مراقبت از موارد غیر کاری

CHAPTER EIGHT - Taking Care of Nonbusiness

Business can’t exist without nonbusiness elements.

Your co-workers are part of your work environment, but they are also people, a nonbusiness element. The piece of paper you write on is made up of tree, sunshine, and water, as well as all the work that went into making it; these are some of the nonpaper elements of a sheet of paper. Seeing the nonbusiness elements in business is the teaching of interbeing. Nothing can exist by itself alone. Everything depends on everything else in order to be.

The Buddha said, “This is because that is.” This means that nothing can exist by itself alone; things coexist with everything else. It also means that every phenomenon affects all other phenomena. The same is true with right and left. If right is there, left is there also.

If we remove the right, the left cannot be there either. If we have a pencil and we try to cut off the right andleave only the left, the pencil will get shorter but we will still have a right and a left. It’s like the flower and the garbage. We think the flower is not the garbage and the garbage is not the flower. But if we leave the flower for ten days, it becomes a piece of garbage. And if we know how to compost the garbage, in a few months it can become a flower. The flower and garbage inter-are.

The same is true for suffering and happiness.

Because you know from your own experience what suffering is, you are able to identify happiness when it manifests. Therefore these two things are not really opposites or enemies; they engender each other.

Suppose you’re a conservative politician. You’re likely to look at liberal politicians as your enemies. But the presence of the right wing makes the left wing possible.

So you should wish for the left wing to exist for a long time, so that you can also exist.

If you’re the head of a company, your practice is to do your work as head of the company. And the practice of the head of a company is to bring well-being into the company, not only for your employees but also for your suppliers and customers. Happiness is not an individual matter. Prosperity is not an individual matter.The well-being of our clients, our customers, our community, and our employees is linked together.

When you look deeply into a flower, you see that the flower cannot be by itself alone. When you look into the flower, you see the sunshine. If you remove the sunshine element, the flower cannot be there anymore.

It will collapse, because the flower is sunshine.

Sunshine is sunshine; it is not a flower. But sunshine is an element that makes up a flower. We call it a nonflower element. If you continue to look deeply into the flower, you will find other nonflower elements in it, like clouds. A cloud is a nonflower element, but without a cloud, the flower cannot be. If you try to take the element cloud from the flower, the flower will collapse.

Earth and minerals are also nonflower elements. A flower is made of only nonflower elements. If you look deeply into the flower, you can’t find any one element you can call flower. By taking care of nonflower elements, you take care of the flower.

In the same way, business is made of nonbusiness elements, and you need to take care of the nonbusiness elements for your business to do well. Your well-being, your capacity to smile, rest, and breathe, as well as your capacity to care for the well-being of your family, are nonbusiness elements, but they are essential to the well-being of business.

It’s perfectly possible to work in business in the light of the teaching on interbeing. The well-being of the manager and the well-being of her family are crucial to the well-being of the company itself. And the well-being of the company is crucial to the well-being of the employees and their families. Everything is connected to everything else. When you take care of yourself, you take care of your family. When you behave responsibly toward your employees, it benefits your company.

Many people must spend most of their time working, away from their family, to stay competitive in their profession. It’s a real challenge to balance family time with the pressures of a career. Yet you can conduct your business in such a way that it is not separate from the life of your family. Show interest in your family members’ life outside the home. See their difficulties and successes as your own. You may offer support in a way that encourages everyone to find meaning and happiness in each other’s work. When you see your partner’s work as your own, you will no longer feel a separation between your family life and your work life.

The physical absence during work time will not be a real absence.

Our family lives are important. Without our families, how can we know the warmth and tenderness of love, of being cared for and understood deeply? We should make our family into a sangha, a family of practice. The practice of mindfulness can also improve our life at home. When we indulge our habit energies of blaming and criticizing each other, we can lose our happiness or even our families. We can learn to practice loving speech and deep listening to bring more joy into our family.

Even though we have lived with our family members for many years, we should not be too sure that we truly understand each other, that we know how to love each other. We need to learn how to really listen to each other, how to listen in such a way that we understand deeply each other’s suffering. Only then can we know how to take care of and deeply love each other.

We can practice mindful eating together each day. We sit down for breakfast as a family and even if we have only fifteen minutes together, we can really be present for each other during those fifteen minutes. We really look at each other and we smile. We are aware how precious it is just to be together, and we don’t waste that time. This is awareness; this is mindfulness; this is love.

The best way for us to share our practice with our families is through our way of living, not through our words. It is possible for us to drive our cars mindfully, enjoying breathing in and out, not letting ourselves be carried away by thinking about the past, the future, and our projects. And when we come to a red light, we smile to it as a friend, not as an enemy, because the red light says, “Stop! Go back to your breathing, and enjoy it.” Before you open the door when you get home, you might pause and breathe in and out three times and smile, so that when your loved ones see you, you will be more pleasant after a hard day’s work. When you make breakfast, you can transform breakfast making into a practice of love and happiness. Enjoy every moment of your breakfast making, and the kitchen will become a meditation hall. There is peace and calm, and you may invite your partner, your child, to join you.

Then when you eat breakfast, eat in such a way that peace and freedom are possible. When you brush your teeth, can you take those one or two minutes to brush them in freedom and joy? And when you sit down and enjoy your tea or coffee after lunch, be peaceful, be free, and enjoy it deeply. Be fully present for your tea or coffee. It is possible for us to be grounded in the present moment and live each moment deeply with the energy of mindfulness and joy.

After several days of living like this, you will be calmer and more joyful, and your partner may ask, “Darling, how do you do it?” This is your chance to share your practice with him. Don’t try to impose your practice on him. Just practice living deeply and mindfully, without any formalities. You don’t need to show anyone that you are practicing. You walk in a natural way, but a mindful way. You eat naturally but mindfully. And your peace, your solidity, your joy will have an influence on the other person. If you have a friend or colleague who knows the practice, you may ask her to spend the weekend, or half a day, with you, because we need a community of practice supporting us.

You can also share your peace with colleagues in your workplace. During a meeting with your colleagues,your way of speaking, your way of listening, your way of smiling, your whole capacity to communicate will influence them. If we are skillful, we will succeed in bringing the practice to both our home and our workplace.

It is possible to make the workplace a place of practice. Our workplace is also a kind of family, a community, and we have to take care of our workplace so that we can profit from the energy of peace, stability, and freedom even during work time. There are those who have been able to bring the practice of mindfulness into their work life, using the practices of mindful walking, deep relaxation, and peaceful communication. While we walk from one meeting to the next, from one building to another, we can follow our breathing and be aware of each step we take. We can relax our bodies and mind and enjoy each moment without being caught in our worries and anxieties. This is mindfulness of walking; this is dwelling happily in the present moment. Then when we arrive at our destination we will be fresher and calmer.

A member of Congress wrote me that after attending a mindfulness retreat I offered for political representatives he has changed the way he walks at work. He always practices walking meditation, stopping his thinking completely. His office is busy: he has to answer many questions and deal with many matters. The only time when he can really stop his thinking and get a rest is when he walks from his office to the chamber to vote. He focuses his mind entirely on his breathing and his steps, not thinking at all. He said this helps him survive the hectic life of a congressman.

When we have a meeting with our colleagues, we can practice mindful speaking and listening, by staying in touch with our breathing and calming our mind. Our communication will be more successful because we are not caught by the energy of anger, confusion, or fear.

Some workplaces allow time each day for resting.

They have found that setting aside periods of rest or deep relaxation actually increases productivity and effectiveness of work. When we can relax, we restore our well-being. We come back to ourselves and release all tensions and worries. There could be a special room in the workplace where employees can lie down for ten or twenty minutes. We can practice deep relaxation while sitting up. Many of my students in Europe andthe United States have programmed their computers to imitate the sound of a bell every fifteen minutes, so that they can practice stopping. They hear the sound of the bell, and they let go of whatever they are doing for three or four in-and out-breaths. It is so simple; it is healing and nourishing to practice like that.

Mindfulness can improve the quality of our work life. Our work should be meaningful. This is important to our overall quality of life. We can work in such a way that we relieve suffering and benefit ourselves and others; or we can work in a way that increases our stress and suffering every day. Competition is there; running after more money, more fame, and more consumption is there; yet it is possible to stop. It is possible to look deeply at whether these things bring us true happiness. Are these things bringing us freedom from our pain and suffering? We must look into this matter: how can we bring more happiness, more peace, and more compassion into our work lives? We must take up this question with our colleagues and friends to discover concrete and specific steps we can take to change the situation. We need the support of a sangha, a group of friends who practice mindfulness. We need the support of wise friends who can offer us guidance and help us to get on the path of peace, happiness, and liberation.

You also have to care about the well-being of your customers. You cannot sell them just anything. You sell them only the things that will not harm their bodies or their consciousness. You know that right consumption, mindful consumption, is the only way out of the mess we have created in our society. We die as a result of wrong consumption. If you produce or sell things that destroy the bodies and consciousness of others, you destroy yourself and you destroy your company.

Making money in this way is self-destruction. This is the insight of interbeing.

The same is true of our effect on the environment. It is possible for the element of love, of responsibility, to motivate us in our business. Having love as your motivation will not make your business less

competitive. Rather it will make you more profitable, in addition to bringing you friendship and happiness.

When we have love, we have the capacity to live according to the Five Mindfulness Trainings, including protecting life. If we think only about our income and we destroy the environment, we have no love and we harm other living beings. When we are aware that we are damaging the environment, this becomes a knot in our consciousness and we aren’t at ease. Even though we earn good money, our uneasiness will grow until one day we will no longer be happy, we will not sleep well at night. Realizing this gives us the courage to change our livelihood so we can protect life. When we are motivated by love, we can easily avoid damaging others and destroying the environment.

Right livelihood is having a job that expresses your compassion and mindfulness. Even if your business brings in a lot of money, if it destroys the environment or other people, you must immediately say to yourself, “There is not enough love in my business, and I can’t continue this way. I need to make changes so I can protect the environment, protect life.” There are businesses that do this. A good example is Patagonia.

(The story of this compassionate business is in Appendix B.) When we do business truly in a spirit of love, we never feel guilty, and we will not one day have to pay a high price for our guilt.

There is always a struggle inside us, but we must keep asking ourselves, what is our aim? Our aim is happiness, and love is the basic element of this happiness. When we have happiness, we do not have the heart to destroy the lives of other living beings. We must reexamine our idea of human superiority over other species and life forms. Humans are made of nonhuman elements. We appeared on the planet very late compared to other species. Protecting the lives of other species is protecting our own lives. Protecting nonhumans is protecting humans.

There are those who compete mercilessly, who don’t respect any limits, who disregard business ethics; if we are not careful, we may think we have to follow them.

But we can go another way, the way of love. In fact, love goes perfectly in tandem with success. Love can help us become even more successful than those whose motive is purely profit-driven. When we see people consumed by greed, we have compassion for them, because they pursue money and fame but aren’t happy.

We find skillful ways to help them. The best way is to show them by our example: we protect and love people and the environment, we are able to help others, and we are still successful. This will help them change. Only love helps us have a good relationship with other species, the environment, and planet Earth.

One day the Buddha was sitting in the woods with some of his monks. They had finished eating their lunch in silence, and they were about to start a dharma discussion, when a farmer came running up to them.

The farmer looked unhappy: “Monks, have you seen my cows going by here?” The Buddha said, “No, we haven’t seen any cows come by here.” The farmer said, “Monks, I am a very unhappy person. I have only twelve cows, and I don’t know why, but this morning they all ran away. And that’s not all. I have twenty acres of sesame plants, and this year the insects have eaten everything. I think I’m going to die. How can I survive without my cows and my sesame seeds?” The Buddha looked at him with compassion and said,

“Sorry, my friend, we haven’t seen any cows passing this way. You might want to look for them in another direction.” When the farmer had gone, the Buddha turned to his monks, looked at them deeply, smiled to them, and said, “Dear friends, do you know that you are lucky people? You don’t have any cows to lose.” If you have a cow, you suffer because you are afraid of losing your cow. People in any profession have to learn not to make their work into a cow; this is a very important practice. You have to release your cows. You have to be free from your cows. The Buddha didn’t have any cows, so he was never afraid of losing them.

He was given the Bamboo Grove by King Bimbisara, as a place for him and his monks to stay. (You can visit the Bamboo Grove in India—it’s still there.) When King Bimbisara presented this gift, he poured some water on the hands of the Buddha and declared, “My teacher, this Bamboo Grove is yours for you and your students to use.” The Buddha kept silent as he accepted the gift.

But what if the next king wanted to take it back? The Buddha wouldn’t suffer at all. He didn’t need the Bamboo Grove to survive. He and his monks and nuns were happy to stay in other places, in a palm grove or a forest. All they needed each day was to be able to sit at the foot of a tree. The Buddha had the Bamboo Grove, but he didn’t look on the Bamboo Grove as his cow.

With or without that grove, he was the Buddha, free and happy.

In Plum Village, we live with several hundred people in four hamlets. There’s the Upper Hamlet, the Lower Hamlet, the New Hamlet, and the Lower Mountain Hamlet. We practice not looking on the four hamlets as our cows. If for some reason we must close down one day, we’ll be able to practice elsewhere and retain our happiness.

The practice of businesspeople, politicians, artists, teachers, parents, and all of us is to learn to look at our work as a noncow. You do your work in your company, in your organization, but you’re free. You’re not a slave of your job or any cow. You are simply working for the well-being of many people, including yourself.

In Zen circles, we like to tell the story of a man riding very fast on a horse. His friend standing at the side of the road hollers, “Where are you going?” The rider turns around and says, “I don’t know, ask the horse!” The horse, not the man, is in control. The horse takes him wherever it wants. This is the situation for many of us.

Our business is the horse, and the rider of the horse doesn’t have any power to stop.

Many of us work as if we were on that horse. We need a work family to save us. When you commit to mindfulness, you’re making an investment in yourself,and once you start investing in yourself, you’ll begin to relieve the suffering of those around you and see their well-being as another good investment to make. To make this investment in others, you need to be a free person. If you are a slave to your business—your “busy-ness”—and to your ideas, you can’t do it.

You’re intelligent enough to know that you have to devote time to yourself, your community, and your family, but as long as your work is holding the reins, you can’t do it.

We all need friends, copractitioners, and teachers to be strong enough to practice. When three or four of you come together, you form a community. You become strong enough to create an atmosphere where you can resist the dictatorship of your business. Though your eyes may be bright, the eyes of one individual can’t see as deeply or as far as the eyes of a community. We call them “sangha eyes.” When we combine our intelligence, our concentration, and our wisdom, and we use sangha eyes to look into reality, we can discover much more than if we look only as an individual.

Many of us have a natural tendency to think of business wherever we are. Even when we are not officially at work, we may struggle with an urge to run and make a business phone call prompted by our worry. Much of our time is lost thinking and talking about our worries, even though we know very well that worrying doesn’t improve things. The more we speak about them, the more worried we become. The more worried we become, the more we want to speak about them.

We are throwing away the time we’ve been given to live our life. Time is precious. There are people who say that time is money. But time is much more than money. Time is life. You are given twenty-four hours each day to live, not just to make money. That’s why we have to organize a resistance to the momentum of running.

Without a sangha, without people who suffer from the same thing and are interested in changing it through mindfulness, we can’t stop the horse. No matter how intelligent, how determined you are, you can’t succeed in taming the horse by yourself. The habit energy is stronger than you. You need the sangha.

The person who works in the corporate world needs a community, a sangha, to put what they have learned,the dharma, into practice. Without others who are in the same situation supporting each other, the practice will be difficult if not impossible. Five, six, seven people who work in business and find themselves in the same situation with similar difficulties can come together and support each other to practice mindfulness.

When we are nourished in our family life and our work life, we will not have conflict. We will not feel pushed to do more, to compete, because we have already tasted true happiness and joy and we no longer have to run after anything. Being happy where we are is a deep practice. It depends a great deal on our way of seeing things, our way of using the time that we have together.

Most of us have a sense of responsibility about our work. But to focus on work is to focus on only one part of reality. This leaves us unable to respond to the total situation in the present moment. We need to have the capacity to respond to what is in the here and now. We need to learn how to be there for ourselves, our family, and the people we’re responsible for in the business.

We need reminders to help us stop our thinking and go back to breathing mindfully.In Plum Village, when we hear a bell, we stop what we’re doing, thinking, or saying, and we go back to our in-breath and our out-breath. “Breathing in, calming; breathing out, smiling.” “Breathing in, I feel alive; breathing out, I smile to life.” We breathe in and out at least three times. There are a lot of bells in Plum Village for us to practice with. Not only do we practice with an actual bell; whenever the telephone rings, it’s an opportunity for us to go back to our in-breath and outbreath and stop thinking, talking, and moving. Imagine if you did this at work! Every time the cell phone or work phone rings, you could take a deep mindful breath before answering it. Even if your phone rings all the time, this wouldn’t be a waste of time.

In Plum Village, we enjoy breathing in and out and smiling. This is already the practice of loving. We do the same when we hear the clock chiming every quarter hour. In the kitchen, the dining hall, wherever we hear these sounds, it’s the voice of the Buddha within, calling us back to the here and now, inviting us to touch life deeply. In Plum Village this is easy to do because everyone is doing the same. It would be strange if you didn’t do it. There is no one who is exempt. Each is expected to practice like everyone else. It is an opportunity to receive the support of the sangha, and in turn, each person’s practice supports the practice of the sangha, the community of practitioners.

With your colleagues you could practice a “nonbusiness day.” It doesn’t mean this day is against business. This day can benefit every aspect of our life, including our business, but we don’t let worries and fears interfere on this day. It should be free from worries and fear. This is something you can do by yourself, and it will strengthen your own mindfulness.

Or a group of you can come together and organize a nonbusiness day when you devote yourselves to your well-being. This can be considered part of research and development. We have to look deeply to develop ways to increase our stability and happiness. This will be the basis for the well-being and stability of our company later on.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this is called a Sabbath day. In Buddhism, it’s called the Uposatha day. Every monastic and every layperson in the

Buddhist tradition observes the Uposatha day. On this day we recite the mindfulness trainings, we spend time together, and we enjoy each other’s presence. In the time of the Buddha, people enjoyed four Uposatha days a month.

You don’t have to have your whole staff on board. If four or five of you come together and practice living deeply each moment of the day, focusing on receiving the nourishment and healing you need, that will be a strong mindfulness practice. When four or five of you get together and practice mindful breathing and walking, embracing your difficulty and pain so as to transform it, this is a day of mindfulness. You can organize a day or a half-day of mindfulness to practice being there for yourself, your families, and your business.

If you have time, you can turn your “nonbusiness day” into a “nonbusiness retreat” that lasts a few days or a week. But even one day makes a huge difference.

We call these one-day retreats or nonbusiness days, days of mindfulness. Many businesses have adopted them as quarterly or semiannual events. I know of a publishing company that goes hiking together at least four times a year. A movie production company that I know has a monthly event where they walk on the beach in sunny weather or go ice skating when it rains! Three or four of you can come together and plan a day of mindfulness. That is a day on which you train yourself to live deeply each moment of your life and not allow business to consume you. It’s one day when you can be free from your worries and your tendency to dive into the future. It’s only one day away from your work, but it will change the whole way you work.

Some suggestions for a nonbusiness day:

• A walk in the forest, on the beach, or in a park

• A weekend retreat in the mountains, with hiking and leisurely walks

• A tour of a factory unrelated to the work you do

• Horseback riding

• Whale watching, or going for a boat or

• ferry ride

• Surfing

• Snowshoeing or cross-country skiing

• Riding bicycles on a path or on quiet

• streetsTable tennis, bowling, or pool

• A visit to a museum

• A picnic in the park

• A tour of a nature reserve or botanical garden

A nonbusiness day helps us honor the fact that each thing has its time. There is a time to eat. There is a time to water the garden. There is a time to discuss your work. So, when it’s time to eat, you practice just eating and enjoying eating. You enjoy the present moment and eat with one hundred percent of yourself; otherwise you are not being kind to the food and the people sitting around the table. This is easy to understand. When you eat, just enjoy eating. Offer one hundred percent of yourself to the food and the people around you. This is the art of living, and it is very enjoyable.

When you spend time with a child, you need that time with the child and he or she needs that time with you. The time spent with this child should be devoted to only the child and yourself. No business, no future, and no past should be involved.It takes training to master the art of living mindfully in the present moment. Everything has its own time— this is universal wisdom, not just Buddhist wisdom.

You invest yourself one hundred percent in whatever you are doing in the moment. There are times when you have to discuss your work and business strategies. At that time, you invest one hundred percent of yourself into the practice of looking into the nature and difficulties of your business. If you are able to eat mindfully with concentration and spend time with your child mindfully with concentration, then, when the time for doing business comes, you will be able to look deeply into matters at hand and that time will be productive.

I’m a writer. I write stories, essays, books, and poems. There are times when I don’t write. But that doesn’t mean that writing isn’t continuing inside me.

When I water the vegetables, I just practice watering the vegetables. I enjoy watering my vegetable garden. I don’t think about the poem or the short story, but I know that somewhere inside me the short story is being made. If I don’t grow the lettuce, I can’t write poems.

So when you grow lettuce, you have to grow it with one hundred percent of yourself and enjoy deeply the work of growing lettuce. Then, when you write a poem, the poem will be good. The moment you begin to write the words down is not exactly the moment you create the poem. While you practice mindful walking,

breathing, and planting lettuce, without thinking at all about the poem, the poem is being written. The poem, or any work of art, is conceived in the depth of your consciousness while you’re not thinking about it. The moment you write it down or express it is only the moment of completion, like when a mother gives birth to her baby. Much has happened before this to make the baby or the artwork possible. This is why there must be moments when you allow the child in you to grow. The same is true with your business and your plans for the future. If you do well what you are doing in the here and now, then when the time comes for you to do other things you will do them well, with great concentration and insight.

Learning to appreciate times of silence and nonaction are crucial for our productivity and this blossoming of concentration and insight. A businessman once told me, “When there’s silence during a conversation, I feel uneasy and I want to say something to break the silence. What can I do?” In Plum Village silence is precious. We call it Noble Silence, and we cherish it. It’s more precious than gold. Silence can be eloquent. You sit there and your personality just shines, you radiate peace and joy. This is nonaction. You need only sit there, and children like to come and sit close to you.

Silence is very important. It allows, it helps life to be.

We have to retrain ourselves to enjoy silence.

Two friends sitting and having a cup of tea together may spend half an hour in silence, yet they don’t feel a void. When I spent a winter at Princeton University, I used to visit an old man who lived near the campus. His name was Luther Pfahler Eisenhart. He was a mathematician, a friend of Albert Einstein’s. Every time I came, which was usually at night, he would open the door for me and take me in close to the fireplace. Then his wife would offer me a cup of tea and we would spend an hour just sitting there—he didn’t say anything and I didn’t say anything. After that, I’d bow to him and go home.

That happened many times. I knew in advance that whenever I came, the same thing would happen. Yet I always came, because it was very nice and very rewarding. We need to learn again how to be silent. This is what the Buddha teaches us. Silence can be more intimate than talking. It is a way of being that makes your doing, your action, deeper and more effective.

Walking from our room to the meditation hall, we walk in such a way that each step brings us peace and joy. Walking like that is being. Drinking our tea in freedom—this is the art of being. Looking at another person in such a way that our understanding and compassion can be expressed—this is nonaction, and it is already happiness. We make people happy by the way we live our daily lives.

When we become novice monks or nuns, our practice is to be happy novices. We don’t need to be fully ordained monks or nuns to be happy. If we think like that, we sacrifice our novice lives. In fact, when we are novices, we have less to do and we can enjoy more.

When you are a big brother, you have to take care of so many things! It is the same when you are a student— you don’t need a diploma to be happy. If you are a lower-level manager in your company, you don’t need to be the CEO to be happy. To feel happy right where you are in the present moment is your practice. With this kind of understanding, you accept yourself completely; you don’t feel the need to become someone because you are already someone.

I remember one day I was having tea with a novice monk, and I said, “My child, do you want me to become a Buddha quickly?” And guess what he said: “No, I want you to be like this. That’s good enough for me!”

I take my time. I want to be myself. I don’t deny myself in the here and now. This is our practice—we call it aimlessness. We don’t put a goal in front of ourselves and run after it constantly. If we do, we’ll be running all our life and never be happy. Happiness is possible only when you stop running and cherish the present moment and who you are. Who you are is already a wonder; you don’t need to be someone else.

You are a wonder of life.