CIMC CRMPerks

Wise Livelihood

Week 1

Wise Livelihood: What is our true occupation?
Home Practices #1 (4/17/25)

Click Here to view a PDF of the home practices.

  1. Sitting Practice: for a minimum of 15-30 minutes per day (more if you are able). Please practice your meditation in silence. (If you use apps-use them only a few times this week).
  2. Gratitude Practice. Call, text, or e-mail your buddies from the class, 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything. Gratitude is the capacity to take delight in life, in this moment, here, now, in being alive! Gratitude is the ability to feel joy & wonder.
  3. Koan Questions: What is my true job? What is my true occupation? What is occupying my heart/mind right now? Ask these questions a few times a day (or at least read them once a day).  Pause, listen for the answers. If you wish, write them down.
  4. Please Reflect: What is my attention like at work, when volunteering, at home, when engaged in tasks? Where am I awake? Where do I zone out?
    Take a fresh look at your life and what you do and how you spend your time and the quality of attention that you bring to your day. How do you occupy your heart and mind? What do you occupy your time and thoughts with? Where do you tend to dwell? Be gentle with yourself! We are learning to explore our lives and to grow in wisdom and compassion. To use our work, life, heart and the mind’s occupations to grow consciousness. YEA!!
  5. Remember Beginner’s Mind: When we bring our practice into our work or life or where the heart and mind dwell, we take a leap out of that conditioned small mind into the freedom and generosity of the mind that is accepting, fresh, and full of possibility. This mind is the “Beginner’s Mind.”
  6. It is very important to be attentive to your body. Show up for work, Show up for life-Show up for your heart-mind Be present-use breath, body to help
    I invite you to explore the challenges and joys of work, life, where you occupy your heart and mind, where you dwell– Practice with Gentleness and I hope that you will experience a new understanding of yourself.

HAVE FUN!!

Week 2

Wise Livelihood: What is our true occupation?
Home Practices #2 (4/24/25)

Class begins at 7:00pm- I will arrive at 6:45 for a Q & A for those who want to attend.
Click Here to view a PDF of the home practices.

  1. Sitting Practice: for a minimum of 15-30 minutes per day (more if you are able). Please practice your meditation in silence. (If you use apps-use them only a few times this week).
  2. Gratitude Practice. Call, text, or e-mail your buddies from the class, 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything. Gratitude is the capacity to take delight in life, in this moment, here, now, in being alive! Gratitude is the ability to feel joy & wonder.
  3. Koan Questions: What is my true job? What is my true occupation? What is occupying my heart/mind right now? Ask these questions a few times a day (or at least read them once a day).  Pause, listen for the answers. If you wish, write them down.
  4. **Spend time with the Top-Down Guide handout. See at the end if you weren’t in class
  5. Continue to bring Mindful Awareness to:
    • What your intention is while at work, engaging with daily tasks, your mind/ hear
    • The quality of your attention at work, daily tasks, your day to day routines? Show up. What is occupying your time/thoughts? Where do you tend to dwell?
    • Exploring how can you bring more mindfulness into the particular work/tasks that you do? (Start with what you said in the go around in class)
  6.  Wise Livelihood-
    • First important part of wise livelihood is non-harming. Any job or work –paid or unpaid-that we feel drawn to that does not cause harm to ourselves or others. Explore non-harming (hint: review the precepts on CIMC”S  Home page under About- Mission-Vision-Values section- then scroll down under Values to find precepts)
    • Second important part of wise livelihood is happiness or joy in one’s work. Begin to explore your relationship to work, projects daily routines. What qualities of heart and mind are you cultivating while engaging in these aspects of your life?happiness in being present- to what is actually happeninghappiness in producing from a job-tasks- volunteering through money-goods or services for others, or having things and using them
    • happiness that comes from inside of you-that what matters, what you care about, affects your work.
  7. Have FUN!!

**The Top-Down and Bottom-Up Guide to Finding Your Purpose (modern way)

Understanding our Intentions, drives and motivations enables us to invest in the things that help us live our purpose. If you’re not sure what your purpose is, you can help define it by both a “top down” and a “bottom up” assessment. The top down assessment examines the big picture first. Then the bottom up assessment examines the small separate activities, observations, and exchanges that make up the big picture.

From the Top Down

  • Make a list of your top five to ten values.
  • Inventory your work and personal calendar. First look at whether the ways you spend your time offer an accurate expression of your values. For example if giving is important to you, do you have time on your calendar to volunteer or give in other ways that are meaningful to you? Next, put a  star, a smile, a frown, + or – next to each item on your calendar, indicating whether the activity energies or drains you. Finally, looking at your time holistically, note how much of it is spent on activities that are invigorating and how much is spent on things that are depleting.
  • Look again at which values matter to you. If you’ve made note of values that apply only to a work context, expand your list to include your family, community, and spiritual beliefs.
  • Ask people you trust what they would say you care about or what brings you energy and excitement.
Week 3

Wise Livelihood: What is our true occupation?

Home Practices #3 (5/1/25)
Class begins at 7:00pm- I will arrive at 6:45 for a Q & A for those who want to attend.
Click Here to view a PDF of the home practices

  1. Sitting Practice: for a minimum of 15-30 minutes per day(more if you are able). Please practice your meditation in silence. (If you use apps-use them only a few times a week).
  2. Gratitude Practice. Text, your buddies from the class, 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.
  3. Koan Questions: What is my true job? What is my true occupation? What is occupying my heart/mind right now?  Ask these questions a few times a day (or at least read each day). Pause, Listen for the answers. If you wish write them down.
  4. How could you bring more awareness into the particular “work” that you do? Remember to open to the present moment-To what is actually happening. Aware of;
    • the quality of your intention & attention & relationship to working, to daily tasks or routines, and to repeated home chores. What qualities are you cultivating?
    • what is occupying your time/thoughts? Are you dwelling?
  5. **Spend time with the Bottom Up Guide handout. See at end if you weren’t in class.
  6. Wise Livelihood:
     -Continue to explore     non-harming
     –Continue to explore happiness or joy in your “work” & life!
     -Continue to explore your relationships with:
    a) co-workers, people we live with, and whomever we interact with in our day. Practicing kindness, compassion, wise speech with ourselves and with others.
    b) challenges and difficulties within your” work”. Can you cultivate equanimity, lightness, integrity?
    c) Mindful pauses, postures: sitting, standing, walking, lying down, states of mind: moods, emotions, attitudes, texture: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.
  7. Recollect the Dalai Lama’s key to happiness:
    ***Purpose of life is happiness.*** Once basic needs are met: Happiness is determined more by the state of one’s heart/mind than by one’s external conditions, circumstances or events- ***Happiness can be achieved through the systemic training of our heart- minds, through reshaping our attitudes & outlook.***The key to happiness is in our own hands. What blacks this happiness: Insisting that one is always right, excessive pride or exaggerated sense of self or undermining and devaluation of self are not clear seeing.
    Inner happiness comes through training the heart-mind. (We all can do this!)
  8. Thank you for your Practice and Have FUN!!

**The Bottom-Up Guide to Finding Your Purpose – Part two- The bottom up assessment examines the small separate activities, observations, and exchanges that make up the big picture

  • Keep a journal for a week. During that time note which activities, observations, and exchanges drain you and which ones make you feel good.
  • Set a calendar reminder to review your journal. When you do, look for patterns. Can you identify insights or make generalizations about cause and effect relationships?
  • Make a list of people you admire and mark down traits of theirs that you value. Ask yourself whether you embody any of those traits and if not think about why not.