by Parmjit Singh

“Work is love made visible”, wrote Kahlil Gibran in his masterpiece The Prophet. But this seems a far cry in the present productivity-driven corporate culture where the job/work satisfaction is gradually taking a direct hit. Taking into account the recent research and surveys, it is clear that somehow as our life is improving in amenities and cornucopia, the level of satisfaction drawn from work and living is sliding gradually. Life is getting worse around the same time as we are making substantial headway into architecting eye-popping technical gadgets, entertaining the possibility of lunar habitation and teleportation.

But why is it that more than 50% of workers hate or do not like their jobs? If work does not satisfy their inner desire and impart satisfaction, why do they stay locked in their professional rut? Why can they not change? Why do people not want to let go of their misery? What is really wrong with the whole culture of work in the times of email and broadband internets? What is the real meaning of money or work and how can one cultivate a right livelihood? Or what can we do when everything else fails?

These and countless other pertinent questions related to work from the perspective of money, relationships and identity are explored in The Art of Happiness at Work by His Holiness Dalai Lama and psychiatrist Howard Cutler. Coming as a sequel to their previous book The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, the current book extends the theme set in the first book to its practical use. Synthesizing monastic wisdom with scientific commentary is never an easy task because both of these streams draw from different realms of knowledge. But given the inherent beauty and simple practicality of Buddhist thought coupled with Howard Cutler’s analytical commentary, this book presents us with the recipe for making our work a joyful enterprise regardless of its kind.

What makes this book even more thought-provoking is that Dalai Lama apart from giving practical advice about how to iron out troubled work habits, he also straightens out some commonly misunderstood Eastern concepts like contentment saying, “…that you should not confuse contentment and complacency. You should not mistake being content with one’s job with just sort of not caring, not wanting to grow, not wanting to learn, just staying where one is even if one’s situation is bad and not even making the effort to advance and to learn and achieve something better.” (pg. 28) Here Dalai Lama presents the real essence of contentment, its inherent yin-yang nature where the practitioner does what needs to be done and not care much about the rewards that might accrue from his/her action.

Because we live in consumerist society, work has become a singular source of identification for most of the people where hierarchy of the personal position tends to feed our self-talk as to ‘how good we are’ in terms of social usefulness. Though there is nothing wrong with associating our self-perceived prestige with the kind of work we do, yet if it is the only source of our self-identity then we might end up in trouble sooner or later. Given the fluidity of job market, one can get fired any time or if you were lucky enough to hold on to your job even then you have to retire at one point or another. What would your identity be, once you no longer have any position or work? Is that why so many retiree feel socially useless once they are out of job?

Here Dalai Lama gives a profound advice which is that our identity should be based on our self-understanding—who am I? rather than being dependent upon the quantum of money one makes or a badge of honor one earns throughout life time. Once work is purpose-driven, one never retires. It is known that people who, “see their work meaningful, having a higher purpose” or “view their work as a calling tend to have significantly higher work satisfaction as well as overall life satisfaction, then those who view work as job or a career.” (pg. 99)

In a highly-commercialized life of 21st century, we have also come to equate money with happiness—the more money you make, the happier you would be. That is the grand illusion of corporate culture and we must, “simply pause and reflect upon the whole process of wealth creation.” (pg. 57) Recent research and old wisdom suggests that happiness largely depends upon our mental states rather than the prestige or the amount of money you earn.

Here one thing needs to be noted that western penchant for material/object-acquisitiveness is largely rooted in the dominant scientific and philosophical doctrine of Rene Descartes who downplayed the role of ‘subjective self’ in life and attached eminence to physical aspect only. That is why our efforts are focused on accumulating, acquiring and possessing external objects/things-there is always something to be gained, even happiness. Therefore, we call it a pursuit of happiness. But can happiness be pursued? Or have we gained some while having pursued it for last three decades? If current statistics are to be believed, this does not seem to be the case—people are miserable than ever.

Conversely, happiness is a byproduct of doing things rightly. It is just akin to lighting a lamp to dispel darkness. Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler have enlisted all the right ingredients such as better relationships, purposeful work, right livelihood, proper understanding of personal self and why you make money, etc. for nurturing happiness at work. It is an outstanding synthesis of monastic advice in the context of productivity-and-achievement-driven Western work culture.

These are base conditions that allow the growth of happiness and satisfaction. If we understand these things properly we set the stage for a harmonious living and “…the states of mind that lead to destructive activities or harmful kinds of work, states of mind such as unbridled greed, hostility, anger, or even hatred, are simply incompatible with a person’s long-term happiness.” (pg. 173)

Pursuit should be focused on eliminating these negative conditions. Happiness can not be chased or pursued, rather it can only be allowed to blossom by eliminating all the conditions which prevent it in the first place. This book defines this pursuit superbly given the complexity of the issues it attempts to hammer out.

This review is based on Hardbound edition.

The Art of Happiness at Work
Dalai Lama & Howard C Cutler
Riverhead (Penguin Books)
Hardback, $37.50, 224 pages, Aug 2003
Paperback, $20, 160 pages, Sep 2004

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Related book by His Holiness Dalai Lama & Howard C Cutler

The Art of Happiness

Hardback |336 pages | Jan 2002 |
Riverhead(Penguin Books) | ISBN 1573221112|