Awake at Work
In ancient China around 500 BCE, thousands of burdensome social rituals dominated people’s lives. When to bow, what brocade to wear, how to address a government official, what ceremony to conduct, even what ornament to rest by the fireplace, and much, much more were all dictated by a rigid social code called li.
Through the centuries many Chinese citizens had learned to perform these rituals mechanically, turning ancient custom into worthless and often oppressive ceremony. Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher from that time, found such mindless rituals deeply damaging to Chinese society.
LI: ORIGINALLY IT WAS A WAY TO INSPIRE PEOPLE TO BE RESPONSIBLE TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER
According to Confucius, Chinese ancestors had originally shaped the rituals as a way to inspire people to be responsible toward one another and respectful of their world. But with such purpose lost, many found themselves behaving like puppets, following empty rules rather than living as dignified citizens of a great culture. In Confucius’s view, the original intent of li had been lost, with disastrous effects.
LI: GO WITH THE GRAIN OF JADE
Some historians believe the term li was first used by artists of ancient China who mined and cut jade, a gemstone cherished to this day throughout China. One of the enduring difficulties in carving jade into figures and decorative designs is its tendency to crack along natural contours. Some historians speculate that these lines along which the stone would gracefully and naturally crack were once called the li of the stone. The craver’s great challenge was to incorporate this tendency to break along elegant lines into a work of art, thus producing a work of beauty that relied inherently on the stone’s natural li. This original carver’s skill of bringing forth the natural beauty of the jade evolved over many centuries into a collection of techniques for sawing, cutting, sanding, and polishing jade. These techniques were handed down from teacher to student over the centuries as a body of wisdom also called li.
Eventually the term li came to signify any social ritual intended to reveal the natural decency and goodness of being human. So it is from these –the carver’s hand, the natural elegance of jade, and Confucius’s love of humanity that we can learn to be decent by cultivating li.
LI: NATURAL HUMAN INSTINCT
Just as jade has a natural tendency to break along elegant lines, Confucius observed that human being have a natural instinct to behave decently towards one another. A kind gesture, a passing smile, a desire to help others, all spontaneously arise out of a basic human goodness or tendency to be decent. According to Confucius, this tendency, li was the source of all proper and decent human behavior. Cultivating profound respect for his human goodness, he thought, is it at the very heart of leading a worthy life.
Just as jade cutter respect the li of the stone, cultivating li in society is central to promoting integrity and human dignity, requiring commitment and discipline. By cultivating li, human decency is never taken for granted but is acknowledged, respected, and preserved throughout all human activity-especially at work. Otherwise, when li is ignored, men and women can find themselves following pointless ritual, obeying the letter but not the spirit of accounting rules, remaining loyal out of fear, and avoiding rather than shouldering responsibility. Confucius considered a leader’s central task in shaping human culture to be like that of jade cutter; to inspire and nourish li, thereby promoting the health, wisdom, and spiritual well-being of all citizens.
LI: GIVE THE RIGHT OF WAY; OPEN THE DOOR; MAKE ROOM; EXPRESS WARMTH
It is one thing to say that li is our instinct to be decent and humane, but how do we access this inner ‘moral compass” of integrity? Recognizing li within ourselves can be quite simple and straightforward. One way to acknowledge li is to try to deny it. For example, the next time someone extends his or he hand to you in a greeting, imagine for a moment how it would feel if you did not extend your hand in return, leaving the other person’s gesture of friendship denied. Most of us would feel very uncomfortable. Try not shaking a person’s extended hand and see. Or the next time you are entering a crowded store or restaurant, don’t hold the door for the person exiting but simply enter first, squeeze past the person, and don’t look back-just keep walking. Try it. It is almost impossible to do- it feels so improper and awkward. These small instances demonstrate the irritation of going against or corrupting li, the natural grain of our basic decency.
There are countless simple examples of how li in its utter humanness pervades our lives: giving directions to a disoriented Sri Lanka Holidays tourist, returning a lost wallet, offering a seat to an elderly person, holding the elevator door for a colleague. Rather than being some grand philosophical notion from ancient from ancient China, li actually is our humanity at its most basic level –an instinct that guides us to be helpful, honorable, and gracious toward one another. No rule book can teach us to extend such respect toward our fellow human and our world. It is our li, our nature, to extend such simple and noble gestures.
Cultivating li at work starts with extending these simple courtesies toward our colleagues, not in the sense of being overly polite or contrived, but naturally respectful and accommodating. Over time, by calculating such respect for others, we develop a kind of ‘relaxed diplomacy” that becomes part of our work style. Because we are considerate, we no longer need to always make the safe decision or imagine the worst about workplace difficulties. We develop the confidence to sense when to be tactful and restrained and when to be forthcoming and direct. By cultivating li, ethics emerge as a natural expression of the mind free from fear and aggression, not something we learn from a rule book. As our commitment of li develops, so does our trust in ourselves that we will be decent, that we will ‘do our jobs rightly, with eyes open.” We discover that our inner moral compass is made of jade and that being authentic is nothing other than following the natural contours of who we are.
LI: TAKE THE RIGHT COURSE OF ACTION WHEN CAUGHT BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
In January 2003 Time magazine chose Cynthia Cooper, former vice president of internal audit for WorldCom; Coleen Rowley, special agent with FBI; and Sherron Watkins, former vice president of corporate development for Enron, as Persons of the year. They were recognized as people who most affected world event s during 2002- not because they found the cure for cancer or negotiated the end to a war but rather, in the words of Time magazine’s editor: ‘They were people who did the right by just doing their jobs rightly-which means ferociously, with eyes open and with the bravery the rest of us always hope we have.”
Above is a gleaning from the book titled Awake at Work: 35 practical Buddhist principals for discovering clarity and balance in the midst of work’s chaos by Michael Carroll.
Footnotes by My Sri Lanka Holidays bunpeiris
Confucius (551 – 479 BC) was a Chinese politician, teacher, editor, and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history.
Confucius “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.”
Zi Gong [a disciple] asked: “Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life?”
Confucius: “How about ‘reciprocity’! Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.”
Analects XV.24, tr. David Hinton
The Chinese love jade because of not only its beauty, but also more importantly its culture, meaning and humanity, as Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC) said there are 11 De (virtue) in jade.
‘The wise have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliancy represent the whole of purity; its perfect compactness and extreme hardness represent the sureness of intelligence; its angles, which do not cut, although they seem sharp, represent justice; the pure and prolonged sound, which it gives forth when one strikes it, represents music. Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornamentation it represents chastity. The price that the entire world attaches to it represents the truth. To support these comparisons, the Book of Verse says: “When I think of a wise man, his merits appear to be like jade.”
Incidentally, the only ancient traveler to have ever recorded of an existence of a large Buddha statue carved out of Jade in Sri Lanka was a Chinese: Fa-Hien (Fa Xian), a Chinese Buddhist Scholar monk. Fa-Hien spent two years in Sri Lanka copying the Vinaya Pitakaya (Sinhala: Book of Discipline) of Theravada Buddhism and returned to China by sea. Fa-Hien narrated:
By the side of the top he further built a monastery, called the Abhayagiri where there are (now) five thousand monks. There is in it a hall of Buddha, adorned with carved and inlaid works of gold and silver, and rich in the seven precious substances, in which there is an image (of Buddha) in green jade, more than twenty cubits in height, glittering all over with those substances, and having an appearance of solemn dignity which words cannot express. In the palm of the right hand there is a priceless pearl
.A Record Of Buddhistic Kingdoms Being An Account By The Chinese Monk Fa-Hien Of His Travels in India And Ceylon (A. D. 399-414) In Seacrh Of The Buddhist Books Of Discipline.
Subtitles are introduced by bunpeiris for easy reading.
In an attempt to deny li,My Sri Lanka Holidays bunpeiris, quite improperly, introduced a couple of words [ Sri Lanka Holidays ] precede the word “tourist” in this extraction off “Awake at Work” by Michael Carroll. He [bunpeiris] now feels very awkward of misdeed. He should practice what he preach: li
