Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [107]
BRINGING SPIRITUAL ENERGY INTO DAILY LIFE
Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions; they have not yet discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.
—THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ZEN MASTER DOGEN
Many of us have experienced waking up hours before sunrise in order to drive long distances. At 4:00 A.M., houses are dark and roads are empty, but as you continue along, you become aware of increasing activity. More trucks speed by as lights start illuminating the houses you can see from the road. It’s easy to imagine parents waking up to take care of early-rising children, farmers walking to the barn to feed the animals, and commuters heading for highways, trains, buses, and subways. As the workday revs up, all over America people are eating toast, gulping tea and coffee, and looking for clean socks. Some of these men and women are approaching their work with passion and zeal; others are already beginning to feel tense and resentful; still others are rushing forward, as if to combat.
In one way or another, every Buddha (awake or asleep) needs to work. We all work: We go to jobs, we take care of children, we study, we drive cars, we prepare meals, we do laundry, and we empty cat litter. We all work at something. Right Livelihood is how Buddhas and Bodhisattvas work to make an enlightened life.
In our electronic world, several of the issues surrounding work have become more complex than those addressed by Gautama, the Buddha, 2,500 years ago. Yet the themes remain constant: Can we use our hands, our heads, and our hearts to help others? Can we transcend grasping and egocentric behavior, act with enlightened leadership, and embody the impeccable values of sila?
For seekers now, as then, work provides a major opportunity to put one’s beliefs into action. This is the real work. This is something we can really invest ourselves in, which makes the work come alive. Tibetan lamas pray:
May I practice Dharma from now until enlightenment is reached.
May I mingle the Dharma totally with everything I do until the moment of death.
In this way, Bodhisattvas articulate their intention to remember Dharma values, practice good works, and integrate spirituality with even the most mundane day-to-day activities. Despite its mystical appeal, the Dharma and its masters reflect the Buddha’s profoundly realistic view of life. At a Western Buddhist Teacher’s Conference in India in 1993, for example, the Dalai Lama told us, “Learn all that you can. Anything may be helpful. Atisha [who introduced Mahayana mind-training to Tibet] could even mend shoes.” The Dalai Lama himself knows how to fix clocks and watches.
Right Livelihood is a practical as well as spiritual concept, and reading ancient scriptures today, one notices just how much commonsense day-to-day advice the Buddha personally imparted during his long lifetime and teaching career. When the monks asked him how the monastic sangha could get along better, the Buddha’s advice was not otherworldly. He did not say, “Try to turn your body into a rainbow,” or “meditate on emptiness.” What he did say was, “Don’t hide the vegetables on your plate under the rice,” thus reminding them that for the monk who wants more than his share of vegetables, selfishness expresses itself in dozens of small acts. This is spirituality made practical and real.
The Buddha once told the layman Dighajanu that there are four things conducive to happiness in this world: to be skilled, efficient, energetic, earnest, and learned in whatever profession one has; to conscientiously protect one’s income and family’s means of support; to have virtuous, trustworthy, and faithful friends and spiritual aspirations; to be content and to live within one’s means. This advice aptly