Peace at Work: Applying Zen in Your Career

Written by Jason Shields

Why is it that the first question we tend to ask people we first meet is: “What do you do for a living?” We tend to define ourselves by what we do and what are various positions are. In the next four weeks, I will be writing a series of articles on Spirituality and the Workplace. What can adopting a more spiritual, Zen-like attitude toward work do for you? It can show you how to make the most of your skills, how to achieve the deepest level of satisfaction from your work life, and most importantly, how to place your chosen employment in perspective. We will also discuss in the coming weeks how to deal with coworkers and bosses who seem to give us trouble all of the time.

Some of us have jobs and careers that are fulfilling and rewarding while others of us have jobs that we detest going to everyday. The minute the Monday workday begins, we are dreaming of the following Friday and start of the weekend. Whether you intended to end up in your current job or not, or if you are unemployed at the moment, the fact is that you are there. No matter how much you tend to immerse yourself in your work/career, defining yourself by your job or lack of one is placing yourself in a tight box. You are setting up self-defeating, preconceived notions about yourself: your personality, values, financial and social status and how “educated” you are. When we hear that so and so is a doctor or a lawyer, we immediately see dollar signs and assume that he or she is smarter than the average individual worker. What about a preschool teacher? Or a factory worker? Or a janitor?

Try as you may, it is hard not to make assumptions about yourself and others based on occupation. Our culture pressures us to believe certain things about work and various occupations. A simple way to thwart your compunction to make assumptions is to recognize them in the first place and then analyze them. A valuable exercise is to write down on a piece of paper your own assumptions about the following occupations:

Doctor

Lawyer

Teacher

Bartender

Minister

Unemployed Person

Scientist

Car Salesman

Of course, if your occupation is not mentioned above, add it to the list along with your assumptions of how it describes yourself. Now ask “where do these preconceptions come from?” Are they stereotypes that you learned from your parents or television or society? Closely analyze what each of your assumptions about the chosen occupations listed above says about you. Invite them in to your thinking and face all of it: the good, the bad and the ugly. Would you be more willing to strike up a conversation with the CEO of a corporation than with a factory worker? Are you more dismissive to a waiter or waitress than you are to a boss or a famous actor? Try hard to think about the ways in which your assumptions could limit your relationships with other people and how these assumptions can limit your perception of life in general.

Do you judge people according to their careers? The majority of us do to some extent. The next time you meet a new person, try not to ask what they do for a living. Remain unbiased and find out other things about the person first if you can: hobbies, family, etc. Chances are they will probably be shocked that you did not ask them about their profession. Nonetheless, the important point of this week's article is “Getting Out of the Box” that you place yourself and others in regarding certain occupations. In order for you to experience peace and satisfaction in your chosen profession or in any other job that you may have had to settle with for the time being, it is vital that you get out of that boxed mindset.

Your assumptions are causing you to miss special opportunities for you to connect deeper with your fellow human beings. We are all individuals, unique and beautiful. The minute you place a person in a box labeled “Defined by Career” he or she becomes nothing but a clone, dull and lifeless. Why disregard or revere a person because of their “position”? Furthermore, why disregard or revere yourself because of your occupation?

It is important for you to look at your own assumptions about your occupation. Don't fence yourself in to a place where you cannot escape. You do have an advantage when it comes to yourself. You know yourself much better than the person you just met so how can you create stereotypes about yourself? Actually, you do all of the time. I know this sounds silly but we all do it! Have you ever heard yourself or another say, “I'm only a factory worker or I'm only a bartender?” Have you heard someone piously say “I'm the nation's best chemist!” One profession may make more money than another but that does not have anything to do with the internal worth of each individual.

A profession may reflect the inner person of an individual, and the way he or she does his or her job may reflect the inner being of an individual, but the profession does not CREATE the inner person. It is totally the other way around: the inner person or being manifests itself through the occupation.

So, what are you assuming about yourself in regards to your occupation? What positive things do you assume about yourself in regards to your job? What negative qualities do you attribute to yourself in regards to your current occupation? Examine your answers very carefully and match them up with how they coincide with your own vision of yourself apart from your job. You are not your job! You are not your financial status! You are you!

I am not going to argue the fact that what we do for a living does have an impact on our lives. Whether we accept it or not, our jobs have a tremendous impact on our personal lives. The most important step in taking a spiritual, Zen-like approach to your work life is being able to see beyond the job, beyond the label, and beyond the preconceptions that you place on people to whom you ask the question, “What do you do?” Remember, you are just you, who happens to have this or that occupation. Maybe you are exceptionally devoted to your profession. But it is because of who you are and not what the job is. Stop putting yourself and others in a box of labels and stop thinking that you are your job!

“Having a job does not make you anything but employed” ~ Eve Adamson

Next week, we'll explore getting into “the zone” and boosting your work efficiency, whether they are hectic or boring jobs, through simple meditative techniques.

Namaste!

Getting to Know Your Enemy

Written by Jason Shields

When someone makes you angry, your natural response to getting hurt is to become angry. Often, it does not just stop there. We continue to mull over the “transgression” a multitude of times until it consumes our entire thinking. This can occur moments after the incident and well into years after the hurtful event took place. Every time you think about it, you become angry all over again. How can we break this vicious thought cycle?

In the heat of anger, it is vitally important to remember that we tend to see things in black or white, all or nothing, with no shades of gray. If you can bring yourself to see the situation, the person in a different angle or from a variety of angles, the “black and white” thinking dissolves into a rainbow of colorful possibilities. If you search closely and carefully with a pure intent to see all sides of the person in question, you will be able to look at the hurt and anger you hold inside from another perspective. You will be able to see the person or enemy, if you will, as possessing certain positive traits in addition to the negative. This will take serious effort on your part, but the effort is worth it.

For example, reflect for a moment on a time when you were really angry with someone. At the time, you saw them as possessing 100 percent negative qualities. This goes both ways also: when you are incredibly attracted to a person, you tend to see them as possessing 100 percent positive traits. If, however, your “wonderful” friend or lover were to let you down or disappoint you in some purposeful way, that percentage would suddenly drop, sometimes into the single digits. Likewise, if your enemy were to come to you with a peace flag and sincerely beg for your forgiveness, your stance would change dramatically. It would be highly unlikely that you would see them as 100 percent “negative”. This thought exercise merely points out that none of us are 100 percent “good” or 100% “bad”. Everyone has good qualities no matter how “bad” they behave if you truly search hard enough. The tendency to see a person as completely negative is your own perception, your own mental projection, rather than the true nature of that individual.

In a similar fashion, a “situation” that you originally perceive as 100 percent negative can be altered so that you may find some positive aspects to it. However, even if you have discovered a positive angle to the situation, it is not enough; you must reinforce it through conscious effort and thought. When you are already in a difficult situation, it is not possible to change your attitude with just a couple of positive thoughts. It has to be a process of learning, training and getting used to the idea of incorporating new viewpoints that will enable you to deal with the difficult situation or person. It is time that you practice adopting a new perspective on your “enemy”.

When we think of our enemies, we normally do not wish good things for them. Say that your enemy is made unhappy or suffers through your actions, what is there for you to be so joyful or happy about? How can there be anything more hurtful and wretched than carrying ill will towards anyone? It is a heavy burden to carry hostility and hatred. If you take revenge on the enemy, you are merely perpetuating a vicious cycle where the enemy is hurt briefly and then retaliates – you will inevitably do the same and the cycle continues. So, how do we break the cycle of impoverished thought and action?

As a spiritual being, you must come to your own realization that your enemies play a crucial role in your development in becoming a better human being. Compassion is the essence of a spiritually abundant life. The practice of patience and tolerance is highly correlated with experiencing more love and compassion in your life. The Dali Lama once said, “There is no fortitude similar to patience, just as there is no affliction worse than hatred.” You must exert your best efforts not to harbor hatred or resentment towards your enemy; rather use this instance as an opportunity to cultivate your practice of patience and tolerance.

As a matter of fact, you can consider your enemy a great teacher who mentors you in the ways of patience and tolerance. Patience and tolerance are the forerunners of ultimate Love and Compassion for all sentient beings. Without an enemy's action, there is no possibility for patience and tolerance to develop. Sure, we have friends and family members who test us occasionally, but we place them on a higher perch because we are familiar with their quirky ways. We are more apt to forgive family and friends than we are our enemies because we know them more. We know that they are not 100 percent “bad”. From this standpoint then, we can view our enemy as our great teacher and learn to revere them for giving us this precious moment to practice patience.

If you really look at your life and the world in general, there are many people in the world who we do not know, much less interact with and even fewer who really cause us problems. So when the opportunity for practicing patience and tolerance comes along, treat it with the utmost respect and gratitude. You may be asking, “Why should I even acknowledge my enemy's contribution, he/she had no intention of giving me this rare opportunity to practice patience? They only have ill will towards me so therefore I have a right to hate them! They are not worthy of any respect!” Ponder this: most of us don't have legions of enemies and antagonistic people we are struggling with on a personal level. At best, the conflict is confined to a few people: our boss, coworker, an ex, a sibling, etc. From this perspective, an enemy is truly rare. The lesson is in the struggle itself, the process of learning to resolve the conflict with the enemy through learning and examination, finding alternative ways of dealing with them. This inevitably results in true growth and insight into your self and a successful outcome.

There are two types of enemies that we perceive: individuals and situations. As I have stated above, it is impossible for us, when we are looking at the individual or situation in a calm state of mind, to see them as 100 percent “bad”. Place yourself in the other person's shoes. Would it be fair for them to see you as a 100 percent “bad” or “evil” person just because you performed one purposeful negative action? Is it fair to be judged by one or two negative behaviors? No. At the time you performed or said the inappropriate behavior or words, you were in a mindset all on your own. Do we willfully intend to harm others? Ponder this question and take into your meditation practice. Of course not. When we hurt others, most of the time, we are doing it out of unconscious thought and actions. We are reacting to our feelings, usually rage and anger or a sense of “injustice” with our “rights” being infringed upon. In other words: it is unconscious insecurity and an unwillingness to face that insecurity and its root causes. Why do certain individuals rape others or murder others? Does it not fall into the category of a feeling of powerlessness and an attempt to gain power, however twisted and superficial it may be? Of course, this is not to say that rapists and murderers should not be properly prosecuted. We must, however, look deeper into all kinds of destructive behaviors which arise out of a feeling of insecurity.

All explanations aside: it is the very struggle of life itself that makes us who we are and provides us with the resistance necessary for growth. Needless to say, there are many people who have been forced out of their countries, with their family members murdered or mistreated, who have still managed to survive and thrive with a peaceful attitude towards their enemies and they are better people as a result. All of us are born as infants with flesh and blood bodies. We all are born into this world as innocent babes. Every person in the world is the same in this respect. However, we grow up and we learn different perspectives and different ways in which to handle our fears and insecurities. Realizing that we all act and react unconsciously to our inner fears and insecurities, we can better relate and embrace the enemies we encounter in life. How? By waking up to this very moment and asking yourself to consciously analyze why you feel the way you do. What is the real reason for your current feelings towards another? Breathe and bring it to the surface in the Now and truly see it for what it is: a feeling. Feelings change from moment to moment and the hurt that you have been unconsciously harboring for days, months and even years can no longer exist as long as you wake up and are consciously aware of those feelings and why you choose to hold on to them. Once you become fully aware of true feelings and conscious thought, you now have a choice to remain with them in the present moment or release them.

Namaste!