Today this excerpt is about work and play, and if you’ve gotten business coaching from me you’ve probably heard me talk about this multiple times. As a reminder this is a book I’m translating, “Inner Peace, Socialization of Compassion” by Ven. Pomnyun Sunim, published in 2002.
We can find inspiration from Buddhism’s bodhisattva practices to help correct a mind that has been indoctrinated. Bodhisattva practice itself is self-actualization. Bodhisattvas actualize themselves through labor. They enjoy labor as if they pay to be working. This kind of labor turned into play is true liberty of labor. We must stop participating in the division of professional laborers and professional players. The same applies for sports and religion as well. We must stop dividing professional athletes and spectators, professional religious figures and followers. In other words we must cultivate a society where everyone willingly works, willingly exercises, willingly prays, thus becoming true owners of society.
Any action must be done willingly and meaningfully as if it is play. We must abandon the thought “labor is extractive to me” and start thinking of labor as self-actualization. Just by this paradigm shift the workplace becomes a haven of self-actualization instead of a hellhole that you had to go against your wishes. In this day and age it is extremely unlikely that you are going to starve to death as long as you do any kind of work. Since survival, in its most basic definition, is mostly guaranteed, it is best to choose a profession that you want to do rather than a profession that pays the best. Why get paid $2,000 a month stressed to pay $1,000 in drinking and recreation, when you can just enjoy getting paid $1,000? That is the way to work as play. One change like this after the other, and your life changes.
Another popular line of thought is that I will do the things I don't want to do while young so I can enjoy doing the things I want to do when I'm older. This is a foolish thought. Thinking that I will work in the day so I can play at night is also unreasonable when it comes to self-actualization. What will happen if you coincidentally die tomorrow without self-actualizing? That will be a big shame. Going to work is self-actualization, working is self-actualization, listening to Dharma talks is self-actualization, cleaning your home is self-actualization. Listening to lectures is self-actualization giving lectures is self-actualization. Everything in life and all the work that you do in it is self-actualization. But because we are not flexible enough to change our thoughts, we keep dividing between play and work, self-actualization and work. So we spend an entire week working ourselves to death and then spend the entire weekend destressing which accumulates a great amount of fatigue to the body and mind. self-actualization is actually low on priority, while all the money that was earned through the hard labor is going straight to liquor and smoking. And even at this state people don't know what is wrong with this kind of a life. This is why people enjoy ruining their health by going out and drinking, dancing in a nightclub with poor air quality instead of finding the meaning of life listening to Dharma talks. If you use that same time to go out into the fields to work, not only is it exercise but you also will get a lot of praise while making money as well! But practically nobody wants to do that in this day and age.
Going into the mountains to do lumbering is labor so they don't want to do it. But going into the same mountains with a heavy backpack for the sake of hiking is enjoyable because it is leisure. The core difference is that hiking is voluntary. Just like this if you change your paradigm life instantly becomes joyful and happy. When will people come to understand this?
In Jungto Society everyone is a volunteer. Or frequently misunderstand this. But in reality it does not look any different from any other kind of a workplace. Getting paid $2000 in your bank account and having it siphoned out to living expenses, electricity, water and so on and getting paid nothing but having your food and shelter taken care of is not all that different. Because there is no notion of pay there is no need to hassle about high paychecks or low paychecks. No one will be jealous of your high paychecks and no one will dismiss you because of your low paycheck. In the future everyone will live like this. In the olden days monks used to just live with one small sack as their entire set of properties. People will be able move to a different place with just a single sack if they detach from accumulating property. If you want to go to work in England, for example, the only thing you need is the mindset that you will do anything including computers, cleaning, truck driving, and so on. When you’re sufficiently detached from these ideas there is no such thing as a lifetime career, so there is no suffering when you’re let go from a job.
People commonly want a lifetime career that is stable. This is actually sort of a self enslaving kind of a mindset. The enslaved are bound to their owners, serfs are bound to their land, and laborers are bound to money. All are bound. The true stable lifetime career comes from a place where one can self-actualize through practice. That is the way to becoming an owner of your life. Also when work becomes play and rest, and when work becomes practice – that is true liberty of labor. Being the complete owner of your life, that is the life of a Buddha. Whether there is a reward or payment or not, bodhisattvas who willingly live a joyful life are the ones truly liberated from labor. How much work would Avalokiteshvara or Ksitigarbha have, and how hard would their work be? But even in that condition they are completely free from the idea of what labor means to people in this day and age.
Therefore there is no reason to distinguish between monks or layperson, renounced or not, shaved head or not, marrying or not, carnivore or vegetarian. But because most live married, it seems like a noble thing to be voluntarily living alone like a monk. But most can’t live like that. Life is already very difficult, because you can’t even fully control yourself. This kind of attachment is due to ideology. For example, suppose Koreans considered themselves as lowly compared to the Japanese during the colonial era. As long as this ideology exists, it will be very difficult to attain true liberty. There needs to be a fundamental paradigm shift that says “being Korean is something to be proud of”, and that is the core idea behind the March First movement.
But it is hard to change people’s minds like that. Just like how it’s extremely difficult for a smoker to quit smoking, people are addicted to their ideology. Changing the ideology itself is not that difficult. A bit of an imagery to explain: if you put a blind person and have them hanging on a short tree, then tell them “you are hanging on top of a cliff” the blind person will not be able to let go of their grip. This will greatly strain the blind person. From the perspective of the observer all they have to do is let go of the branch, because it’s just a few inches’ fall. People who are consumed by their ideology are like the blind person. Even if you let go of the ideology, nothing drastic will happen.
In conclusion, I am in support of all human beings being free of oppression. Racial minorities must be free, women must be free, castes must be free, laborers must be free and I unilaterally support all of them. But the freedom I advocate is a total freedom that transcends victim mentality, the very mentality that creates another cycle of oppression. I frequently advise females to pray to their husbands, “I was wrong” and I get mistaken as a misogynistic oppressor but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Caring for males is the ultimate female freedom. Females have been oppressed by males for five thousand years, and as a consequence of that they have been under the care of males. Now females can have that power to care for males and who would dare oppress their caretaker?
Couple counseling issues must be resolved like this too. Loving and giving care to my spouse itself must be the fruit of my life, the play of my life. The spouse will naturally appreciate and thank your gestures. This way both partners can be happy, and both partners can be the owner of the partnership. If I can’t be the owner of the partnership and constantly yearn for care and love, and thus think “I love you, so what will you do for me?”, it is more of a parasitic relationship rather than a partnership.
The world will also follow this trend. Until now, military might, political leverage, information power have run this world but in the future morality will become a great measure of power. An era where the moral rule the world, this is what east Asians call “the reign of noble kings”. This is exemplified in NGO’s. A few people with a moral calling to solve the world’s problems without filling their own pockets, and advocating for their viewpoints. This is the power of morality. In order for this era of morality to come about people must be able to overcome their greed and insistence on their ideology through practice. This is the way to spiritual liberty and freedom. All freedom, liberty movements must ultimately be about spiritual liberty.