When my son was twenty, he once said to me, “Look at you, Dad. You are old, short, balding, and have crooked teeth. You have the responsibility of caring for children, and you run a business and own a home. I don’t think I want to be anything like you.” I felt tremendous love and affection from and for my son. I could see that he was struggling to understand his own future and the decisions and choices that would confront him as he developed. I felt proud to see my son searching and questioning. What is real freedom? What is responsibility? How do our ideas get in the way? How do we act freely, effectively, beyond success or failure, free of fear, free from hindrance?
I pointed out that he probably would, unfortunately, look like me when he got to be my age. About the responsibility of having children and running a business, I asked him, “What’s the alternative? Do you think that freedom means not having responsibility, not making difficult choices?”
Being alive is difficult. Having a body and a mind is difficult. Being ourselves at work is difficult. Even when we are happy, we still sense some separation, knowing that this happiness cannot last forever. There is no avoiding pain, suffering, sickness, old age, and death. We make life even more difficult by not accepting these facts and running away from difficulty and pain and responsibility. We develop amazing strategies for avoiding pain that lead to habitual ways of thinking and acting. Recognizing this, we can get a glimpse of our own part in creating suffering and see the possibility of joy, peace, and freedom.
Difficulty and discomfort exist. They are caused by the fact of being alive and by our awareness of being separate. It is possible to end difficulty and discomfort by fully realizing that we are not separate. These are the first three of what in Buddhism are called the Four Noble Truths, the historical Buddha’s insight into the nature of difficulty and how to attain real freedom. The fourth of these Noble Truths is the path toward ending difficulty and discomfort, called the Eightfold Path: right view, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right diligence, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The word right more literally means upright or straight, not bent or crooked. It means beneficial. Through your experience you discover what is beneficial and what is not.
Zen practice is based on your experience. The Buddha and all Zen teachers are clear on this point. There is no truth outside your experience. All the tools and materials you need to find real happiness and satisfaction in your work, and in your life, are right at hand. Your pain and difficulty, your joy and happiness, your strengths and weaknesses, your failures and success are all the “compost” for you to use in growing the garden that is you.
This recognition, this radical insight into completely accepting who we are and where we are in our lives is the starting point for integrating our spiritual practice and our work practice. Even to use these words is missing the point when we begin to see that there is no difference between our work lives and our spiritual practice — our work is our spiritual practice; our spiritual practice is our work.
Adapted from Z.B.A. Zen of Business Administration