It’s good to be aware of certain truths, qualities, and characteristics found again and again in Buddhist teachings. My goal and that of those who, with me, are trying to transmit this wisdom, is simply to permit everyone to discover the qualities that are intrinsic to their nature and to use them for the good of all. The essential point is to have understanding and action together.
If somebody were to make an outer observation about how I look, they would say that I come from Tibet, as though that was something completely foreign. But, in fact, the philosophy that the lamas convey is not something that belongs to Tibet; it is something that can be found everywhere and in all of us. It is a philosophy, a teaching that must be adapted in every way to our civilization and that is actually adaptable to every circumstance.
Seen from the outside, one says, “That’s the lama’s practice, the lama’s philosophy, the lama’s thing.” In fact, this is not true. It is not something reserved for one type of person—it is something that is accessible to everyone. The teachings, philosophy, and techniques are directly useful and freely accessible to anyone who wants to use them.
Tibetan Buddhism comes from Asia, and at first one would think that it is very different from Western ways. However, the differences between Asians and Westerners are greatly exaggerated. There is absolutely no difference on the level of mind. To realize this, you may have to be an Asian person who comes to the West. When you arrive, with your philosophy and mental techniques, there is first a shock. You find yourself faced with something completely foreign: extremely different cultures and people who pursue unfamiliar goals. Then, after some time, you begin to see that there is no difference between Asians and Westerners, just as there is no difference between the French and Germans, for example. Of course, there are differences between the languages, history, and cultures of the two nations, but the principle is the same, the basis is the same, the mind of people is the same, and, as such, there is also no difference between the basic nature of the West and the East.
Why do we need a Tibetan example in the West? After studying a bit of Western history, it is obvious that the West definitely was not built on Buddhist techniques. In the West, there are heavily complicated financial structures and enormous industrial structures created by spending huge amounts of money. All that created a static world, a world that did not submit to spectacular changes, where everyone kept the same job for a long time and defended their stability. In that context, techniques for working with mind were not a big deal.
During the last few decades, there was a drastic change in the industrial world provoked by the age of communication. Because of accelerated communications and the evolution of good industrial techniques, what used to be static has become volatile and changeable. A fax machine can change the strategy of a company; it can be the cause of new laws. Everything happens instantaneously, from one end of the planet to the other, with almost no obstacles. We have gone from a static world to an essentially dynamic one. You can go instantly from one point in the world to another. You can use intermediate methods of communication to act over distances to buy things, sell things, and exchange information. The world is essentially fluid. Now, information counts more than big buildings. In business, people’s dynamism counts more than doing the same job for many years in the same place.
The important thing is a relationship based on trust. It is no longer possible to work without that element of trust. For example, if you have a salaried employee in charge of studying the company’s procedures, what counts is what is in her head. If she is not really involved in the company, if she has not taken the company’s goals as her own, then if another company offers her two times her present salary, she will leave with something much more precious than money or the business methods: she will take all the potential she could have given. On the other hand, if she has trust in her employers, if she shares the same goals, then she will resist external pressures—and her employers will be much more motivated to promote her career. These are the methods that really matter in today’s world.
Today, many heads of corporations or managers find themselves faced with the cruel necessity of dismissing people— something truly unpleasant. There can be many reasons for this, but most of the time it is because someone has not kept up with the company’s changes or has been outmoded by technology. Or, perhaps it is because the company’s atmosphere has deteriorated and friction is reducing the output or the circulation of information. If this occurs, one ends up in a very unpleasant situation where one is obligated to “get rid of” people.
Communication within a company is becoming more important. But the people who communicate are people with emotions and conflicts, which often snowball into big problems. Managers may see that they really should give their employees opportunities, help them improve, and retrain them. But many people do not take advantage of these opportunities. They have not been sufficiently motivated; they have not been shown that they possess aptitudes and potential within themselves.
Obviously, one of the goals of a company’s training is to help people discover their capabilities, their own potential qualities. This may seem complicated, but in fact it is not very difficult because we are really talking about something that people already possess, something that is common to everyone. The only difficulty is helping them see that they have it in them. However, you should not deceive yourself. It is not enough just to show people that they have some potential; you have to know how to encourage them to develop it. This means that you must have developed the motivation to do it yourself and to help others.
In this sense, I do not think that it is possible for the general manager or whoever is responsible for the staff to be part of a company without sharing himself or herself. It is not that if this person is strongly convinced of what he must do and has decided to do it that he has to convince his staff all by himself. His staff are like collaborators who can spread the action out to all others. However, in order to succeed, this person has to develop something that we can call the enlightened attitude or bodhicitta.
In the business world, managers must have an acute awareness of the business’s goals, products, services, and profit model. However, this is not possible without considering the company’s employees and really having the intention to do the most you can for them—doing everything possible so they develop in their jobs, have the highest salaries, and have the best working conditions. If you do that, you will create a situation where you can harmoniously reconcile business and profits. Keep in mind, however, that it is not a ready-made formula. Managers must be convinced that they have an interest in benefiting others, that they want this harmony, but not at any price—only to help and support those who can be made happier, for instance, or to avoid conflict.
Managers must develop a compassionate outlook. Once they resolve a situation, managers will continue to have relationships with their direct reports and, through them, with other employees. If the manager’s motivation is sincere, others will appreciate it—not immediately, but over the long-term—and when the manager proposes something, he will be believed. He’ll become credible. People won’t say, “He is trying to get around us again, to fool us with sugar pills.” People will know that his proposals strive to improve employees’ working conditions, rather than to manipulate. A climate of trust will be established.
It is absolutely essential that this attitude, which must be shared at the highest level, is sincere. If it is not sincere, people will notice that the manager does not walk the talk. This will resonate through the subconscious of the organization and become part of the culture. If the actions are sincere from the start, things will function very well. Of course, this transformation necessitates a personal transformation first, because people do not change into compassionate altruists overnight or by looking at their navels all their lives. It is something that demands a personal effort.
In theory, this sounds ideal; in practice, it is a bit more difficult. One collides with oneself—in fact, with one’s own mind. In the mind of everyone, there are “disturbing emotions” that obstruct the proper functioning and circulation of mind’s energies.
The three principal emotions that can hinder the proper functioning of businesses and teams are greed (for money, power, etc.), jealousy, and irritability (another way of saying anger). What happens is that individuals mistakenly see themselves as perfect. Everyone has a strong dose of pride that masks these notorious emotions, and it is very difficult to become aware of them unless one is pushed. For oneself, one can feel an echo of them, but one puts a lot of energy into putting this out of one’s mind because it is really too embarrassing for one’s pride and for the image one has of oneself.
It is not that serious if these emotions lead us around unless we give them free rein by not wanting to recognize them, and unless they systematically destroy all our efforts to create open and simple relations. If something unpleasant happens, it must be somebody’s fault. It could not be my fault since I am perfect, so it is the fault of someone else or many others. One often sees a situation where a manager, politely hated by her employees and exasperated by them, is obligated to work with them because she has no other choice. In this case, the manager sees in her employees the causes of her worries and stomach problems, and obviously her employees see the cause of every injustice in their manager. Nobody in this situation asks himself whether or not he might be a little bit responsible as well.
Still, this situation wouldn’t be too catastrophic, even though it implies the permanent unhappiness of dozens of people, except that it happens with emotions, which have the effect of a mirror, resonating and amplifying. Emotions have the tendency, like vibrating guitar strings, to resonate in all the messages we send out, whether verbal or subconscious. For a business in this situation, everyone will become more and more unhappy because, from top to bottom, their relationships are strained. If someone is unhappy at work, he will feel irritable when he arrives at home and will poison things for everyone else, including his wife and children. This system creates uneasiness, unhappiness, and dramas. What’s more, because the business isn’t working well, clients will not be entirely satisfied and will have the tendency to go elsewhere.
This is why we insist so strongly that you must become aware of your own emotions; it is necessary to know that they are there. The best motivation to realize this and become master over them is bodhicitta, the enlightened attitude, which you can think of as a kind of altruism or unselfishness.
Why is bodhicitta so important? It is the only thing that can push us in the direction of introspection and incite us to change. If I become aware of the emotions that disturb me but still put myself above others, there is no reason to change; I still have a reason to become angry. On the other hand, if I decide that it would be useful for me, for my business, and for everyone if I consider the common good, in that moment I will start busying myself with my relationships with others. I will begin to see that it is my own emotions that poison these relationships, and that it is up to me to correct the situation.
If the manager of a business starts to think that way and acts as a result, if she really tries to master her emotions, this will be felt to the point that it will establish an atmosphere of trust in the organization. Why? Because, in general, when people work in a business, they may feel like they are considered part of the business, but not like people who are really valued. If something changes above, this will be felt at the most basic level of production. People will feel that they aren’t just cogs in the machine, but that they are considered individuals with an intrinsic value outside of the business. That considerably changes their point of view and the manner in which they are involved in their work.
This situation benefits everyone because when you have a situation of trust firmly established in an organization, you have fluid relationships, an absence of energy-wasting friction, and lots of energy to use for really useful things. You will have an organization that functions well, and clients will be satisfied. Everyone will profit from this prosperity, everyone will be happy, and everything will work much better.
You could say, “That is a really nice idea, but there are five hundred thousand employees in my organization. How do I change all of that, when everybody is jealous, when everyone tries to play mean tricks on their co-workers?” Change is something that spreads; it is contagious. In the same way that laughter is contagious, when you start to change yourself from your post of influence, this change has the power to transmit from one end of the organization to the other.
It is not necessary to believe that you will have to inject something into people’s minds, to make something enter into their heads. In fact, this enlightened attitude is something that everyone already possesses, it is just covered up by a strong dose of selfishness. But it is in every one of us, and it is enough just to create favorable conditions for it to blossom. I was struck by the number of Westerners who practice bodhicitta without knowing it, in a totally oblivious manner.
Consider highways. For a Westerner, a highway is the way to the goal. For the highway manager, the highway is the way to make money (egotistical motive). Nevertheless, seen from the outside, it does not appear this way. It is a medium that permits people to go from one place to another easily and with relative safety; something that serves the common good. There are also other examples like social services that do not exist at all in the East. In the East, if you have a certain amount of wealth, nine people out of ten will never profit from it. The wealth will be monopolized by a certain class, a certain stratum of society, so that in the East (although everyone is egotistical, although everyone runs after profit), there is a much more uneven distribution of wealth. In general, Westerners think in much wider terms about things that will be useful at the national level.
If you decide to really take into consideration all the individuals who make up an organization, and if you decide to act for their best interests, inevitably you will act in the best interests of the business. The same individuals will begin to act with a common goal clearly in mind.
To put all this into practice, you must first relax. Relax and calm your mind. When the mind is tense, it gets carried away by emotions without knowing it. In that case, you send messages that are aggressive and often misunderstood because they are distorted by emotions. When you give out distorted messages, you will receive aggression. Therefore, you must recognize your emotions. Having recognized them, you can calm your mind, relax, and stop being consciously or unconsciously aggressive. This will avoid the phenomenon of the mirror, of reflection, of constantly receiving negative messages.
This attitude permits you to put a certain distance between yourself and your emotions, and to not get pushed around instinctively by your emotions. For example, if I become angry, instead of yelling and banging on the table, I will take a brief moment to calm my mind. I became angry, but I am free: I can bang on the table or I can decide to act in a more normal manner. Moreover, when you perceive emotions or unpleasant messages in others, you can then analyze what’s going on inside yourself. You can see that the other person is a prisoner of something that he cannot control at all. It is a blindness that strikes, the person is no longer aware or reasonable. This is what you’re faced with; it is an emotion. You can also avoid reacting with aggression when faced with an individual with that emotion, because you know that it is not an individual but an emotion, like an illness.
In order to have this time for reflection and depth of mind, in order to not get stuck in your emotions, you must have some control over your own mind and have reached a certain degree of calmness and mental pacification. Then, you have time to choose: I will make things worse or I will not. At first, it is not possible. In training your mind, you soon start to see a little bit of space, then there is more and more space, until the moment when you are really free to choose. And that’s something everyone can do.
I am convinced that whoever tries to do this will attain concrete results. It is something really necessary that can spread, and calm and pacify our lives and our relationships with others.
