Meditation in the Workplace

From a meditator's point of view, the workplace is the arena for the cultivation of 'right livelihood'. 'Right livelihood' has been a moral tenet and an objective of Buddhist meditation for many centuries. It connotes a work environment rooted to the principles of harmlessness and harm reduction. It valorizes a situation which is inhospitable to ill-will, gossip and idle chatter. It has a strategic and a tactical set of goals and ambitions.

Strategic aspects:

Generosity - giving back to society and sharing profits with workers

Tactical aspects:

All employees are responsible for:

Being hard working - this means dedication of effort to accomplishing tasks
Being vigilant and scrupulous in the protection and use of company assets
Being worthy of emulation with regard to the strategic strategies
Maintaining personal balance through eschewing malignities and cultivating general good

Zen meditation is the ideal praxis within the realities of a workforce that needs to develop a working vocabulary of right livelihood. The Buddhist "middle way" approach is use meditation to enculturate the capacity to establish an optimal balance between all the conflicting dynamics which comprise a human workforce. It is a project, though that is never finished, is constantly developing and evolving. It is a great opportunity to initiate. It is a complex undertaking. A company undertaking to include 'spiritual well being' or 'personal meaning' within its purview would be well advised to consider carefully how to structure the new ideas so that they can be replicated for the future and will resist corruption by the incipient ill-will of the competitive work environment. However, approached with the appropriate respect, meditation will bring the following benefits:

reduction in rates of absenteeism and sick leave
increases in measures of production
significant reductions in stress related anxieties
significant improvements in recruiting and retaining superior employees

So, it is worth doing. Some of the largest companies in North America are now including a spiritual component of some sort into their daily routines. Nike, the World Bank, Google, the New York City Police Department; quite disparate entities and yet all have benefited from meditation in their respective workplaces. A properly established, supervised and maintained meditation component will be an important asset in the struggle for corporate survival. Belief and acceptance of the general principles of kindness. Ethical orientation around avoidance of greed, ill-will and deceit.