What's the Point of Your Work?

Beyond the shibboleth of "purpose."

It has become common and perhaps something of a shibboleth to assert the importance of “finding your Why.”

As longtime readers know, I talk frequently about aligning your work-in-the-world with your deepest values and vows to your self and others. (Secret Agency, The Open Secret of Change, and, foundationally, The Three Sacred Contracts.)

So I strongly agree with this emphasis upon discerning your “Why.”

The reason it may be turning into a shibboleth — a sign of identification with a group or what we today might call “virtue-signaling” — is that “finding your purpose” can sound like yet another rung on the self-actualization ladder that our society persistently idealizes and shames us for not climbing.

It can sound like a mandate to justify your existence, when no such justification is required.

It is also in some quarters offered as a kind of skeleton key for fulfillment. Although it is (I believe) crucially important, there is much more to fulfillment than having a well-defined purpose.

Over the last few years I have thought deeply about this question of purpose. My thirty-five years of experience in a Zen practice lineage that goes back 1500 years have given me some insight into how we can discern and live into our purpose, what that purpose offers us and what it does not offer us, the obstacles to discovering and fulfilling our purpose, and the places we can find allies in this great adventure.

Today I’ll begin sharing a deep dive into my understanding of these things. Before I go further though I want to welcome the many new subscribers to the newsletter. I post several times a month on finding fulfillment on your work path from a perspective informed by Zen practice and principles.

My primary professional work right now is Professional/Life Coaching. I work with people one-on-one in flexible programs, and also in small cohort Catalyst Groups that run for 2-3 months. (I’ll be starting my next Catalyst group in the next month or so.)

If you would like to explore working with me, sign up for free Discovery Call on my website. I’ve had a wave of new clients in the last two weeks, but still have a few open spots on my dance card. I would love to talk.

OK, back to purpose …

The question of your “Why?” can’t be answered authentically without a deep engagement with your own nature and conditioning — with your “blueprint” (structures of heart, mind and personality), your “imprint” (mental-physical-emotional conditioning), as well as the “paper” upon which these prints appear (your ground of being, True Nature, Buddha Nature.)

To put it another way, it requires a deep engagement with both your dharma and your karma.

The question of your “Why?” is a deep, individual question for each of us. It’s what in Zen we call a “koan.” We all have a koan of purpose.

Koans are questions that cannot be resolved with the conceptual mind. They are not resolved through intellect, understanding, stored memory, or mind-maps of possible futures.

Instead they are resolved through an intimate study of your heart-body-mind as you engage with the question at hand.

In the case of your koan of purpose, this means becoming intimate with the felt sense of your personal experience while you do the work you do. This becomes your compass for exploring the terrain of your “Why?”

In our Zen retreats our term for work practice is fushinsamu or samu for short. (This is a Japanese word, but it is not specifically a Japanese cultural concept. I like to use the Japanese word not only because my Zen lineage traces back to the Buddha through Japanese and Chinese ancestors, but because I feel there is some benefit to de-familiarizing a term like “work practice” so we appreciate what is involved.)

Samu has a two-fold purpose: it is work-as-meditation and work-as-service.

Let me unpack that a little bit.

We can perform any task with a quality of attentiveness that is fully immersive and not self-conscious. When we get “in the flow” we usually perform the task at a very high level. This is the first purpose of samu, to practice our meditation and cultivate the mind of concentration from which our wisdom and compassion arise.

The second purpose, work-as-service, applies to the benefit our work provides to others. In the context of a Zen Center, all work practice is done to support the community and the practice, from groundskeeping to cooking to administrative and teaching work.

In our meal service before each meal we chant “Seventy-two labors brought us this food. We should know how it comes to us.” The seventy-two labors refer to all the roles within the Center, most of them having nothing to do with the kitchen.

So formal work practice always has the intentional design and should be engaged with in the conscious spirit of supporting the community and practice.

OK, so how does this relate to our jobs and work-in-the-world? Most of us are not Zen practitioners and even if we are, samu is only something we do in the rarefied environment of a retreat, right? We can’t function this way in everyday life, can we?

Well, it turns our we can and, if we want to have a fulfilling life, we must.

I recently came upon some research that confirms what my lineage has taught me and what my experience and instincts have long shown me: that the key to discovering our “Why?” in our work-in-the-world is found in this two-fold purpose of samu.

The research has shown that the three essential components of fulfilling work are: meaning, freedom and flow.

• Flow is work-as-meditation.

• Meaning is work-as-service.

• Freedom is always present in samu, since all Buddhist practice is about liberation. (Freedom means something a bit different in our culture. I’ll delve deeper into this aspect in a future post.)

This understanding has given me the framework for finding fulfillment in work. It is the key to developing your “Why” and experiencing the profound freedom and motivation that comes when we unhook from inherited and cultural “Why”s, and discover our own.

With this framework we now have a roadmap to dig deeper. Specifically, we look into the areas where we can increase meaning, freedom and flow.

I’ll share more in the coming days about fulfillment, meaning and purpose in your work. In the meantime, please Like and Share if you are called, and get in touch if you would like to explore working together.