40 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
40 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
## XII. Work Itself Is Practice
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### Managing with the Wisdom of Dependent Origination and an Altruistic Mind
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Q: How can we bring the Dharma into corporate culture? How can we apply this wisdom in management rather than being worn down by it?
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A: Many companies today reflect their boss's culture—whatever the boss thinks becomes the *culture.* Why advocate corporate culture at all? Because a company manages people, and people's problems lie in the mind; what really needs managing is people's hearts. Without culture, you cannot bring hearts together. If we bring a culture of wisdom into the company—through reading rooms, study groups, and so on—employees have a chance to be influenced, establish correct values, and cultivate a mind inclined toward goodness. This not only benefits their personal growth but also makes management easier.
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For managers, the Dharma of dependent origination and a mind of altruism are especially helpful. Understanding that a company arises from the coming together of many conditions, and adding a little more selfless altruism, keeps us from centering everything on our own feelings and interests. Otherwise, in the end only a few people are exerting effort; not only is this exhausting, but it also traps us in success and failure, gain and loss. Japan's Kazuo Inamori guided corporate management with the Dharma, allowing employees to give full play to their initiative, and built two Fortune Global 500 companies. So we should not treat the company as an extension of *self-grasping,* but with a heart that serves the public, establish an open platform, delegate benefit and responsibility as much as possible, and let everyone create and win together—then we can work with greater ease.
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### Arousing the Right Aspiration and Making Good Use of the Mind
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Q: If the meaning of life lies in awakening ourselves and awakening others, do our present work, studies, founding a family, building a career, and competing in society have any ultimate meaning at all? I feel that I am full of pursuit for a sense of importance, superiority, and the desire to dominate, yet I also suffer because of this. What attitude should I adopt toward life's pursuits?
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A: From a worldly perspective, anything that helps us live a good life has meaning—working to earn money, founding a family, and building a career, for example. Of course this is only relative meaning; it is not ultimate. On this question, the Dharma has two different views. From the perspective of the path of liberation, worldly life has no meaning. So-called pursuits are nothing but confusion and affliction as their basis, doing all sorts of things grounded in greed, hatred, and delusion to satisfy the needs of greed, hatred, and delusion. In this cycle of delusion, karma, and suffering, whatever we do is futile. Even if external conditions improve, it cannot change its painful nature; even if we gain something, it is precarious.
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But from the perspective of the bodhisattva path, the value of worldly life is not denied; rather, it is given new meaning. If we work with an altruistic mind and right mindfulness, we can not only support ourselves and our families but also benefit society. More importantly, if we apply our minds fully, work becomes part of spiritual practice: we cultivate merit through altruism and refine the mind through right mindfulness. The Chan school especially emphasizes practice in daily life, from dressing and eating to carrying firewood and drawing water—all are expressions of the Way, not limited to specific forms such as reciting sutras or sitting in meditation. So the key lies in our own mental activity. On the one hand, we must arouse the right aspiration, orienting ourselves toward benefiting ourselves and others, rather than satisfying our need for importance, superiority, and domination. On the other hand, we must make good use of the mind, doing everything with right mindfulness and using activity to train right mindfulness. If we accomplish these two points, in work and in life we can realize both worldly value and ultimate meaning.
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### Bringing Practice into Work and Life
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Q: After returning to worldly life, we have to face all kinds of responsibilities at work and at home. How can we make what we do into practice? We are still ordinary beings; our minds often follow circumstances and are turned by them, even without our knowing it. How can we maintain awareness?
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A: For practice in the world, the first thing is to arouse bodhicitta, which helps us establish the goal and direction of life. Doing things with bodhicitta and doing things out of self-need may look the same, but the results are completely different. Starting from self-need develops a worldly mind; doing things with bodhicitta develops compassion, while at the same time weakening self-grasping and growing wisdom. The second requirement is having the right view of the Dharma, which directly determines whether our activity can become practice. Without right view, we usually follow habitual patterns, relating to people and situations with wrong ideas and negative emotions, and every matter becomes a condition that strengthens afflictions. Conversely, every problem can become a condition for liberation.
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As for how to maintain awareness when facing circumstances, first learn the method. The meditation experiences arranged by the retreat are meant to let everyone understand the relevant principles and then bring this method into daily life. But more important is repeated training and constant cultivation. Actually the method is not difficult; what is difficult is sustaining steady focus and allowing this awareness to pervade all times and all places. Our minds contain many wrong habits; compared with these deep-rooted tendencies, the awareness we have just cultivated is very weak. We must seize every opportunity to practice, gradually correcting habitual patterns and cultivating wholesome mental habits.
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### Compassion Breeds Misfortune
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Q: After learning Buddhism my mind has become more peaceful, but my colleagues know I practice and have become brazen about bullying me. This arouses anger in me, and when I handle the problem in my old way, it actually works. I feel quite confused—what should I do in this situation?
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A: Handling problems in a worldly way may calm the surface temporarily, but it does not necessarily solve them fundamentally. Sometimes it also brings side effects: for ourselves, it easily increases anger; for the other person, it provokes opposition—no benefit to anyone. If we have already begun learning the Dharma, we should use wisdom to resolve it. The Dharma brings peace of mind and teaches us to treat others with compassion, but this is not weakness, much less lack of principle; otherwise it may encourage the other person's unwholesome habits, which is also wrong. We should communicate with everyone calmly, based on compassion and the relevant rules, and when necessary we may also impose appropriate penalties. But this is not done out of anger; it is to help the person do better. There is a saying, *Compassion breeds misfortune,* which refers to this kind of unprincipled, unskillful *indiscriminate compassion*—in fact, it indulges unwholesome habits.
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### What to Do When One's Occupation Is Not in Accord with the Dharma
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Q: We make our living by fishing and usually go to various temples to perform Buddhist rites, purifying karma through water-and-land ceremonies, universal Buddha offerings, and sutra recitation. Is this in accord with the Dharma?
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A: The conflict between occupation and faith is a practical issue. Especially in certain regions, some occupations are ancestral traditions, and the choices are relatively few. After learning Buddhism and understanding the karmic consequences of doing this, what should one do? It depends on the depth of your understanding and faith. If you truly realize that in order to survive and profit you are creating much killing karma, causing sentient beings to lose their lives, and that you yourself will have to suffer the bitter results in the future, then the loss outweighs the gain and you should choose a right-livelihood occupation. Just as when you see that a job seriously harms your health, would you continue? The reason people cannot let go of certain precept-violating work is mainly insufficient understanding of the harm involved, plus a lucky mind. In fact, cause and effect never miss.
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Of course, when it is hard to change occupations, making up for it through Buddhist rites is better than not making up for it. But if conditions allow a change, one should still choose an occupation that conforms to the law and the precepts. Because an occupation is done every day, year after year for decades; unwholesome karma accumulates day by day and keeps growing.
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