On Work As Practice - Rijumati

ON WANTING MY SAY 

'There's a part of me that wants to let go of that little bundle of selfish concerns - getting "my" pleasures satisfied, getting my" way - and instead wants to participate in something much bigger. Of course there was a sense of this before I became a Buddhist, before I had really committed myself, but I wasn't mature enough to see it. The vision was too much and it crushed me, whereas these days that sense of awesome sublimity is more tangible and expressed most beautifully in the Bodhisattva Ideal. it's the participation in working for all living beings that draws me on.'

'I sometimes thought, well, I've got a degree in mathematics, and here I am packing boxes. It was a bit odd. although I'd joke about it, I was still wrestling with vocation and career. After all, I'd had one of the best educations that Britain could give, for which I've always been grateful. I thought I ought to be using this, doing something with it....'

' Keturaja needed someone to work with. I'd been finding it difficult to run the warehouse, primarily because I wasn't up to the kind of communication needed to bring together disparate areas of the team; I'd seriously thought about leaving. I was freed up from my warehouse job in order to help Keturaja. That was the high point... I didn't understand what we had to do, but I was confident he knew what he was doing. I enjoyed just doing what he asked, and not having to react with, 'Hey, I want a say in this decision'  Keturaja has always been two or three steps ahead of me! I was delighted to work for him... It was quite a watershed, marking a breakthrough in terms of individualism. I realised I didn't, always have to be in charge, didn't always need to have my say.'

'When I was working in the warehouse, my pride meant that I always wanted to have my say, even when I wasn't taking full responsibility for the work and didn't really know what I was talking about! It was this kind of arrogance and narrow individualism that working for Keturaja in 1990 helped to overcome'


'In contrast, when I was on the vans I was forced by the nature of the job to take complete responsibility for my actions. If I messed up an appointment with a customer, I couldn't blame anyone else. This made more of a man of me. I knew I was able to make my way in the world and this brought confidence and strengthened my individuality. Now I feel more and more how beautiful it is when I'm prepared to give up this limited sense of self-seeking happiness for something greater.'


'It comes back to that quality of sacrifice and self-surrender which is just so much bigger than my selfish concerns. If you think about it, its ridiculous to spend your life building up your personal interests. They're all scattered at your death, so what can make any sense of it? It's got to be something that transcends one individual. So I can see that thread of self-surrender all the way through my life: being attracted to the Sangha, going through an existential crisis, and wanting to give myself to something much bigger. The whole practice of serving the Dharma is an expression of it' ****

****  

All text in quotations have been taken from Padmasuri's book - Transforming Work, an experiment in Right Livelihood. Published by Windhorse Publications 2003.