Office Practice

Question: How can I make my office work practice?

Answer: I doubt I have the necessary intelligence, knowledge, and other qualities to be able to teach you that. Nor am I confident that you would be able to practise it, even if I could teach it. We both would have to be exceptional individuals to have such an interaction, whereby you would leave here knowing and being able to turn your everyday work into practice.

As far as I’m aware, the Buddha didn’t teach such methods openly. He didn’t teach them to the arhats; even those special beings who had conquered their afflictions couldn’t do such a practice.

The sort of teachings you are talking about were given in private to very special beings of the Greater Vehicle. They are not the sort of teachings a very low-level lama like me can teach, and, to be frank, I can’t imagine that they are the sort of teachings you could practise.

The most obvious examples that come to mind of those who could and did make their work Dharma practice are the great adepts [mahasiddhas] of the Secret Mantra. For example, the 84 Great Adepts. Many of them did make their work their practice and gained accomplishment by practising like that. Although we have to understand that it was not like they were stuck in their job, and they managed to find a way to integrate Dharma practice with their career. They didn’t need their job, but they didn’t need to give it up either. We have to understand at what advanced levels these beings were.

Okay, but let’s look at a lower level. We see in the practice of the sutra level of the Greater Vehicle that we give up self-interest and work for the benefit of others. So how would that look in the context of your office job, in terms of making your work accord with the Dharma or actual Dharma practice?

We can start with your reason for going to the office. Are you going in order to be paid money for your own self-interest? Well, that doesn’t accord with the level of Dharma you would be trying to practice. If the money you make were not for you, you would give it all away to charity; well, that would, we can assume, be in accord with the Dharma. If you are giving 80% away and keeping 20% for yourself, that would be partially in accord with the Dharma, wouldn’t it?

Or, if we look at it from the standpoint of another practice of the Dharma: calm-abiding meditation. How might you make your work in accord with or conducive to the practice of calm-abiding meditation? How advanced do you think you would need to be to maintain your calm-abiding in the office? An advanced practitioner certainly could. For some, the office may even enhance and accelerate their practice of calm-abiding.

Hopefully, by what I’ve said here, you are clearer about what factors would need to be present for me to answer your question effectively. I would have to be extremely familiar with you. I would have to know your current practice, your current level of progress, your temperament, your levels of intelligence and diligence, and thus your scope for development and much more. I would also have to know precisely what your job involves.

Your question is an easy one to ask, and nor would it be difficult to give a trite answer that might satisfy you in the moment. But it is a very difficult question for me to answer properly.

Macau – 26.08.25