I grew up in the heart of New York City during the second World War. My family moved to San Francisco where I attended high school there. In 1956, I graduated from Cornell as an electrical engineer and then spent two years in the Army as an electronics instructor.

In the early 1950’s, IBM offered what I felt was very interesting work plus it had an outstanding reputation as a good place to work. In addition, it had recently opened a new facility in the San Francisco.

I became interested in Zen through reading a number of books, primarily by Alan Watts. My wife and I started Zen practice with a small group at Haiku Zendo, a meditation center converted from the garage of a private home in Los Altos, California. The group was led by Shunryu Suzuki (Suzuki-roshi) who came to the U.S. in 1959 and founded the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara monastery. Suzuki-Roshi's book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, was created from his lectures at Haiku Zendo.

Meditation practice influenced my work by taking the edge off my personal ambition. I became less concerned about personal "success" and the intricacies of business politics, becoming more interested in treating work as part of spiritual practice: focusing on the value, usefulness, and quality of my activities, creating mutually supportive personal relationships, and maintaining high professional and ethical standards.

The important thing is for all of us, as individuals, to decide for ourselves what is important in life. We need to bring our own ethical and spiritual values to the work we do and to the ways we relate to each other. So I would not want to prejudge these things for anyone else.

My work in a large business organization convinced me that Buddhism and Zen are not outside the economic mainstream of society. It is not confined to monasteries or mountain tops, and does not require an "alternative" life style, as believed by many in the 1960's and 1970's. I came to understand that the workplace sharpens various skills – critical thinking, long range planning, organizing, developing strategies for solving problems, and maintaining good communication and courtesy -and that these disciplines, as well as the emphasis on working collaboratively with others to get a job done, are not in opposition to Zen practice but rather are expressions of it.

A company can become too big and lose its focus. It happens all the time. I think that a "large", whatever that means, organization model is viable in certain circumstances. It has its limits, just as a "small" organization has its limits. Organization size needs to be appropriate to the given situation. And it may have to change if the situation changes.

Very few people at IBM were aware of my Zen practice, at least it did not come up in day to day conversation. I made a point not to call attention to it. The people at IBM who did know about my practice were courteous and interested but probably did not see a connection between spiritual practice and working in a high tech, business environment. That was something I was working on myself at the time.

There was no conflict.

Through continued Zen meditation practice, one comes to recognize that work is a spiritual activity, not just a way to earn a living. As this recognition subtly grows and takes shape, the individual very naturally approaches work with a more giving, selfless attitude. Work becomes less stressful, more joyful and creative, more collaborative as the individual becomes more reflective and less reactive in responding to work situations.

"Subtle" means that something is going on but we are not aware of it at a conscious level. Like getting wet when walking in fog; you can't really say when you got wet. You see the "big picture" without having to think about it, or you can envision the likely consequences of a potential act without intellectual analysis.

Selflessness shows itself when our priority for pursuing a personal objective becomes tempered with an increasing emphasis on achieving a common purpose, even in giving up the effort - and the prospect of personal gain - if it is determined that the results will not be beneficial.

I have always felt the vital need for people to work together towards common goals that are good for everybody. Solutions to problems are better, people feel included in the solution and so help to make it happen, relationships and trust are strengthened, minimizing the risk of future problems arising.

Zen Practice did not change my mind or attitude. Instead, it validated my belief and intuition in the necessity of continually reaffirming our inherent oneness, expressed in working together in a communal way whenever feasible.

I don't believe the practice affected my career one way or the other.

My book included my own personal stories of how my practice expressed itself in my work situations. What I would add is stories of other people's experience of practice in their work life. Hopefully, this will be covered in a second book that I am working on.

The world of work has become much more difficult these past two years: a down economy, layoffs, corporate scandals. People need to have a high degree of resilience, the capacity to bounce back from disappointment. They also need to have a way to retain optimism and hope. Spiritual practice can provide that support by enabling people to develop creative responses to stressful situations. Practice helps us recognize that things constantly change, that very little of the world is within our control, and that when setbacks do occur, we can choose not to take them personally. In addition, the increased awareness that is nurtured by meditation practice enables us to more readily remain in the present and so not be caught up in setbacks and disappointments of the past.

None of us can say with certainty what will happen in the next moment or the next hour or a year from now. The best that we can do is to be ready to respond to whatever happens and to whatever situation we find ourselves in. The things we worked so hard to achieve and that we cherish – health, possessions, love, safety, reputation, comfort - may disappear without notice. We need to be prepared to let go.

Trusting our own readiness is based on the understanding that there is something more important in life to take care of than what we are constantly at risk of losing. I think this is the basis of fearlessness.

People who put their comfort or safety at risk for the benefit of others understand this point. In some way they have learned to recognize that humanity is not merely a collection of separate individuals going their separate ways. With their life, they express the understanding that it is a community of thoughtful people entrusted with the responsibility of caring for each other and for sharing that responsibility.

Fearlessness is the basis of the spiritual life, what I would call the fully engaged life. It is not about "overcoming" the external world, as in standing up to a bigger opponent in a football game. Like happiness, it is not obtained by material gain. It is about maintaining equanimity even in the midst of fear or a life-threatening danger. It is expressed when we are fully engaged in the present moment, even our final moment.

Zen practice can help an individual come to the realization that all work and every human activity is fundamentally spiritual in nature. When that recognition starts to occur, he or she may begin to stop judging certain kinds of work activities as "menial" or "unfulfilling," or that another activity is somehow more valuable than the activity he or she is working on at present. To feel this way about work includes a bit of ego, due to misunderstanding the nature of "work" and our relationship to it. It is like saying, "This activity is beneath me" or "I deserve better." A more healthy attitude is simply for one to make his best effort in whatever task he is faced with in the present moment, no matter how the situation came about.

At the same time, if someone feels that there is other work that has the potential of being more satisfying, that will enable him to make a larger contribution to society, or that will enable him to better provide for his family, he should move in that direction, especially if he has the skills.

When we understand our spiritual and ethical values - compassion, generosity, charity, patience, responding to suffering, giving full attention to what we are doing - and make a conscious decision to live our life accordingly, it means we have made a promise (or a vow) to always act in these ways. This includes the business world, the world of work, where we may be faced with many temptations to compromise our principles for the sake of meeting a goal of the enterprise or a personal goal. The tension that comes from the need to make a decision that may impact our career requires careful consideration of the tradeoffs, critical thinking, and seeing the big picture in the search for a creative answer that benefits everyone.