No-Self At Work

Short talk/idea about the possibility of bringing no-self to work with you. How would things change? How would the work or company change? We live and work in the world primarily through our ego-based sense of identity. As we practice meditation and have moments where we let go of thought and our "self," we begin to touch the unity or interconnectedness of it all. What if we took this with us to work? We could support the whole instead of looking out for our self.

Transcript

I was thinking about a few things. One is this idea that I've put through here that is not necessarily so specific, But this idea of the self, What the self is, And this experience of no self. If anybody's, Certainly in spiritual traditions, Mystical traditions, And even now in neuroscience and such, There's an understanding of the self, Our identity, Our ego-based identity as being a fiction. That's what they would call in spirituality, I guess, An illusion. This idea of losing yourself is a really important step on the way somewhere to higher awareness, To greater equanimity, To liberation. But it's also a really valuable, Even just concept, To take with you at work. What if we weren't doing our work for ourself? What if we didn't think of it as, I'm doing this for all of the reasons that I have created for my satisfaction? The realization part of it is, I recognize that myself is a bit of a fantasy. What's real, What's true, Is a much deeper interrelationship, Interconnection, Interwoveness with all things, And that all things are me and I am all things. If I took that approach to work, What would change? How would it be different if what I was doing at work was simply showing up, Being present, Being aware, And solving problems, And making everybody happy, Fulfilling everybody's needs as much as I can, Including my own, But not looking for recognition, Not constantly thinking about advancement, Not constantly thinking about, Worried about being fired. All of those thoughts that are ego-based, Thoughts that ensconce ourselves into this identity of the character that we play in the world. If we lost that, How would our work change? How would our contribution change? If we all could play into that, How would the company change? How would work in general change? We'd all be working for the greater good, Essentially. We'd all be working to support and prop up each other, To make everything good. I'm curious if you think about that. What we do here in meditation is a little bit of training on that level. The experience of deep meditation is to lose self, And whether or not you've had that experience in meditation, You've had that experience in other moments. For me, I've noticed that very recently, I've been taking 10-minute naps in the middle of the day. These naps, I lay down. I fall asleep almost instantly. I'm up 10 minutes later. The whole thing is like I'm just gone. There's nothing there. I wake up and I'm, Oh, Okay, Here I am. We've all, I think, Had the experience of waking up somewhere, Sometime. This also happens a lot in my acupuncture office. People get up after an acupuncture treatment or come in and they don't know where they are. They don't know what happened. They're kind of gone for a second or two. I think we've all had this experience. Tell me if you have where you wake up and for just a split second, You don't know where you are. I think certainly everybody's had that. But if you were able to analyze a little bit deeper in that split second, You'd also notice that you don't know who you are. It's not just where you are. There's an I available, But you don't have the whole story. It just comes flooding back in within a split second. I'd encourage you to even look for that when you wake up or if you take a nap or something. But also to notice in meditation, There could be a moment or two where you're just not there, Meaning the story of who you are is just not there. There's still something there. What's left there is the bigger self, The self with a capital S or what I like to call the big U. It's just the life and awareness that's within the life. It's saying all this to bring it conceptually into our day, Into our work environment and ask ourselves in any moment. This is maybe an offshoot or a part of the practice of mindfulness, Which is to say, What is my motivation right now and where is it coming from? Almost always it's being co-opted by ego and the motivation is very selfish, Which is normal. But it's good to notice that. Then what would happen when we flip it and we just give ourselves completely to where we are and what we're doing selflessly without the self, Recognizing in a sense that we're all one.