What The Buddhist Being-Doing Balance Is (And Why It Matters For Happiness)

Beyond the pathology of productivity culture.

Sebastian Purcell, PhD
The Apeiron Blog

Woman balancing in a yoga pose with flowers in the background
Photo by Michael Kilcoyne on Unsplash

If you have worked for any length of time, then you have probably fallen into the work-life balance trap. That’s where you find your living overwhelmed by the demands of work.

Buddhism would have us consider another balancing problem, one that might be even more fundamental: the being-doing balance. Let me explain.

The Buddhist noble eight-fold path to happiness requires that you follow the path of Right Diligence. What this means, surprisingly, is that you should not be working on your progress all the time. Thich Nhat Hanh, the duly renowned Zen Buddhist teacher, relates the point memorably in a story as follows.

“There was a monk in the Tang Dynasty of China who was practicing sitting meditation very hard, day and night. He thought he was practicing harder than anyone else, and he was very proud of this. He sat like a rock day and night, but his suffering was not transformed.

One day a teacher asked him, “Why are you sitting so hard?” and the monk replied, “To become a Buddha!” The teacher picked up a tile and began polishing it, and the monk asked, “Teacher, what are you doing?” His master replied, “I am making a mirror.” The monk asked…

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