| PAGE ONE Fall, 2001 Issue: Spirit & Crisis EDITOR'S NOTE BUDDHASCOPE DHARMATALK FOUNDOBJECTS GUESTCOLUMN QUOTES POETRY READING ROOM REVIEWS CONTACT US SITE INDEX SUBSCRIBE |
WORK. WHO NEEDS IT? Who can live without it? But what happens when it's killing you? Or at the very least wearing you out, separating you from your family, and turning daily life into a hamster's treadmill?
We posed a few questions about work to the Venerable Henepola Gunaratana, founder and director of the Bhavana Society, a Therevadan Buddhist monastery and retreat center in rural Hampshire County, West Virginia. "Bhante G," as he is often addressed, is a former chaplain and instructor at American University in Washington, D.C., and an internationally known Buddhist teacher and scholar. And a busy one, who works hard, hopping continents every few months to lecture and lead meditation retreats. The roots of our work habits, like everything else in our external lives, can be traced deep into our minds and hearts. When the mind and spirit grow more calm, we may see more clearly the unwholesome, destructive mental habits that can make work so draining and chaotic, observes Bhante G. With such insights, maybe then we can do something to change matters and make our work more effective in the world.
HMJ: We often throw ourselves into our work and end up exhausted—emotionally, physically and spiritually spent. How can we keep a balance in our busy work lives?
BHANTE G: People get easily carried away with the incentive to work. New inventions come along that encourage people to work... New computers every other month. New work, new desires, to work harder, to earn more. So they get trapped. They get carried away. And they completely forget the whole purpose of their work. Why do people work? They work to earn, to live, and to make their life peaceful, happy. But the harder you work, you make a heavy burden on your mind. When you overwork your mind, you naturally get tired. You become frustrated. You don't have a private life. No home life, no family life, no time for yourself, for your children, husband, wife, parents, relatives.
So, people must learn to be content. And that is the one thing mindfulness teaches us---to be content. No matter how many incentives there are one must learn to say, well, this is enough. I don't want to kill myself being a workaholic. There has to be a certain degree of understanding, to say 'This is all I need, I don't need anymore. I value my peace, my happiness.' They must go back to mental peace---making their minds healthy. And a healthy mind comes from mindfulness. It is up to individuals. Unmindful people are in the majority, always. And they are the ones who are trying to drag you into that trap. Others who are more sensible, more mindful, don't get caught in this trap.
HMJ: The notion of slowing down, of creating time for what seems to be doing nothing, which is sitting in meditation or simply being quiet, this goes against some people's sense of accomplishment. It seems like inaction to not do something. How would you respond to that need to keep constantly busy, as a way to make our way in life, and perhaps to better the world?
BHANTE G: The slowing down is, in a way, strengthening your roots, nourishing your skills, your abilities. Because when you give sufficient rest to your mind, you become more creative, more productive. Therefore, sitting, going for a retreat, going to a meditation center for a few days, is not wasting time. It is, in fact, strengthening your health so that you can do whatever you undertake better.
Sitting in one place and spending some time quietly, absolutely quietly, is a very healthy way of regaining, revitalizing your energy. It is in, in fact, making yourself more productive. One has to have rest. Not just sleeping, but with a total awareness one has to relax the body and mind. That comes from the practice of meditation. You've got to sit quietly for a few minutes to calm yourself and relieve your tension, worries, fears, so that your mind becomes stronger.
HMJ: Many people sit in meditation at home. But how do you bring meditation practice and mindfulness into the busy life of an office, school or a sometimes chaotic household for those who work in the home?
BHANTE G: I recommend that people take one minute in every 60 minutes. Work very hard for 59 minutes, then take a one-minute break, and totally focus your mind on your breathing. Don't think about the future, don't think about anything during that one minute. Just keep your mind totally free from all these things. When that minute is over, you have some additional clarity in your mind, strength to continue on the other 59 minutes. So at the end of an 8-hour-work period, you'll have 8 minutes of meditation. You are less nevous ,less tense toward the end of the day. And you become more productive, more healthy, psychologically as well as physically, if you learn to remain calm, quiet, without doing anything, for a short period of time every day.
HMJ: Some people throw everything they've got into their work. For all of us, at times, it seems like the job, the big project, the cause, the mission, is more important than anything else. We may even believe we're helping to improve the world, all the while we're punishing ourselves, and perhaps our loved ones, too.
BHANTE G: When we try to help where help is needed, that is not anything unwholesome. But at the same time, we have to remember how much we can do for ourselves individually. If they themselves cannot help themselves, then their help to the world will be limited and very small. And when individuals can do things for themselves, and fulfill their duty to their families, relatives, friends and so forth, then eventually they will help the world.
HMJ: You yourself have an extremely busy schedule. Not a year goes by that doesn't find you setting foot in at least half a dozen countries or more. Retreat after retreat, airport after airport, car ride after car ride. Does it ever feel too busy? How do you maintain your own mindfulness?
BHANTE G: [Laughs] I don't have time to think of this. It's something I will keep doing as long as I have energy... You know, all these places I go, I go mainly for conducting meditation/mindfulness retreats. Therefore, I myself meditate with people. When I go to a 10-day retreat, I meditate 10 days with people. Except the difference between them and me is I give dhamma talks every evening and I have interviews with people. But since the quality of my meditation is good, my time spent talking and so forth doesn't tire me out that much. I compensate from my good-quality meditation.
HMJ: In your book, "Mindfulness in Plain English" (Wisdom Books), you wrote that mindfulness is an "emergency kit." What did you mean by that?
BHANTE G: That means when somebody is having numerous psychic irritations troubling them, bothering them, making them miserable and unhappy, that instead of letting them pile up, as soon as one detects their existence, then and there one can immediately get rid of them. Just like when you are in an emergency, you use your emergency kit. You don't let the emergency kill you--the wound or cut or something like that. It's really like a wound when the mind begins to trouble you. It's a wound in your mind. You really need healing to come back to health, mental health. If you don't take care of it then and there, it piles up. It becomes such a great force, it magnifies itself and sometimes gets serious, until one has a nervous breakdown, grave depression, manic depression and other serious problems.
One won't realize it. One thinks one is doing all right. But really one is not doing all right---so many things are going on in one's own mind. Only when something triggers things, one may stop and begin to look back at the time one has spent making life chaotic.Therefore, one has to be mindful all the time. As soon as some psychic irritation arises, one should immediately stop and take care of it first, before one proceeds with the rest of the work.
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MEDITATION CORNER, Fall/00:
How Much Effort in Meditation?