“Work” has been very much on my mind this month. Earlier in September the United States observed Labor Day, a time to commemorate the notable accomplishments of the labor movement: the eight-hour work day, minimum wages and paid time off, workplace safety regulations, bans on child labor, and more. 

Ten years ago, I was working on the final draft of my book, Work That Matters, which would be published in 2017 by Parallax Press. The book is a mindfulness-based guide to creating Right Livelihood, and during its first couple of years out in the world I met hundreds of readers at events across the country and through an online course I offered. 

When I was working on the manuscript, I referred often to a 2016 survey from the Harvard School of Public Health in which nearly half of working adults in the U.S. said their job affected their physical health, but only 28 per cent believed the effect is a good one. (The Harvard Gazette) People with disabilities and in dangerous or low-paying jobs were most likely to report that their jobs had a negative impact on stress levels, eating habits, and sleeping patterns.

I was struck by the fact that so many of us spend the majority of our hours engaged in work and we give it a large portion of our vital energy, and that so many were literally suffering from it, both emotionally and physically. 

I was very motivated to offer readers a framework that could help liberate them from work-related suffering. Based on my own experience, I came up with something I called the “Six Keys to Liberation-based Livelihood:”

1. Become Intimate with Your Core Intention: The capacity, through contemplative practice, to know yourself and what you are here to contribute.

2. Value Your Gifts and Time: The capacity to understand your inherent gifts and to become fiercely protective of them.

3. Break Through Inertia and Take Action: The capacity to channel that clarity around your Core Intention and your gifts and use it to dissolve whatever might be blocking you from acting on them.

4. Make Friends with Uncertainty: The capacity to work creatively with your fears so you can leverage the energy within them in a positive direction.

5. Think Big and Make the Most of Your Resources: The capacity to imagine great things for yourself and your work, even if you do them in humble ways, the capacity to redefine “resources” beyond the financial.

6. Build a Circle of Allies and Ask for Help: The capacity to grow your community in a heartfelt and reciprocal way, knowing that a rising tide lifts all boats.

The whole book is grounded in the concept of right livelihood, which the Buddha taught as one segment of the Noble Eightfold Path. At the most basic level, right livelihood is a way to earn a living in which you don’t harm others or yourself.

Now, 10 years later, I am contemplating how much has changed in the realm of work and what it might mean to practice right livelihood in these times. 

Since Work That Matters came out, we’ve been through the COVID-19 pandemic, which fundamentally changed so much about working conditions. And now we are in the midst of a complete labor realignment with the ascension of artificial intelligence. 

A good number of the shifts that came about during the pandemic actually gave workers more power over factors related to workplace suffering. Many of us were able to work more from home, and thus able to spend more time with family and loved ones. We didn’t contribute as much to global warming thanks to fewer commutes. The labor market opened up dramatically, giving employees increased latitude to leave jobs that weren’t fulfilling; some started their own businesses. Although some of those shifts have reverted back to pre-pandemic times, many continue. 

Now with AI inserting itself into so many companies and nonprofits, the challenge is different. While the basic technology may be of some use in reducing tedious tasks, generative AI poses a significant threat to the jobs done by many, particularly those of us in the creative class: artists, photographers, musicians, writers, editors. And there is the harm being done to the environment, with data centers sucking up massive amounts of water.

What does right livelihood mean in this new world order? On the one hand, workers have more freedom in some areas—on the other hand, many of us are at risk of becoming obsolete.

Ironically, I wonder if AI may be serving to remind us how essential our humanity is when it comes to work. While some of those “tedious” tasks might be easily dispensed with, is it possible that some tasks actually hold something larger than we initially recognize? 

We’re living in very Matrix-y times, and I think of one of the pivotal characters in the second Matrix movie: the Keymaker. He’s an oxymoronic figure in a futuristic world, an elderly Asian man who performs a very arcane, manual task—making physical keys. In our new world order, keys like this are a relic of the past, with nearly everything transferred onto digital cards and locks. Yet critically, the Keymaker provides the main character, Neo, with the means to access the backdoor of the Matrix and go directly to the Source, sort of the equivalent of freeing all beings from suffering.

Is it possible that in a similar way, the kind of human knowledge that AI is quickly replacing might be just the kind of contextual, human experience that is most needed?

In an article for the World Economic Forum, Dr. Mark Esposito and Dr. Melodena Stephens write:

For organizations, the deeper danger is not labour cost but the erosion of accumulated institutional knowledge: when a capability disappears from a workforce, the memory embedded in it disappears too. A seasoned contract lawyer carries institutional judgement that shapes how a firm interprets ambiguity and builds client trust. Automate the task and you gain efficiency; lose the person and you lose the infrastructure of judgement around it. (World Economic Forum)

They go on to observe, “A livelihood is not a role. It is a sustained capacity to generate value, dignity and security over time, for a person, their family and their society.” (World Economic Forum)

Although much has changed, perhaps this is what remains true all the way from the Buddha’s teachings on Right Livelihood until now. As traumatic as the pandemic was and as deeply problematic as AI is, I believe work can still serve as a pathway for awakening, for realizing that our purpose can still be found in the three pure precepts: refrain from harm, do good, live for the benefit of all beings.

See more

Work That Matters: Creating a Livelihood That Reflects Your Core Intention(Parallax Press)
The high price of workplace stress (The Harvard Gazette)
Why the AI era presents not a jobs crisis, but a livelihood one (World Economic Forum)

Related features from BDG

The Future of Work
Buddhistdoor View: The Dharma of Unemployment
Education Versus the Employment Factory
Maia Duerr: Zen, Life, and Livelihood
Concerning Right Action and Right Livelihood

More from Dharma Compass by Maia Duerr