Work as a Spiritual Practice - Hardcover

Richmond, Lewis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0767902327 ISBN 13: 9780767902328

Publisher: Broadway, 1999

Synopsis

A guide to developing and maintaining a spiritual life on the job, drawn from the teachings and practices of Buddhist tradition.

Most people associate Buddhism with developing calm, kindness, and compassion through meditation. Lewis Richmond's Work as a Spiritual Practice shows us another aspect of Buddhism: the active, engaged side that allows us to find creativity, inspiration, and accomplishment in our work lives.

With over forty spiritual exercises that can be practiced in the middle of a busy workday, Work as a Spiritual Practice is based on the principle that "regardless of your rank and title at work, you are always the chief executive of your inner life." Its core message is one of spiritual empowerment, where every workplace situation, no matter how challenging, can become an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Drawn from the author's diverse professional experience--as a Buddhist meditation teacher, business executive, musician, and high-tech entrepreneur--as well as from his "Workplace Spirituality" workshops, Work as a Spiritual Practice addresses a wide variety of on-the-job problems. It adapts traditional Buddhist psychology to divide common workplace situations into four main categories--conflict, stagnation, inspiration, and accomplishment--and offers a variety of practices appropriate for each. Here you'll learn how to:


Turn ordinary worry into a form of concentrated spiritual inquiry
Meditate while sitting, walking, or standing--a minute at a time
Perform spiritual practices while commuting to and from work
Manage stress by learning to cultivate an awareness of the body
Understand ambition, money, and power from a spiritual perspective
Deal with boredom, discouragement, and failure


Each chapter is liberally illustrated with real-life stories of people from many walks of life--nurses, plumbers, receptionists, taxi drivers, executives, office managers, musicians, and home office workers--each of whom has found ways to apply the practices described in the book. Some of these stories are told by people who attended the author's workshops; others are told by people he has met in the workplace. These experiences join with the author's own to provide a rich and diverse offering of teaching, practical advice, and inspiration.

Work as a Spiritual Practice is an essential guide for anyone who wants to bring his or her spiritual life and work life together. A fascinating combination of traditional Buddhist teachings, illustrative anecdotes, and practical business savvy, this innovative spiritual guidebook teaches us that finding joy in our work is the best definition of success.

About this title

About the Author

Lewis Richmond is a Buddhist teacher, workshop leader, software entrepreneur, and musician/composer. Formerly Executive Vice President of Smith & Hawken, Ltd., he is the founder and owner of Forerunner Systems, Inc., the leading provider of inventory management software to the catalog industry. Lake of No Shore, his debut solo piano album, was released by Artifex Records in February 1999. An ordained disciple of Buddhist master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Mr. Richmond co-leads Dharma Friends, a meditation group in Mill Valley, California, where he lives.

From the Back Cover

Advance praise for Work as a Spiritual Practice:

"This book on utilizing the workplace as a place for spiritual growth comes straight from the workshop of the heart and stirs both our timeless Buddha-mind and postmodern Judeo-Christian soul. I read this fascinating book avidly and with delight."
--Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within

"This timely book is the one the workaday world has been waiting for. Lewis Richmond is the ideal person to explore the application of Buddhist practices to the workplace. [This is] an accessible, personal, witty, and poetic book that will be helpful, even transformative, for anyone who works for a living."
--Sylvia Boorstein, author of It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

"Work as a Spiritual Practice is full of excellent, wise, simple advice to transform work into awakening. Lewis Richmond really shows how Right Livelihood is possible in almost any job. Bravo!"
--Jack Kornfield, author of Buddha's Little Instruction Book

From the Inside Flap

eveloping and maintaining a spiritual life on the job, drawn from the teachings and practices of Buddhist tradition.

Most people associate Buddhism with developing calm, kindness, and compassion through meditation. Lewis Richmond's Work as a Spiritual Practice shows us another aspect of Buddhism: the active, engaged side that allows us to find creativity, inspiration, and accomplishment in our work lives.

With over forty spiritual exercises that can be practiced in the middle of a busy workday, Work as a Spiritual Practice is based on the principle that "regardless of your rank and title at work, you are always the chief executive of your inner life." Its core message is one of spiritual empowerment, where every workplace situation, no matter how challenging, can become an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Drawn from the author's diverse professional experience--as a Buddhist meditation teacher, business executive, musician, an

Reviews

According to the studies Richmond cites, the average American works 150 more hours per year than she or he did 80 years ago. As the dominant force in our lives, work brings with it stress, worry and other pressures that cause us to lose focus on our inner selves and to be controlled by the external forces of the workplace. Zen monk and business entrepreneur Richmond contends that approaching work as an expression of one's spiritual life, rather than as simply a job that one must slog through, will make a difference in the quality of our lives. (When we see our work through spiritual lenses, we might even quit our jobs and find a better one, says Richmond.) After opening chapters in which he discusses the value and practice of Buddhist meditation, Richmond shows how this spiritual practice can be applied to work. In a second section, he explores such issues of conflict as stress, worry and anger and suggests practical ways to deal with each. He then examines the ways that boredom, failure and discouragement lead to stagnation in the workplace. Two final sections discuss elements of "inspiration" and "accomplishment," including ambition, forgiveness, generosity and gratitude. Each chapter contains a set of "practices" to incorporate into our daily work. In lively prose, Richmond argues that "the details of our workday contain within them any number of gifts for our spirit, if only we would allow ourselves to receive them."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The principles of the Protestant ethic and its message that work is good played a role in helping capitalism gain a foothold at the start of this century. As the century ends, Richmond's message is that we should embrace Buddhist tenets to help transform free-market capitalism, "the most dominant system of human commerce," to include spiritual as well as material values. Richmond lauds the empowering aspects of capitalism and says the free-market system "brings out the best" in people. He acknowledges, however, that it sometimes also brings out the worst, but that Buddhism can help reconcile this contradiction. After Sausalito-based Richmond lost his job as executive vice-president for catalog merchandiser Smith & Hawken, he started his own company producing inventory-management software. He is also an ordained disciple of Buddhist teacher Shunryu Suzuki, heads a meditation group, and cofounded the Buddhist Business guild of San Francisco. Here he explains what "spiritual practice" is and details the four sectors of the "Energy Wheel," showing how "to move around and through" conflict, inspiration, accomplishment, and stagnation. David Rouse

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Koan of Everyday Life

To find joy in your work is the greatest thing for a human being.
--Harry Roberts: agronomist, cowboy, woodworker, welder, boxer, gun-sight maker, spiritual teacher in the Native American tradition, and Ginger Rogers's dance partner


"So.  What do you do?"

How many times have you been asked that question and answered, without thinking, "I'm a lawyer," or "I'm an aerobics instructor," or "I'm a musician." But beyond small talk, that question suggests a deeper inquiry.  What, indeed, do you DO, here on this earth, here in your life? What is your work? What is your passion? What is your aspiration, your dream, your calling? Do you find joy in your work? Have you given up hoping that joy is something you might expect from work? Or do you love your work so much that you have no time to enjoy anything else? Why do you have the job you do? Is it just a way to make ends meet, or is it something more? What is the relationship between your inner self and your outer, public life on the job?

This book seeks to guide you on a path of spiritual discovery about the work that you do and offer practical ways to make that work more connected to your inner life.  I don't know if what you learn will improve your job in a conventional sense.  Who knows, it might make you upset enough to quit your job and find a better one! But it may help you in a spiritual sense.

I am a Buddhist, which means I am also a realist.  In our society, work is not expected to be spiritually satisfying.  For the most part, our jobs are designed to make someone somewhere a profit.  Listen to what one recent writer to Ann Landers had to say about his job:

Why should anybody give their best effort on the job? No one cares about the worker anymore.  Growing up in the '60s, we were taught that giving your best would always ensure your employment.  That's baloney.  It's all a matter of random chance whether or not your job continues.  I've been laid off twice through no fault of my own.

Perhaps someday work will evolve to the point where it is once again integrated with family, community, spirituality, and nature, as it was in preindustrial times.  Until then, the Buddhist worldview begins with today, just as it is, for good and ill--today's job, today's life, today's "you."

What this book offers are ways to help you become more aware, more awake, and more engaged in your work life.  Even the worst job has its compensations, and even the greatest job has its demerits.  This book can't make your job perfect, but it may make it more workable.  The reason I think so is because, spiritually speaking, you are in charge.  Your employer may dictate every aspect of your work life, but no matter what kind of job you do, you are the boss of your inner life.

Most people think of Buddhists as people who meditate.  That's partly true.  I spent many years living in a Buddhist retreat center, where I did indeed spend many hours each day in silent meditation.  But Buddhism has its active side too, and some of its practices are adaptable to a busy, engaged life.  Many of them aren't meditation in the usual sense of the word but rather exercises in awareness and focus.  Some address various emotional states, such as anger, fear, frustration, and boredom.  Others work on how we interact with people, or on the speed and pace of our activity.  All of them are designed to awaken the fundamental spiritual inquiry: Who am I? What am I doing here? How can I fulfill my life's potential? These practices are all based on the conviction that we have the resources we need to make that inquiry come to life, and that the circumstances of our daily life can be the raw materials in that effort.

One thing's for sure: You don't have to be a Buddhist to benefit from these practices.  During my career as a meditation teacher, I have taught and practiced with Catholic monks, rabbis, Protestant ministers, Muslims, nature worshipers, agnostics, atheists--people of many religious and nonreligious persuasions, many of whom, I'm sure, didn't think of themselves as Buddhists.  But they all benefited from Buddhist practices.

Work Life and Spiritual Life

Have you ever heard the saying "It's not my wife and it's not my life"? It's something to say when things go badly at work.  Well, your job may not be your wife (or husband), but it is your life, or a big part of it.  Studies show that the average American is working 150 more hours a year than in 1910--a sobering thought! When we disassociate ourselves from our work by saying, in effect, "This is not the part of my life that really counts, I just do this for a living," we close ourselves off from what my teacher Harry Roberts used to say was the greatest thing for a human being--to find joy in our work.

How do you feel about your job? Do you love your work but find that it takes up so much of your time that it really is your whole life? Or, is your work dull and drab, but you don't mind because you are going to night school to prepare for a different, more satisfying career? Perhaps you work in the helping professions or in education, and it is not your boss but your clients (or patients, or students, or parents) who drive you to distraction.

Regardless of your situation, there are certain characteristics of work that are universal.  Unless you work at home, you travel to work.  When you get there, you perform some task, such as computer programming, carpentry, or management, for which you are financially rewarded.  You interact with other people in an environment where power is unequally shared.  Your job performance is measured in some way.  You compete with others for rewards.  You can quit your job.  You can lose your job.  And you have (we hope) a life outside your job.

Let's contrast this description of life on the job with the life of the spirit.  In our spiritual life, we are not in competition with anyone else for spiritual rewards.  How well or badly we do is beside the point.  We honor and appreciate all people (including ourselves!) for their intrinsic humanity.  We care for others, we share and are generous, we forgive.  The world of the spirit is not a matter of bonuses, promotions, or awards.  Advancement is not the point.  We are already whole and complete just as we are.

So it would seem that spiritual life is close to the opposite of work life! But suppose we stop for a moment and ask ourselves why the modern workplace is the way it is.  Is it because evil tyrants created the modern workplace to torment us? Or is it because over the last few hundred years people have cooperated to create a world in which we live better, longer, and happier, and can provide a more secure future for our children? We are all collectively responsible for the way work is today, and to whatever extent that situation is far from perfect, we must keep exploring, experimenting, and trying.  It may be that over time the nature of work will undergo some grand transformation.  Some social theorists think that kind of change is already under way.  I think so too, and in chapter 19, "The Transformation of Work," I explore some of those trends.  But let's not wait for that great moment.  Today there is something we can do.  Today we can make a change.  Today it is possible to make a difference.

As you begin exploring this book--and you need not read it from front to back; it is designed to be browsed--I ask you to make only one commitment, and that is to trust yourself.  Trust your own instincts, your intuition, your judgment.  The knowledge you need to change your work life for the better is already within you.  Set aside, for now, the notion that on the job you work for somebody else.  In your spiritual life, you are self-employed.  You work for yourself.  No one need know about this inner job.  It can be your secret.  Whatever efforts you make will be outside the realm of success or failure.  I don't know what will happen if you try the practices in this book, but I am sure of one thing: Something will happen.

The reason I am so sure is that something is always happening.  The world is full of spiritual opportunity.  The trick is to be alert enough to notice it.  That is the real work, and the joy of work, and if we catch on to that trick, it doesn't matter in the short run what our day job is.  In the end, if we are kind to ourselves, our efforts will be fruitful.

The Koan of Everyday Life

But what kind of fruit will it be? A raise, a better job, a happier work and home life? Perhaps, but not necessarily.  Spiritual practice is more about questions than answers, more about searching than finding, more about effort than accomplishment.  In one school of Buddhism, those who practice ponder spiritual questions called ko-ans.  There are hundreds of memorable stories, usually taken from the lives of ancient Buddhist teachers, that are used as koans.  Some of them have even become part of popular culture.  For instance, the question "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" was featured in an episode of The Simpsons television show.

In addition to these prefabricated questions, there is another kind of koan, called the koan of everyday life.  Human life itself, the mystery of being thrust into the...

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadway
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0767902327
• ISBN 13: 9780767902328
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272