Swimming With the Sharks: Zen and Dealing with Coworkers

Written by Jason Shields

Our world has a miraculous way of reflecting back what we believe it to be. However, all of the reflecting happens in your own mind. If you assume that there is intrigue all over the company and that your fellow coworkers are out to get your job, then that is exactly the environment that you will experience. If you were to take on a spirit of freedom and cooperation with others in your job environment, than that kind of environment will likely form. The world is what you make it and a positive attitude with a spirit of compassion toward co-workers and your boss will improve your situation significantly. However, Zen has an even better option: See the world, your job environment, for what it is.

See it for what it is? Are you serious Jason? Yes. Your world is what you make it and there is an objective reality that you can see and experience. Simply put: don't make the world into anything. Just allow and be. Objective reality is right in front of your face, but you tend to cover it up or dress it up in all kinds of disguises with your own ideas of what it life should be or must be. Stop the madness! Stop trying, stop striving, stop straining to alter your job environment.

Think about this for a moment: You are not responsible for “creating” your world into something that works for you; you are only responsible for getting out of the world's way. Step back and see this world for what it is and you will find that your perception greatly increases and sharpens into more clarity. Then you will truly “see” how un-seeing you have been and how delusion has crept in to the mind. You can then proclaim, “so this is how things truly are! Wow!”

when you refuse to force your job environment into a preconceived mold that you have created in your mind, you open up to all kinds of new possibilities. You may feel that you are finally seeing your work environment for the first time. You will be able to see how just one person can influence the entire job environment with a focused, positive and nonjudgmental spirit. You can also see how another person can be just as influential through negativity, pessimism, and suspicion. You'll see both sides for once. People can influence on another, but no one person can force others to be happy or productive or content.

What will happen if you decided to stop assuming the worst, or the best for that matter, about your co-workers and supervisors/bosses? Everyone will burst into focus as exactly who they are and doing exactly what they do. Where will this leave you? With your own job to do. Your job will still include daily interactions with people and coworkers, but these interactions can be entirely free of assumptions. You will be surprised at how easy these interactions become, even with the “difficult” coworker or boss. Then you will be able to understand that you are not responsible for that particular comment that someone made. You do not have to becomes incensed over your bosses botched handling of a particular job situation. All you really have to do now is do your job to the best of your ability and interact honestly and productively with others, without feeling anger or resentment or even awe. Just be yourself and allow others to be themselves. However, if they continue to assume the worst about you, continue to make judgments regarding you or your work, or holding a grudge, simply notice it. Notice it but don't attach to it. Remember: You can't control what anyone else thinks or does!

Do you feel as though the “sharks” are swimming around your desk or cubicle? Remember, those “sharks” are solely a product of your mind and the assumptions it creates. It could be that they never had an eye on your job at all! Maybe there is not a bull's eye painted on your back! Maybe there is! It is important to remain detached in the face of office politics and this is not an easy task. How many of you go home and recreate scenes from what happened at the office? You may remember an incident where your were “humiliated” or “disrespected” or when you failed to obtain a certain goal by a certain time frame. What do you do with these circling thoughts?

If you are like most of us, you are more likely to continue to invent further mental scenarios. What could you have done differently? If only you had said this instead of that. What might others have said about you? We visualize answering differently and behaving differently. If only you could have foreseen the future! Maybe you could have changed it? The “sharks” are circling indeed, but only in your mind. Our problem is compounded further by the fact that we also work with other “shark makers” who gossip and second guess everyone and everything. Eventually, as a result, people form their little clique groups and suspect that there is a conspiracy behind every corner.

This is such a waste of precious energy! Your livelihood depends on making money and your job is critical in making that happen to a certain extent. It is too easy to place too much emphasis into work. You attach to your job, you make it so important that it causes you to suffer. Even when we assume good things about people we can get into trouble. What if, in reality, a coworker is trying to get you fired? Blindly assuming that the entire work population is filled with sweet and nice people all of the time can be naïve. Having an overly positive approach to work is not any more realistic than imagining that everyone is out to get you. You have to find an objective balance: Zen.

Choose not to assume at all. Take everything for what it is while being so mindful that you don't miss anything. This is the best way to know what is really happening in the workplace. You can then react appropriately and be in the best position to stay uninvolved with the things that go on in any work environment that squanders precious life energy.

Do not assume at all. Don't do it. When you catch yourself doing it, however, recognize it, allow it, notice it, and then let the assumption go. Go by what you know now, in the present moment, not what you expect. Besides, shouldn't you be too busy doing your job as to wasting all of that precious time? I am not suggesting that you ignore your coworkers. You can still have productive or antagonistic relationships with them. Some of them may be important players down the road, others not so important. That's fine! Living Zen means relating to the world that is full of people you do not own or control. People are who they are and they will do what they do. Accept it or suffer. The choice is yours.

Namaste

Zen and the Workplace: Getting In the Zone

Written by Jason Shields

All of us at one time or another have experienced being “in the zone” where the activity we are doing appears effortless and yet our concentration is intensely focused on the act itself like a laser beam. Whether you are swimming, running, playing an instrument or are engaging in creative writing, you have experienced the feeling of the activity being effortless, as if you could do it forever. You have, in essence, become one with the activity. You are no longer doing it, you are the activity itself. This same idea can apply to any and all forms of work, even boring, menial tasks that we dread performing.

When I speak of being “in the zone” I am referring to being in a state of “no-mind”. “No-mind” is a term used in Zen Buddhist practices to describe a mental state of seeing past the limitations of thinking and feeling. Remember this: when there are no distinctions, there are no difficulties. When you are in a state of “no-mind,” your thoughts and feelings will not get in the way between you and the work you have to do. In “no-mind,” you lose the ego, the part of you that identifies with all of the labels we attribute to ourselves and others and things. It is impossible to hold on to all of those thoughts and feelings that you have about yourself when you are completely focused on what you are doing at this very moment. Basically, you become your doing and you escape from the labels you have created for various things, including yourself.

When you learn to let go of all of your preconceptions and assumptions about yourself, your love life at the moment, your occupation, etc., you will find that your mind begins to expand. All of a sudden, you have more room up there and that room can become very helpful when it comes to concentrating and learning to immerse yourself in your work. For example, you have a project deadline at the end of this week. As you are working on this project, are you constantly worrying about the other two projects that are due in a couple of weeks? Or what about the other projects that you have not finished or are overdue? Worrying and constantly thinking about everything at once accomplishes nothing with regards to the task at hand and prolongs your anxiety.

Learning to focus on the work at hand, whether it is dish washing or solving a physics problem, is the best way to do your work better. Along with this focus, your efficiency also naturally increases. When you teach yourself to focus to the extent that your self dissolves and is absorbed by the work you are doing, this is when you achieve “no-mind” and you become one with your work.

When you busy yourself with worrying about what others in your company are thinking, or about what your boss may or may not do if you do not perform “correctly” or this or that, etc., you are missing the whole point of life. What you are looking for, what you desire is all around you, indeed, it is within you. Always has been and always will be. Stop looking into the future or searching the past for the answers to your problems which are in the now! Every step of life is an effort, both physically and spiritually because you imagine that your goal is something external and distant.

When you learn to concentrate so completely that you and your work become one in the same, barriers and difficulties in your life dissolve. Become the work and the work becomes you; there is no conflict and no difficulty. Remember, becoming absorbed in your work places no importance on any specific kind of work. In the practice of Zen, any type of work becomes worthy of total absorption, even if it is cleaning out the garage or giving your dog a bath.

In some jobs, there is little to be desired or considered worthy of being in total absorption, especially when your boss acts like an ass or you have coworkers consistently gossiping about one another. You may even feel that you are the small fish in the big pond. Shift your perspective and consider thoughtfully and purposefully how you contribute to the whole of the organization, even if you are currently the janitor or mail clerk of a major corporation. Do not stop there! How does your work relate to the world itself? Go beyond the company and into all of the other companies that yours conducts business with on a daily basis. Everything in this world is connected and no part is greater than another. You are needed in the job you have now, even if it is a job you detest. Once you accept it, learn to become absorbed in your work, you will find that your mind is open to new possibilities and opportunities either in the company or in another field altogether.

Part of “no-minding your own business” is to accept your given responsibilities as they are in your job. Accept them fully without second-guessing, without feeling critical, or living in some future thought world you mind has conjured up: “as soon as I get done with such and such, I'm leaving!” I am not suggesting that you become complacent or a robot. It means doing your job and letting all of the rest go! You will not get there overnight! It will take time and effort on your part to sit still each day and meditate on the Now. You have to train your brain and your body to sit still and just BE. This is the ultimate Zen training for work! The longer and more often you meditate, the more the peace and nonjudgmental acceptance will spill over into your work life.

Namaste!