Am I my Job?

Series: Work and Dzogchen

Am I my Job?

Well… It is the middle of October; summer vacation is a distant memory, and I am once again deeply engrossed in my work. There is a meeting in an hour, and in the meantime, I have to answer all these emails… I feel a sense of overwhelm… What if I took a break? A moment to reflect on everything at stake in this situation. The emails can wait. I might ask myself the following question: Do I have a job, or am I my job? Of course, being a free spirit independent of social conditioning, I would answer that I have a job and that it doesn’t define me at all! And yet… my profession takes up a significant portion of my time—time during which I must embody who I am expected to be. Whether I’m a Parisian waiter, a hotel receptionist, or the ambassador of Syldavia to Borduria, I must display the expected behavior. Others expect this of me, so I have to play the game. I must conform to these expectations. I need to personify the waiter’s eagerness to serve, the receptionist’s friendliness, and the ambassador’s courteous sagacity. This quickly becomes a way of defining oneself. I internalize these attitudes. When I meet a stranger, I state who I am supposed to be by saying what I do: “What do you do for a living?” “I’m a knacker,” or “Hello, my name is Marie-Sultane and I work in import-export.” We often extend this identification beyond working hours. Some professors, for instance, like to turn a simple breakfast into a lecture on their favorite subject. The group of diners, transformed into an audience, will thus learn a great deal about geopolitics, for example. 

“ If we do not project onto it the fiction of a “self” doing this or that to become this or that, it becomes possible to recognize this nature within our professional activities.”

Indeed, any activity oriented toward this idea of a “self” leaves traces in our psychic continuum. This is what is known as karma in Sanskrit (Tib. : las). Significantly, this term can be translated as “work.” By believing we “are” a particular social function, we endlessly repeat the same pattern. Even if we have a “bullshit job” or no job at all, there is a form of unhappy, frustrated identification with that situation. In short, whether we like it or not, we often end up believing that we are what we do, even when we don’t truly believe it or don’t want to. That is how the “self” comes to be defined by work.

But deep down, are we really our profession? Are we an illustrator, an engineer, or a farmer while on vacation? During deep sleep? Under all circumstances? Have we been that forever—even before birth and after death? However attached to this role we may be, it is merely a transitory one. It does not offer the stable, secure identity we seek. It is not the solid “self” with which we wish to identify. Defining the “self” through work is an illusion. After all, the “self” is a mental construct in constant flux—always uncertain and ephemeral. Yet, realizing this does not cause action, work, or activity vanish. We are constantly in motion.

In Dzogchen, this movement is the very expression of the empty and luminous nature of reality. When we avoid projecting the fiction of a “self” onto it, doing this or that to become this or that, we can recognize this nature within our professional activities. Repairing a sink or drafting a financial agreement can reveal the essence of enlightenment in pipes or spreadsheets. This idea may seem paradoxical, yet it has been embodied by generations of practitioners within this tradition. Whether simple farmers or mani stone carvers, they practiced the subtle and profound art of recognizing every movement—internal and external—every gesture, and every word as the most direct expression of primordial awareness (Tib. rig pa). How can this be realized? Through a radical shift: moving from an obsession with the “self” as one’s compass to an existence oriented toward perfect awakening for the benefit of others. It also involves moving away from distraction as a way of life and instead cultivating vigilant attention toward the movements and nature of the mind. In short, what is offered here is the transformation of our ordinary relationship with work into enlightened activity.