The Beauty of Dharma Training

This is the last chapter of The Dharma of Work, following on from (Part One) (Part Two) and (Part Three).

Dharma and Family Conditioning

One of the many reasons we support Dharma Training is because, when done well, it also leads to business and personal success. You might be wondering, ‘how so’?

Surrendering the ego-centered need to control

Firstly, Dharma Training helps us to meet mental models and personal lacks in the form of our tribal and educational conditioning. These mostly arise in the form of how we think or expect things should be. Dharma Training helps us learn to allow things to be as they are, and to surrender our ego-centered need to control to the universe, which is surely unfolding as it should.

Understanding our family conditioning

Secondly Dharma Training provides us with greater understanding of our family conditioning. We can more clearly see how we try to get what we like or avoid what we dislike. The next step is to recognize the manipulative and controlling mechanisms that we’ve acquired through our conditioning.
Then we learn to transcend them. It’s a good feeling.

It’s important to note, however, that we must ‘appear’ in the world one way or the other.  So it isn’t so much that we don’t or can’t manifest in these ways; more importantly, we become conscious of how we manifest, and how it’s a byproduct of our programming. This liberates us to move past that programming when suitable and appropriate.

That’s a good feeling too.

Then we become free to conjoin our personal vision with others in a team vision. When done with other spiritual practitioners (for example), we find the context to skillfully work with issues such as trust, conflict and responsibility in a healthy and mutually supportive way. This is beneficial not only to ourselves but to our teams, families and wider communities as well. The positive ripples go out further and further as we integrate our personal spiritual training with our work with others.

Dharma Training leading to personal success – a real life example

As an example, one student of the dharma undertook some work for his teachers as karma yoga service. There were some ups and downs as his conditioned patterns arose: challenges around time management and communication; feeling bad about that so trying to hide it, which didn’t help; that kind of thing.

He and his trainer had many frank conversations about the patterns, how they were arising, why, what the consequences were, and how it could be different. This practitioner was determined to not let some garden-variety bad habits get in the way of his spiritual unfoldment. He undertook to train himself to swap in healthier habits and better discipline – which also included making time for R & R.

A year or so later, he was a very dependable team member for his Dharma trainer. Better still, the karma yoga he’d done and continued to do helped provide him with the skills and confidence to launch and develop his own business.

Meanwhile, his dharmic unfoldment has continued to thrive along with his business and personal growth.

What’s the moral of this story?

Particularly at the beginning of Dharma Training, it may seem like it peskily interferes with our personal style and preferences. As with any intensive training, however, there’s an inverse ratio at work: the greatest freedom lies within the greatest discipline. Integrating Dharma Training into our lives makes our personal and professional lives more rewarding. And more fun.

That’s a whole lot more good feeling we’re letting loose in our lives, and into the world.

 

Article by Doug Duncan & Catherine Pawasarat

This is the final installment in our series on the Dharma of Work. We highly recommend the previous three installments on the Dharma of work: The Dharma of Work (Part One) (Part Two) and (Part Three).