Curious Christian

How do the disciplines of work and meditation relate to one another?

Many people think of the relationship purely in terms of “How can meditation help me with my work?” They see meditation and related disciplines like yoga as a means to reducing stress and achieving peak performance.

Now that is fine – I believe meditation can help you with your work – but I would like to suggest that it is also worth looking at the relationship the other way around. If you are committed to the discipline of meditation, try also asking yourself, “How can work help me with my meditation?”

This is an interesting question, because it soon becomes obvious that certain professions on the one hand, and certain ways of approaching your profession (whatever it is) on the other, are likely to be more supportive of your meditation practice than others. To begin with, professions that drive people to ask ultimate questions are likely to be more helpful to your practice than professions that encourage you to suppress such questioning as distractions.

I think this is why we see so many Christians in health care and social work and many Buddhists in counseling and psychology. They find these professions more congruent to their chosen spiritual path. Problem is, we don’t all work in professions that are naturally nurturing towards our spiritual path, and not all of us can change that easy. And even if we could, that wouldn’t necessarily be good for society as a whole. So, I think it is worthwhile to look at how we can approach our work differently, what ever it is we do for a crust.

I think in this respect Brother Lawrence is a very interesting character. Brother Lawrence was known for being a deeply spiritual guy. He was also known as a dishwasher. That was his job at the monastery where he lived. But he tried to ‘practice the presence of God’ in whatever he was doing. What helps us ‘practice the presence?’ That’s a question I am very interested in exploring further.

There is another way work helps us in our meditation practice though. Work is where our advancement in the spiritual life is road tested. Are we becoming more loving? Are we becoming more honest? You may note your meditation exercises on forgiveness are be growing more and more vivid and deeper, but you’ll never know how your practice is truly going till you’re in a heated situation in everyday life. Your successes and failures at work should guide your practice. What might your work experiences be suggesting to you?