Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [108]
Nonetheless, students who ask me questions are sometimes less than thrilled when I offer commonsense suggestions rather than a mystical visualization technique or the name of a holy guru on a Himalayan mountaintop. Finding wisdom in the most ordinary matters of everyday life is a Buddhist tradition. When asked by a student, “What is Buddha?” one Zen master replied, “Which side of the door did you leave your sandals on?” Another Zen master who was asked, “What is enlightenment?” answered, “Wash your dinner bowl.”
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to tell his students, “Pull your socks up.” To a student who joked, “I’m not wearing any socks,” Trungpa said, “So pull your pants up!” In other words, get yourself straight. Reality, after all, is spiritual enough. Spirit is meaningless without being grounded here and now in this plane of existence.
GOOD WORK IS HELPFUL TO YOURSELF AS WELL AS OTHERS
Margaret supports herself and her daughter by selling real estate. When she turned on the television last night, a story came on about surgeons who regularly donate their medical skills to help economically disadvantaged children in Central America. She was deeply moved. Margaret very much wants to make goodness part of her life; she envies people with skills that she thinks can really make a difference.
Frank, a stockbroker, feels the same way, yet he believes his good intentions are stymied by a career that calls for a competitive, even cutthroat, attitude rather than a caring and compassionate spirit. He thinks his coworkers care only about the economic bottom line and doubts that they place much value on compassion. Frank can’t exactly add a list of good deeds to his résumé or can he?
For centuries, well-intentioned men and women have confronted difficulties in combining spiritually motivated behavior with secular lives. I too grapple with this conundrum.
Margaret needs to know that every time she lovingly makes lunch for her little girl, helps a client solve a housing problem without making the realty commission her main priority, or cheerfully drives the babysitter home in foul weather, she is practicing Right Livelihood or good work. Parenting itself is an example of the real work, calling for wholehearted, unselfish effort.
Of course it’s challenging for Frank to let go of his competitive attitude and find ways to use the skills he already has to help a co-worker. That is Frank’s challenge, and part of his unfolding path. Meditative awareness can help Frank see that a collaborative attitude combined with small considerate actions can make a difference in another person’s life, even when those actions take place on Wall Street. Frank might discover that a change in his attitude could transform his own relations and life, even in the workplace; it might even transform his workplace. Wall Street is but one lane of the great way of awakening—or at least it can be.
PAYING ATTENTION PAYS OFF
A friend of mine works in a law firm in a large city office building; one day she walked out of her office and saw a baby bird sitting in front of the revolving doors. She stopped, unsure of what to do. She could only imagine the worst for the bird’s survival, but at the very least, she thought, she could keep the bird from being trampled. To her surprise, soon others congregated, eager to help the little creature. Finally a lawyer she recognized noticed the small tree that was planted in the sidewalk near the curb. There the mother bird waited. All they had to do was get the baby bird over to the tree, so they did that.
If Frank could become more aware of all that is needed in the world, he might be able to commit himself to a straightforward helping project at work—raising money for toys or clothing for needy children or organizing volunteers for a homeless shelter, for example—he might discover, as did my friend with the baby bird, that he is surrounded by men and women who want to do more for others, but don’t know what to do or where to start.