The Great Perfection at Work?

Series: Work and Dzogchen

The Great Perfection at Work?

Monday morning, 6 am.

BEEP BEEP BEEP. The alarm goes off. “Come on! Get up! Time to go to work!” Still half asleep, I take a shower, get dressed, and drink some coffee. BEEP BEEP. I hop the car. Twenty minutes later… BEEP. The gate opens. I’ve parked. I walk to the entrance. BEEP. I unlock the door and go up the stairs.

— “Hi! How’s it going?” I sit down and turn on the computer.

— “Hey, fancy a coffee?”

— “Yes, please.”

BEEP. It’s ready. Hours spent tapping away at the keyboard. Then comes the lunch break. In no time at all, the meal is gone. BEEP BEEP BEEP. The phone won’t stop ringing.

Not a single minute to think about the Great Perfection, let alone practice it. I don’t even dare to consider it.

And yet, “the daily practice of Dzogchen is simply daily life itself”, as Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said.

So what have I missed?

I must face the facts. In my mind,practice and ordinary life are two very separate realms. To me the former is sitting quietly on a cushion, whilst the latter is being at work or at home, all in a fluster.

But must they really be separate?

When Vimalakirti sees Śāriputra sitting quietly under a tree in the forest, doesn’t he say to him:

“It is not necessary to sit as you do to be sitting quietly.” [1].

“This is how our great ancestors practiced in days gone by; it was by working with their hands that they mastered the Way”.  Dôgen

Then he continues:

“To manifest all bodily postures without departing from the stillness of cessation—that is what it means to sit quietly. To allow mundane concerns to arise without renouncing the realities of Awakening—that is what it means to sit quietly (…)”.

Perhaps this is what eludes me: practicing is not about seeking calm, withdrawing from the world, and no longer seeing it turn. Quite the opposite, it is about maintaining a view of who I truly am while remaining there.

Yet I get the impression that for many of us — and I fully include myself in this “us” — harbor a fantasized vision of training and of how to practice. Ideally, we’d be like the hero of a film who climbs to the summit of a mountain only to find an old, bearded master in a wooden temple who speaks in obscure proverbs with strange-sounding phrases. But the idea of practicing at work? Never!

Is that really how we walk the path? Is it even a possibility?

In her article “Life and Death, Dzogchen Style”, Johanne tells us about the deeply inspiring life of Pema, a cook at a Dzogchen monastery, for whom practice has never been anything other than “simply working with the conditions of [his] existence”, living his life as a cook while maintaining the essential view of the nature of mind in his work.

Perhaps this is our true mountain, the path we must tread.

So, yes, putting the teachings into practice at the coffee machine, or maintaining presence in a professional setting, is less romantic than the idea of the yogi lost in the mountains, but is it not our wish to wake up (again)?

There is no pure world on the one hand and a defiled world on the other. Similarly, there is no Great Perfection world that stands in opposition to the world of work.

As Vimalakirti also says:

“Wrong views are defilement. No wrong views are purity. Distortion is defilement. No distortion is purity. Clinging to the self is defilement. No clinging to the self is purity”.

The distinction between practice and ordinary life is a projection. Traditionally, there is no incompatibility. As Dōgen says in his Instructions to the Zen Cook: “This is how our great ancestors practiced in days gone by; it was by working with their hands that they mastered the Way”. Remembering the teachings and practicing while chopping an onion, talking to a colleague, or typing on a keyboard is well within our reach.

Work and Great Perfection are therefore not enemies; they never have been, but can be allies !

…BEEP BEEP the phone is still ringing.

The office is the same, my colleagues haven’t moved.

BEEP BEEP a call …

Or a reminder.

It all depends on how the mind listens to it!