"The only Zen you will find at the top of the mountain ... is the Zen you
bring with you ..." -Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
To most Americans, the world of our daily life is a far cry from the world of
spiritual seeking and personal growth. We get up each day, go to work, come
home, spend time with our loved ones, and then repeat the process again the next
day. Every now and then, we find some activity which takes us away from our
usual routine and ignites a spark. We lose ourselves in the activity completely.
These moments, when they happen, bring joy into our lives and cause us to be
caught up in the excitement and wonder of something greater than ourselves. Usually, these moments are not associated with our work. Millions of people around the world have turned to meditation or some other
form of spiritual practice in order to increase the quantity and quality of
these moments. Having fed on too many new age books and Star Wars-like odysseys,
we view the spiritual search as something that leads us away from our daily
lives into the world of mystery and wonder "out there". We expect that
the only way to be truly successful in this search is to focus less on the
search for material success and more on that which is "high and noble and
pure". We read dozens of books on meditation and jaunt off for weekend
retreats in the hope that we will find purpose in our lives and certainty in our
actions. For many of us, the search for success in our careers or in our relationships
has sufficiently stressed us out that we seek solace in this type of spiritual
practice. The promise of "meditate and finally be happy" is seductive
yet extremely elusive. The last place we expect to find mystery and wonder is in our jobs, or in our
career. Rick Jarow, in his book Creating the Work you love, calls us a nation of
addicts, turning to caffeine and sugar to help us get through the day. It is not a coincidence that those of us who spend a great deal of time and
effort concerned with spiritual success often do so at the expense of our
financial and/or career goals. Likewise, those of us who focus most of our
energies on succeeding at our jobs and working on our careers often do so at the
expense of a greater understanding of ourselves. Our work tires us out and the
more we work, the less time we have to spend with our families and our loved
ones, let alone meditate or engage in other spiritual practices. However, as I've personally searched for success in both my career and
my spiritual practice, I've come to an unexpected result: I am most
effective in my career and my personal life when my spiritual seeking leads not
away from, but rather toward my daily life. Otherwise, I become extremely
disenchanted and unhappy with life. My own personal story is not unlike many other professionals who choose to
work in the world and want to become successful in their careers. I started out
as a computer programmer, and over the last two years have built a multi-million
dollar business from scratch. Although this might qualify as
"successful" in some ways, I have always had a strange, unexplainable
feeling that I should be off somewhere meditating instead of spending 7 days a
week at the office! It wasn't until I discovered some teachings and
techniques that allowed me to combine my work and my meditation that I felt
truly empowered and totally present in my work. In fact, as I look back on my
career, it was only when I was unconsciously practicing meditation and tying it
into my career that I got the most joy out of my work and my life! Given the amount of time that we spent at our jobs, it is difficult, if not
impossible to overlook this as a place where we can grow spiritually. In my research and practice, I have come across a set of techniques and
principles that I believe can enhance our experience in our careers, and at the
same time help us make progress in our spiritual practice. In this essay, I will
attempt to present some of these techniques and weave them together into a
spiritual path that I call the path of the Career Warrior. In this spiritual path, the seeker is not required nor encouraged to
sacrifice success in one's work in order to advance one's state of
mind and experience spiritual growth. The pupil of this path discovers that
success in meditation is not mutually exclusive from success in the world. In
fact, the successful meditator can enjoy a greater sense of purpose and
direction in his or her work, and can use his or her career as a vehicle to
self-understanding, not as an obstacle. Work can be used not as something that
has to be "gotten through", but rather as a playground that can
support our spiritual goals. Within this context, I will share some specific principles and techniques
that can be used to bring these worlds closer together. I hope that you will try
them, and find them as useful as I have. These principles are meant to be foundations for a way of living, not a set
of exercises to follow mechanically without understanding. What's
important is that you try them, and then adapt them to your own life. Blind
repetition will not bring you the magic or joy that comes from creating the life
you deserve - but taking on some of the attitudes that I describe is the
first step - applying the principles in a way that makes sense for you is
the most important thing. Principle #1: Adopt the Attitude of the Career Warrior Principle #2: Use your work as meditation Principle #3: Use meditation for review and visualization Principle #4: Learn to be aware of energy "This martial art is essentially the art of living life itself. And this
is what I consider to be the true 'way' of the martial arts warrior
- not just overcoming in combat, but a complete overcoming in every aspect
of our daily living. When you learn this art, there will be no obstacle you
cannot overcome."
In America, and throughout the world today, most people have jobs. Some
people view this as a great tragedy of the modern world - but people have
always engaged themselves in some type of work, whether the person was a
blacksmith, a farmer, etc. Today, as always, we must find a way to support
ourselves in the world. For many of us, that means getting up in the morning and
trudging off to our jobs. Given the rapidly changing nature of the workplace today, the idea of having
one job for life has become a thing of the past. With buzzwords like downsizing,
upsizing, re-engineering, reorganizing, switching responsibilities, jobs, and
companies has become a necessity. Today, the typical American worker is
presented with more choices than ever before, and he or she must pare down these
choices to carve out a career path that brings a sense of fulfillment and
excitement. Yet most Americans are caught in jobs that they do not like and would rather
not be doing. We see our work as a necessary evil so that we can earn money to
do the things we really enjoy. Each Friday, millions of us chant the mantra of
the twentieth century: TGIF! Each morning, we pump ourselves full of coffee and
sugar to help us get through to lunch. We use lunch as a catapult to get us
through to 3 pm. Then we hit the caffeine and sugar again to get us through
until the "end" of the workday. And some of us routinely work until
well into the night! It's no wonder that we arrive at home too tired to do or accomplish
much else in life. We don't like our work, or would generally prefer to
not be working if it could be avoided (and we could afford it!), using weekends
to recuperate from the week; and we take 2 weeks vacation once a year to
recuperate from the other 50 weeks. Life becomes an anti-climactic dance of
struggle followed by recovery! Most people spend their entire working lives with a strange notion that there
must be something more to life than what they experience each day, but unsure
how to go about finding it. For some, this strange notion develops into a strong
yearning for meaning and purpose in life. For the few who start to search in
earnest, the last place they expect to look for answers is at work! After all, where did Carlos Castaneda, a modern day spiritual seeker, go to
find his ultimate teacher? Not to Wall Street - but to the Mexican desert,
where he found his teacher, the Yaqui sorcerer, don Juan, who taught him many
secret practices to help him see hidden worlds and gain a better understanding
of our world. Yet, most of us spend 6-8 hours a day sleeping, 8 hours a day or more at
work, and several hours a day eating. If you add up all those hours, then
there's not much time left for spiritual seeking or finding a don Juan.
For most of us, it is not practical to meditate any more than a few minutes each
day - although it's entirely practical to meditate less than
we do, and on some days, not at all! But, here's a question for you: What if you were able to spend 8 hours
a day or more engaged in activities that make you happier, more focused, and
better aware of your purpose in life? Would that improve the quality of your
life? How about the quality of your meditation? You can, by becoming a Career
Warrior.
Introducing the Career Warrior
" the 'way of the warrior' ... is one in which the
warrior represents a magic being living in the midst of everyday society
... "The warrior is so called because he or she is always struggling against
personal weaknesses and limitations; against the forces that oppose the increase
in knowledge and power..." For Carlos Castaneda, the Sonoran desert provided the arena against which to
learn. Don Juan gave him a set of activities, or tasks to perform that
eventually transformed him into a "man of knowledge". The proper
attitude he needed to adopt in successfully performing these tasks was the
"attitude of the warrior". Often, these tasks seemed mundane or even
silly. However, these "warrior's tasks" usually had a hidden
purpose. The tasks themselves were not as important as the unintentional results
- a change in the student's state of mind. For Castaneda, if they were performed with the attitude of the warrior, this
series of tasks had the result of advancing his state of awareness and
increasing his energy level. To effectively bring your spiritual practice and your work together, you
should think about the way of the Career Warrior. In its most basic form, the
Career Warrior is a person who arranges her work and her spiritual practice so
that they are not distinct. While this may sound strange and unattainable at
first, it can be accomplished quite easily with practice and with the proper
mindset. The key tenet of the Career Warrior is that to advance one must not run away
from our work or our daily lives, but must run toward it, in an
intelligent way. The practice of meditation is central to this way of thinking
and acting - not just meditating in the evening after work, but find a way
to meditate at work. This is accomplished by a series of choices, attitudes, and actions that lead
to a higher state of mind. It is a set of choices that lead to greater happiness
on a daily basis, and to strengthening of the mind. Because of the focus that is
paid to work, the Career Warrior naturally reaps great rewards by attaining a
level of success in his or her career. Success in the workplace is used as a
tool for enhancing our awareness and bringing a sense of purpose to our
lives.