A big day for me, and Zen@Work
Today, March 8th, is a big day for me.
It has been five years since I received dharma transmission in my Zen Buddhist lineage, authorizing me to guide others on their path of awakening to the deepest dimensions of their Being. In that time, I founded my own Zen Center (Eon Zen in Boulder, CO) where I lead a growing community of Zen practitioners in daily, weekly and monthly meditation programs. I am completely fulfilled and feel strongly connected to Source in living and teaching the dharma in this way.
Not many Zen teachers (in the West) make their living exclusively from their teaching work. It is not the way of our culture and perhaps in some ways that’s a good thing. While it requires teachers to make a living in more traditional jobs, it also gets us out into the work world, serving in everyday environments that are the fabric of our society.
Two years ago today I left my last “regular job”, working for an early stage startup in the Bay Area, a position I took after I closed down my own startup. As co-founder and CEO of that company I made the decision to turn down a round of bridge financing that would have kept us going because I felt that the hearts and minds of my team were not in alignment with the needs and desires of the market. With over $2M invested in the company from a number of sources, it was not an easy decision, but it was the right one.
Now in these last two years I have been strongly called to bring my Zen practices and insight to the world of work. I know firsthand the distress and discouragement that go along with our hyper-pressurized, over-saturated professional lives. And I have witnessed scores of talented, high-functioning men and women — in Tech, in social enterprises and non-profits, as caregivers, doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs — challenged to thrive because their desire to do meaningful work with full presence is constantly thwarted by inner conditions of imbalance and outer conditions controlled by unrealistic expectations and perverse incentives.
I know that Zen in its broad application as not just a Mindfulness practice (which it is) but as a way of bringing your Whole Self to all aspects of your life, is a way to meet these conditions with the deepest wisdom and heart. Showing up in your full Presence turns inner and outer obstacles into allies and can even transform an environment you are used to experiencing as Hell into one more closely resembling Heaven.
Today, two years to the day after leaving that last startup, I’m launching my Executive Zen Coaching program. I hope to meet as many professionals as I can in this work, meeting them in their work, helping them connect Presence with Purpose, and transforming their lives and work-in-the-world.
My not-so-secret additional aspiration is to support the wave that is shifting our work cultures from the inside. I believe that when individuals make the shift toward more conscious and purposeful living, our organizations and work cultures will follow. Without the support of conscious leaders, this wave will be hampered, but it will happen eventually regardless. With the support of conscious leaders, the shift will be unstoppable, and entire business models and economic incentive structures will be rapidly transformed.
After all, our accelerating world of karma, where every action has more and more immediate consequences, applies to positive intentions as well as negative or ignorant ones.
It is not radical to say that at this crucial world-historical moment we need to shift our work paradigm to one that is both more meaningful to individuals and sustainable for society and the planet. All shifts come from our human heart-minds and this one will too.
This is my dream, and it is truly the promise of Zen: that each of us fundamentally possesses the wisdom of the awakened life (aka “Buddha nature”) and if we can bring it to consciousness, bring it to life in the every day, and truly put it into service, then whole worlds will open and transform toward healing, love and joy.