulary), he will stop begrudging others their advancement or gossiping about changes in his or her own job assignments.
Many of my acquaintances quickly dismiss Buddhism as superstition, without knowing that much of it relates to truths of life.
Throw out egotism and embrace changes, and you will be more enlightened at work.
Being a Buddha at work is not that easy, nor that difficult. It all depends on whether you are willing to treat yourself as nobody and others as somebody.
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