Awake at Work: 35 Practical Buddhist Principles for Discovering Clarity and Balance in the Midst of Work's Chaos

I am reading this now. As a buddhist, it's an excellent book with practical advice for being mindful and skillful in a competive workplace. Admitedly, I had always considered work as a necessary evil to pay the bills and the competitive rat-race as a hinderance to my practice. His approach to work-life is completely the opposite, it's mindful acceptance and openness to the up and downs. As I read, it dawns on me that that's exactly as it should be.

Caroll's book cultivates mindfulness on the job via thirty-five slogans (or principles) designed to provide natural wisdom, openness, and poise in the workplace. The slogans in the book are derived from the spiritual practice of lojong described in the Tibetian Buddhist text The Root Text of the Seven Points of Training the Mind. Carroll recommends a four-step approach of identifying four primary slogans, randomly selecting others to study at your leisure, looking for spontaneously applicability of slogans throughout your day, and deliberating contemplating a slogan a day through meditation, a journals, or an index card system. The slogans are presented as much more than simple maxims. Each chapter is a well-formed essay with historical perspective, practical modern day applications, and the benefits of each principle. Many chapters encourage the reframing of our thoughts and acceptance of what factors are within and beyond our control. The reader is repeatedly encouraged to meditate and reflect to explore specific aspects of work. The appendix includes practical instructions for conducting a meditation session, strategies for contemplating the slogans, and tips for cultivating li (the social rituals of decency and goodness).

Most of us spend a third of our adult lives at work, and for many it is not much fun. It becomes something that we do to pay the bills, rather than being a fulfilling activity in which we can be fully engaged. Even for people in the professions that require a lot of thinking, work often becomes a bit of a hindbrain activity that people can do in their sleep. For the last three decades I have been asking three questions: "Why do so many people sleep walk through life?" "Would they thank us if they woke up?" and "What could we do to help them wake up?" The author of this important book helps provide some answers. He founded Awake at Work Associates, a consultancy that specializes in helping organizations and individuals apply mindfulness awareness in the workplace, to help both recover balance and well-being in work. Michael Carroll is both a practicing Buddhist who is an authorized teacher in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and has over two decades experience in human resources in several large companies. He teaches mindfulness meditation at the Omega Institute, New York Open Center, and the Wharton Business School in Philadelphia. Michael encourages us to explore our relationships to work and his book is full of practical and uplifting suggestions that are grounded in his work in meditation. One good example is this: he points out that if we are going to be awake at work, we need to understand how we fell asleep. In Tibetan Buddhism, meditators study the six confusions or "mindsets that describe how we imprison ourselves at work." He then applies these six confusions in the workplace: Work as drudgery Work as war Work as addiction Work as entertainment Work as inconvenience Work as a problem As he says, "recognizing that we, not work are imprisoning ourselves is critical if we expect to discover well-being in our livelihoods." So he provides precise ways of "letting go" of the imbalances that work can introduce into our lives by cultivating authenticity and a right code of conduct. He also describes a practice that he calls "enrichment," that can be used to used to resolve conflicts. The idea is that in an adversarial situation, we should not try to defend our own truth or position, or to find some way in which we can benefit, but to act with good will to produce an outcome that is mutually beneficial. This is more than just trying to find the win/win in a situation: it is a broader concept that goes beyond personal gain to try and find the greater good. This may sound like something easier said than done, but the book contains good advice on how to attain this. What I particularly like about this book is that it is an exercise in practical spirituality. A spirituality that we visit for an hour or two a week may be fine for some people, but the real value of a spiritual life is that it can be something that can inform all of our actions, from education, to work, sex and politics. Highly recommended.

This book was a godsend for me. I read a section of it EVERY morning before I go to work. I've worn out two copies and just ordered more. If your job gets under skin in any way, shape or form, do yourself a large favor and get this. And by the way, you can swap the word "work" with "life" and the wisdom becomes even broader. GREAT BOOK.

It's unfortunate that a great book like this one receives negative comments from two previous reviewers because it's clear that both readers completely misunderstood the concept and purpose of this book. This is not a book about dealing with "difficult people" and it's not a "New Age" blend of "groovy" ideas. It's also not "practical" in the sense of being yet another foolish book with a list of 7 steps you can apply at work tomorrow so you can take over the company. This book is about the application of real spiritual practice in the environment of work. It's about learning taking Buddhist meditative disciplines from the meditation cushion and applying them in the real world. If there were a flaw with this book I think it would be that in order to really understand what the author is talking about, the reader would need some understanding of the principles of meditation. Better yet, the reader would be a meditator. If you are interested in learning how to translate your spiritual and/or meditative practice to the work place, this is an excellent guide. This is a book about long-term practice, not quick fix. This isn't a book for everyone. Buddhist practice and meditation has been around for something like 3,000 years, why this ancient and noble practice is described as "New Age" is beyond me.