In the sixth century there was an old monk in China named Pai Chang. He started a monastery where everyone had to work in the gardens and fields for their food, which has become the custom ever since in Zen monasteries.
Every morning Pai Chang would get up, and after meditation, he would work a couple of hours tending the potatoes and radishes. Only then would he take breakfast and continue onto his day of teaching and advising his many students.
He reached the ripe old age of ninety, and his students thought he shouldn't exert himself any longer in the fields, but rather spend the last days of his life in meditation and teaching.
He refused to comply, and they hid his tools, thinking that would stop him. Well, he was more determined than they (being the master,) and locked himself in his room, refusing to take any food. After a couple of days of his students pleading with him, they gave him back his tools.
He opened his door with the now-famous saying, "A day of no work is a day of no food."
Most of us think we understand what Pai Chang said, but usually along the lines of our needing to work to earn money, which will enable us to buy food. So, no work, no money, no bread on the table.
But Pai Chang was pointing to something much more subtle than our daily-grind approach. In Zen, life is work. All of life, from stretching when we get up, putting on our clothes, brushing our teeth, making breakfast and getting to our studies or employment.
It goes on throughout the day and into the night: work, work, work.
That sounds pretty grim, doesn't it? Let's look at it differently, from the Zen perspective. At a monastery I stayed in, much of the day was devoted to work, and every morning and afternoon we would be divided into teams with different jobs to do, which we would work at for several hours at a time.
There was kitchen duty, housekeeping duties (read: cleaning toilets), gardening, bookkeeping, writing articles, preparing altars with candles and incense, sweeping the meditation room and arranging the cushions, and so forth.
Here's the key, though: the work periods were called 'Caretaking.' We were taking care of the monastery, keeping it in good shape, and providing a good environment for all of us to be in.
We worked because we cared about the place, cared about each other, and cared about ourselves. It was a general attitude we wanted to cultivate for the whole world - one of care.
Work was another way of creating community, of sharing a spiritual practice with others and developing in a way that we couldn't just by sitting in the meditation hall. Work was another form of meditation practice, using different postures beyond the full lotus or the cross-legged one we are used to associating with in meditation.
There were times I had to practice 'meditation' with a sharp knife, using my concentration and mindfulness for chopping onions and carrots.
There were other times I had to use my awareness to contain irritation or anger that might arise in response to someone else's comments or actions while we worked. It was all part of the practice of caretaking.
What began to flourish was a compassion and ease in our daily lives. Every single action was an opportunity to be mindful of the present moment, and to cultivate care and compassion in those very moments of activity.
In this monastery there was a sign in the bathroom which read, 'Don't Leave A Trace.' There was a cloth by the sink, under the sign. This cloth wasn't for our hands, but for cleaning up any splashes or drops from the faucet which may have spilled over when we washed.
The sign was expressing an attitude of care for every small thing, every single drop. The care was really for the next person who would use the bathroom, wanting to keep it as clean as when we entered.
But 'not leaving a trace' has a very profound Zen meaning as well, which is - we don't work in order to prove ourselves in any way. We do a job and leave it without any claim, without hanging a plaque on the wall saying, "look at the good job I did," and expecting loud expressions of appreciation.
I always have that bathroom sign in mind - I don't want to leave a trace of myself in the things I do. I simply do them, and try to have others in mind. This doesn't mean we can't benefit from the work we do as well - Pai Chang did eat the same vegetables he gardened but being the sole benefactor is not the intention.
The Zen of work is about creating a greater sense of community in all of our actions through the intention of serving all others.
There is no special meditative state when we work, but we just respond to the needs of the job at hand. What changes everything are the compassionate intentions we bring into our work, from the most menial jobs like washing the dinner dishes to doing the laundry, or writing out accounts and doing complex research projects.
It's not just about us and our lives, but our work is the main way in life we take care of others. There is not a single moment we are not at work, and not a single action which is not a way we can create a more caring world.