To study business is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by everyone and everything.

This quote is amended from a famous Zen quote by Eihei Dogen, the founder of Zen in Japan in the 13th century. I’ve substituted the word business for the word Buddhism. Buddhism is a method or tool for studying the self and for waking up. It is just that — a tool. I believe that business, and art, and all forms of work can be tools for self-study.

To study yourself
What does this mean – to study the self? Why would we go about such a study? What would be the motivation? Dogen talks about “the uncertain world of birth and death” – everything about our births, and our lives and our deaths are uncertain. Facing unto impermanence is a reason to study ourselves. What is this thing we call being born; what is this act, this experience, this mystery we call death?

Discomfort and difficult and the possibility for transforming discomfort and difficulty are strong motivators for studying the self – as well as for making changes in how you conduct business. The possibility for living a life beyond just taking care of ourselves are the key motivating forces for studying the self. The acknowledgement that our way of seeing ourselves and the world is limited; that we look at the world through a distorted lens; the more we can open and clear this lens the more possibilities we have. We see the ways that we are not free and get glimpses of the possibilities of finding real freedom.

How do we go about such a study?
I think of meditation practice as the gateway or lever to this study. It’s like the practice of remembering what children know; renewing this connection with birth and death. Just stopping, becoming familiar with our minds and bodies; just practicing acceptance, curiosity, appreciation, and fearlessness

Meditation also provides a container – you just sit, in a particular posture in a particular place. Within this structure, there is much freedom. This is quite paradoxical. The practice of meditation is accepting whatever comes up – thoughts, emotions, fears, hopes, dreams – accepting our birth and death.

Curiosity – just wondering, opening, watching for what happens next, without expecting anything.

Appreciating, just being alive. Appreciating just this moment, this body, this breath, just strange creatures around us.

Fearlessness – seeing our fear, our tight spots, our shadow – and little by little, moving toward the fear; toward the darkness; being afraid and still stepping. Fearlessness is responding, from a place of real freedom.

How else do you study yourself? You pay attention to your emotions, your feelings your moods. You pay attention to your sense of identity. What are your patterns, your shadows, your nicely carved ruts. When Dogen says study, I think he means more than study, but to understand, penetrate, and transform.

To forget yourself
To study yourself is to forget yourself. What does this mean to forget yourself?
I’m concerned that many people may misinterpret what this means. I’ve noticed that many people are drawn to Zen, and use Zen practice as a way to avoid or deny the self, without fully plunging the depths. To oversimplify, there are two kinds of people – narcissists (basically lack self worth and center the world around themselves, as a way of overcompensating for this lack of self worth) and self-deniers (those who lack self worth and keep themselves in the background, as a way of overcompensating for this lack of self worth) Forgetting yourself means to reduce and transform the habit of lack of self worth. It means to reduce and transform the habit of acting from fear.

I sometimes teach meditation instruction at ZC in SF. My favorite part is when I take people downstairs to the mediation hall. I realize that I need to teach people the forms for entering the hall, and I need to show people how to put their hands together and bow. Wonderful to teach people and watch people put their hands together. There is a very formal structure. Place your palms and fingers together; hands are one hands width from your nose. Bow from your waist. This is the practice of studying yourself and forgetting yourself. Are you completely self-conscious, or are you absent minded.

Forgetting yourself means to be fully present. Responsive, flexible, within the container of rules – in improv, the rule is accept all offers. In Zen practice, the rules are do good, avoid harm, help others.

To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things
A better translation is intimate – close, connected. In Zen almost every place where you see the word enlightenment, try replacing it with intimate.

To study yourself and to forget yourself is a paradox. Paradox – a statement that appears false, impossible, or contradictory, buy may, in fact be true.
I’m a Zen priest and I’m an executive coach
I’m shy and an introvert, and I’m energized by speaking
At work, I’m completely myself, and I’m playing a role.
I’m careful and slow, and decisive and quick.

Here is what Rumi has to say on the subject:
Why do you search, futilely, for a loaf of bread
When there is a bakery on top of your head?

Here is what Suzuki Roshi, from Zen Mind Beginner’s Minds has to say:
When you become attached to a temporal expression of your true nature, it is necessary to talk about Buddhism, or else you will think the temporal expression is it. But this particular expression of it is not it. And yet at the same time it is it! For a while this is it; for the smallest particle of time, this is it. But it is not always so: the very next instant it is not so; thus this is not it. So that you will realize this fact, it is necessary to study Buddhism. But the purpose of studying Buddhism is to study ourselves and forget ourselves. ….When we realize this fact, there is no problem whatsoever in this world, and we can enjoy our life without feeling any difficulties.