Keywords

Introduction

Unprecedented times and grand challenges (McLaren, 2020) such as increased social inequality, climate change, energy and sustainability crises, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic have put the human species at risk (Pio & Waddock, 2020). Scholars argue that neoliberal tenets of self-interest, hyper-individualism, free markets, and the desire for constant growth (Monbiot, 2016; Pirson, 2017) have been dominating management systems (Blum et al., 2020; Lovins et al., 2018; Monbiot, 2016; Waddock, 2016), which need to be re-examined to find alternative ways to mitigate such challenges. Pio and Waddock (2020) suggest that indigenous knowledge and values can offer different sets of managerial values to foster the redistribution of shared well-being and holistic collaboration for a more flouring world. Spiritual resources and skills can facilitate more effective ways of tackling crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and future challenges (Chirico, 2021). This chapter introduces a selected number of Buddhist practices that embrace other-centeredness and context-sensitivity such as right mindfulness, the Middle Way, skillful means, and non-self to respond to the need to navigate the impermanent nature of the universe to better cope with crises and to better attend to the ‘new normal’ context coming out of the pandemic, referring to economic, cultural, and social transformations that affect individuals’ perceptions and lifestyles (El-Erian, 2010) and disruptions within organizations (Caligiuri et al., 2020).

Right Mindfulness vs. Secular Mindfulness Practices

Mindfulness has received increased attention in various industries. Global companies such as Google, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and Monsanto, and even the US Army, have been reported to use mindfulness in the workplace (Stone, 2014). According to Purser and Loy (2013), this trend locates mindfulness as a universal panacea for solving organizational problems and associated dysfunctionalities. The rise of secular mindfulness originated from the early work of Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990), who developed a mindfulness-based stress reduction program at the Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. Since then, mindfulness-based interventions have been widely applied in psychology, psychotherapy, education, medicine, and organizational life (Baer, 2006; Segal et al., 2002; Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2013).

Secular interpretations of mindfulness have been highly criticized (Purser & Loy, 2013; Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu & Gill, 2018; Vu et al., 2018). The dissociation of modern mindfulness practices from any particular belief system aims at attracting a broad spectrum of the population in secular Western societies (Monteiro et al., 2015). However, secular mindfulness practices and meditation programs tend not to focus on the moral or ethical elements of individuals’ choices of behavior (Donald et al., 2019; Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu et al., 2018), which can paradoxically reinforce individuals’ sense of self rather than transcend it (Monteiro et al., 2015). For instance, in 1996, Monsanto CEO Bob Shapiro implemented corporate mindfulness programs; in 2007, Google created the course “Search Inside Yourself” to promote the value of all living beings and individuals’ well-being (Kim, 2018). However, Monsanto’s scandal of illegally storing agricultural chemicals in Hawaii (Robin, 2014) and Google’s data privacy scandal and the Google global protests against sexual misconduct (Kaufman et al., 2021) show how ethical features were abandoned in the process of industrializing mindfulness practices. The rising application of secular mindfulness practices in organizations has been characterized as a quick-fix McMindfulness (Hyland et al., 2015; Purser & Loy, 2013; Vu & Gill, 2018). Secular mindfulness practices are mainly based on attention enhancement, moment-awareness, stress reduction, and present-centered non-judgmental awareness, which are far from the Buddhist mindfulness tradition based on the recollection of both present and past experiences (Bodhi, 2011, p. 23; Gethin, 2011). Such a secular orientation has reduced mindfulness to its utility to serve organizational purposes rather than embracing its ethical and holistic practice that embeds intellectual wisdom and physical concentration (Qiu & Rooney, 2019; Vu & Gill, 2018). As a result, secular mindfulness tends to be a marketable technique for organizational life, neglecting the diverse religious, cultural, and spiritual approaches to its different traditions (Goleman, 1988; Singh, 2010).

Amid unprecedented changes (e.g., financial crisis, disruptions by the recent COVID-19 pandemic), it has become crucial to move beyond the narrow focus on moment-awareness mindfulness to embrace mindfulness practices that champion compassion and impermanence. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, moving away from self-interest and hyper-individualism to promote solidarity, interpersonal relationships, and compassion has become important (Pleyers, 2020). Mindfulness can be more effective when it combines different qualities, not over-emphasizing moment-awareness (Badham & King, 2021). Mindfulness, hope, and compassion are key features of resonant leadership (McKee & Boyatzis, 2005); mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion are central components of the successful “mind of the leader” (Hougaard & Carter, 2018), and mindfulness in motion combining yoga stretches and mindful awareness facilitated a Mindful Medical Center where health systems were improved and burnout of healthcare professionals was mitigated (Klatt et al., 2020). Right mindfulness (Pāli: sati) is a skillful means that represents an ethics-based state of mindfulness, considering the impermanent and dependent-arising nature of relationships, guided by the other Noble Eightfold Path principles (right action, right intention, right view, right effort, right livelihood, right concentration, right speech). The notion of right mindfulness is different from the Westernized and popular interpretation of mindfulness that emphasizes moment-awareness and stress reduction (Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Purser & Milillo, 2015). Right mindfulness as a skillful means refers to a presence of mind based on the capability to recollect past experiences to expand the breadth of attention and moment-awareness to accumulate wisdom (Anālayo, 2018; Bodhi, 2011). The practice of right mindfulness is directed toward the liberation of suffering based on knowledge and wisdom (Swierczek & Jousse, 2014). Thus, right mindfulness is not merely about meditation (Brown & Ryan, 2003), but rather wisely using the accumulation of experience and knowledge, and mastering past experience and moment-awareness to enhance personal development, learning, and self-transformation (Purser & Milillo, 2015) by learning to let go of extreme attachments. Past experiences inform potential problems, while moment-awareness raises consciousness toward current contextual constraints, and therefore the combination of both is crucial. Wisdom-enacted states of mindfulness based on both past experiences and present awareness (Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu et al., 2018) contribute to the exploration of new knowledge, free from perceived assumptions and ideologies.

Compassion training in right mindfulness is an affective state rooted in a caring motivation system that can facilitate attitudes against hyper-individualism. Hyper-individualism was one of the main drivers that significantly affected individualistic orientations that prioritized the self and immediate kin as opposed to the wider community (Pleyers, 2020). Such orientations have led to more cases and higher mortality rates due to individuals’ unwillingness to adhere to epidemic prevention measures (e.g., Maaravi et al., 2021), influencing the implementation of organizational policies. Compassion meditative training can enhance prosocial behavior across different delivery mechanisms and social contexts (e.g., Condon et al., 2013; Weng et al., 2013). For instance, developed from practices known as ngondro in Tibetan Buddhist traditions (Rinpoche, 1990), Sustainable Compassion Training (Makransky, 2007, 2011) is based on the practice of ‘receiving care,’ whereby meditators visualize a benefactor or a caring moment in which another being provides a source of love and compassion. In this approach, the practitioner evokes the caring moment to activate their own love and compassion as the basis for extending caring. However, the application of any compassion training (e.g., thought and behavioral practice) is subject to certain conditions. Compassion is not a particular emotion or the same as caring motivation but reflects the uniting of caring motivation with complex social intelligence and emotional textures that are context-dependent (Gilbert, 2019). For instance, compassion has to compete with other motives that can be unconscious, such as self-interest or prestige-seeking within a group. Further, in reciprocal relationships (e.g., Bargh, 2017; Gilbert, 2019) in environments that may contradict prosocial goals, such as corporate settings promoting productivity or economic gain, showing compassion can be problematic and questionable (e.g., Monteiro et al., 2015). In healthcare contexts, compassion training can enhance compassionate healthcare practice with improved leadership and refined performance of healthcare professionals, when it becomes a key component and vision of healthcare organizations (Sinclair et al., 2021),

On the other hand, right mindfulness, and its ethical foundations, represents a deep and rich learning process. Mindfulness is embedded with moral principles of compassion and loving-kindness (Hyland, 2017) and “encompasses and is embedded in a range of not only cognitive, but also emotional, social, and ethical dimensions” (Grossman, 2015, p. 88). Ethics, mental training, and wisdom are also three important pillars of the Buddhist path (Kapleau, 1989), which are reflected in the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path but often neglected in Western interpretations of secular mindfulness. The notion of ethics can be trained in the contemplation practice of phenomena (dhammanupassana)—the development of wisdom for critical reflexivity, in which ethics is crucial to identify hindrances, understand their arising, and identify ways to remove or avoid such hindrances in the future (Bodhi, 2010, p. 92). For instance, ethical mindfulness training can develop consumers’ ethical decision-making skills by increasing their awareness of potential ethical issues linked to consumption, and guide them to purchase in moral and ethical ways that would contribute to sustainable and responsible consumption (Gentina et al., 2021). Right mindfulness takes into consideration the ability to let go of ego and prior assumptions, which is an important value for the required ongoing adjustment to impermanence and to ethical decision making (Pless et al., 2017). It moves away from the preservation of selfhood in various forms of pursuits that can lead to selfish intentions (Van Gordon et al., 2018). It is important that whatever mindfulness interventions are taking place in organizational contexts, the moral principles underpinning the Noble Eightfold Path and its instrumental nature in fostering a form of virtue ethics (Gowans, 2015) should be emphasized.

In the next section of the chapter, the practice of the Middle Way is introduced to unpack possible ways to balance and navigate aspects of attachment styles associated with an increased risk of psychological distress in response to the COVID-19 outbreak (Moccia et al., 2020) that can influence organizational behavior.

The Middle Way

In Buddhism, the Middle Path (Way) (Pāli: Majjhimāpaṭipadā) reflects a moderate way to avoid extremes of self-mortification and indulgence (Schroeder, 2004, p. 13). This also “avoids the extremes of nihilism (which says that all entities are non-existent in reality) and eternalism (which says that some or all entities, in reality, have an existence independent of conditions)” (Burton, 2001, p. 182). Buddhist economists perceive wealth from the viewpoint of the Middle Path. Wealth alone is not evil, as long as its accumulation is non-harming, because organizations cannot contribute to society or serve people without having the means to do so (Welford, 2006). Money in particular and resources, in general, should be a means to the end, not an end in itself (Gill, 2014, p. 141). This approach can provide an alternative lens through which to view neoliberal, capitalist ideology in management, and the pursuit of material growth and wealth has been dominating management and economic thinking (e.g., Lovins et al., 2018; Pirson, 2017; Pio & Waddock, 2020) to shift thinking based on values that promote other-focused orientations and collective action to move beyond the focus on the managerial elite (e.g., Bell & Bridgman, 2018; Kornberger & Mantere, 2020; McLaren, 2020; Pio & Waddock, 2020).

Fenner (1995) links systems thinking and Buddhism through the Middle Way—avoiding extremeness to avoid incomplete knowledge. Fenner (1995) highlighted how the systems-cybernetic approach of systems thinking shares similarities to the Middle Way via insight into openness and the avoidance of extreme positions, where knowledge is attained with insights that identify antecedent causes and conditions of a given phenomenon (Shen & Midgley, 2007). The Middle Way can also be applied to resist temptations to act in one’s own interest to the detriment of the common good, to balance profit, to create sustainability, to encourage non-coercive leadership, and to provide a balanced approach to short- and long-term commitments (Vu, 2021b). The Middle Way has much to contribute to contemporary managerial approaches as it is a balanced approach, “correcting any strong deviations to either the ‘left’ or the ‘right’ away from the ‘middle’ course, locally interpreted in context” (Shen & Midgley, 2007, p. 172). It does not represent a ‘half-hearted’ effort but a combined vigorous, sincere external action and internal attitude of serenity and willingness to accept outcomes (Vallabh & Singhal, 2014, p. 765) in response to the impermanent nature of phenomena. In other words, the Middle Way can guide moderation of attachment to a certain desire or perception that could limit reflexive orientations to acknowledge the significance of experience that leads to openness and a form of reflective intervention in crisis as disruptive events and moments enable the formation of perception and thought anew (Bube, 2021).

Apart from the Middle Way to navigate extremes and attachments, context-sensitivity—the ability to perceive cues to contextual demands in different situations (Bonanno et al., 2020)—is a key component of resilience and self-regulation in unprecedented times (Lenzo et al., 2021). This chapter will now introduce the notion of skillful means that can facilitate skillful and contextual mechanisms in response to crises.

Skillful Means

Skillful means (Pāli: Upāya) in Buddhism is a technique and a method of interpretation that is relevant and applicable in contemporary organizational workplaces. Skillful means refers to the ability to adapt the teaching of Dharma according to individual circumstances (Mitchell, 2008). The Buddha demonstrated the Dharma in a variety of forms of karmic reasoning, with a variety of choices of words, and a wealth of skillful means toward the path of enlightenment (Kern, 1989; Lindtner, 1986) with the intention to teach non-attachment through skillful means. Buddhist stories about skillful means helpfully address spiritual and religious diversity. For example, in the Brahma Vihara (Rhys-Davids, 1899), the Buddha encounters two young Brahmins who are confused about their Hindu teachings. The Buddha guides them on how to reunite with the Hindu god—Brahma. This instruction apparently contradicts the Buddha’s philosophy of “non-self,” which includes the metaphysical being Brahma (Schroeder, 2004). The inconsistency here refers not to the truth in the abstract but to the response to manifestations of suffering. This skillful means refers to the Buddha’s ability to shift viewpoints and wisdom unbounded by any single doctrine or practice. It exemplifies Buddhist compassion. Pye (1978) states that the same Buddhist doctrine can be either a barrier or a door, depending on how it is practiced, and the effectiveness and value of any content in the doctrines do not conflict with how the Buddhist Dharma plays itself out in people’s lives. As such, skillful means yields a context-sensitive approach without limiting any knowledge or means to attain knowledge with the assumption that there is no single teaching or practice sufficient to cover the various karmic differences in the world (Schroeder, 2004). For instance, free expressions of personal emotions or critical expressions may very likely be considered offensive in Eastern face-saving cultures compared to Western cultures (Agyekum, 2002), which can influence cross-cultural management practices. Skillful means can help individuals to skillfully adapt positive perceptions flexibly, without extreme attachments to expectations, thus stimulating a context-sensitive mindfulness approach (Vu et al., 2018). Silence, as a skillful means, for example, can facilitate reflexivity, self-decentralization, and processual transformation, subject to different interpretations, understandings, and enactments from different individuals (Vu & Fan, 2021).

Skillful means can be used as an approach to cope with contextual challenges (Vu & Burton, 2021; Vu & Tran, 2021; Vu, 2021a) by skillfully interpreting what is right and wrong, and what is better in that particular situation. For instance, skillful means can be applied to contextualizing work by negotiating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Such contextualization refers to the prioritization of civic and domestic orders (well-being in local communities) over the fame and industrial (global standards for CSR practices) and the green orders (environmentally sustainable practices) in CSR implementation in Vietnam (Shin et al., 2021). Skillful means can offer a technique for transferring managerial practices in ways that respect organizational and individual differences (Vu et al., 2018). Such an approach would promote a more reflexive strategy in dynamic, ill-structured, ambiguous, and unpredictable systems or in routine-based and history-dependent ones (Cyert & March, 1963; March & Simon, 1958). Skillful means represents a “mindful” tool (Vu et al., 2018) to more flexibly and practically balance paradoxes within organizations. Since in contemporary contexts or in crisis managers often face multi-foci realities and complex organizational issues, it is useful to have mindful observations “from the within” and critical thinking “from the outside” by acknowledging past experiences, reassessing the present situation, and exploring future opportunities and challenges (Hernes & Irgens, 2013; Shotter, 2006; Zundel, 2013).

Skillful means emphasizes a process of change and transformation since Buddhist wisdom is embodied in the process of responding to the world (Schroeder, 2011), which can foster constructive dialogue and understanding in organizational context, conflict, and crisis. There is no universally effective managerial practice applicable to every context. Skillful means makes sense of the context skillfully on the basis of compassion and non-attachment (Vu et al., 2018). The concept of skillful means can be particularly helpful in facilitating skillful and contextual interpretations of challenging and paradoxical ethical issues, just as the 14th Dalai Lama has explained:

In principle, from the Buddhist point of view, one needs to be sensitive to the individual contexts so, sometimes you have contexts where the benefit to the individual has to be weighed against the wider implications of the actual society, the wider community. Also, one has to take into account the damaging effects of a particular cause of action as opposed to the benefits the individual will reap. Or the benefits to the community have to be weighed against the damage to the individual. The main point is not to confine your evaluation purely to a single situation but rather to look at its broader implications. (quoted in French, 2007, p. 657)

Non-Self

Non-self (Pāli: anattā) in Buddhism refers to the ability to let go of the ego or self and associated desires causing human suffering (Goleman, 2003). The notion of non-self in Buddhism is developed from the theory of emptiness in asserting that all phenomena exist in dependence on each other (Thurman, 2005). Emptiness theory helps to explain why there is no self in the relational nature of the universe and how emptiness is form, and form is emptiness (Streng, 1967). In Buddhism, there is a metaphysical position that denies the ontological reality of the self (Ho, 1995) which indicates why individual ego or self-hood has no independent or inherent existence but exists in relation to all others in a context of continuous change (Cooey, 1990). Moving away from self-centeredness within non-self can facilitate the understanding of interconnectedness, which is crucial in contemporary management to identify complex systems dynamics so that necessary organizational changes can be adopted quickly (Metcalf & Benn, 2012, 2013). For instance, rival companies (e.g., Ford, McLaren, Unilever, Rolls-Royce, Airbus), instead of focusing on their self-interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, have come together to make ventilators for the NHS, which shows how the right tools in the right hands and with the right need made all the difference in navigating the challenges of the pandemic while making social impacts (Trotman, 2020).

The notion of non-self extends moral responsibility beyond individual motives (Fasoli, 2017), to be responsible for other individuals without individual greed, aversion, or delusions of the existence of a ‘self’ (Purser & Milillo, 2015). This perspective moves beyond most contemporary Western theories of the self that imply a form of hyper-individualistic conception of the self (Berger, 1983; Rawls, 1999), focusing on self-actualization and self-fulfillment in ideas of moral cosmopolitanism, idealization, abstraction, and acontextuality that maximize own interest without obligations to make society better (Ivanhoe et al., 2018). Non-self is somewhat similar to Follett’s (1930, 1998/1918) philosophy of ‘togetherness’ and ‘collective will’ that shows how through appreciating interdependence and the group principle instead of individualism, the individual can find his/her true self. Non-self helps to recognize how we are a part of the larger society, grounded in a humanistic approach with a shared connection with others (Ivanhoe, 2017). Vu and Burton (2021) found that non-self can facilitate the idea of a contextual-relational-processual perspective to encourage individuals to cultivate self-decentralization through continuous contextualized practice and learning. It can be a strategy for moral reasoning that moves beyond moral rationalization (interpreting the immoral action as less immoral), moral decoupling (dissociating immoral judgments from job-related performance judgment), and the overemphasis on judgments relating to the self-concept (Cowan & Yazdanparast, 2021). Therefore, organizational practices should aim at promoting a culture and psychological contracts that extend beyond an emphasis on the desired self that can colonize organizational members’ identities and humanity in organizations (Johnsen & Gudmand-Høyer, 2010; Vu & Burton, 2021). Promoting the self as de-centered can enhance organizational capacity for compassion (Madden et al., 2012) since individuals can modify their roles, behaviors, and group norms from self-interest to spread compassion through the organization via their interaction with other stakeholders (Grant & Patil, 2012; Rynes, et al., 2012).

However, in reality, bringing non-self into organizational practices can be problematic when there is an over-attachment to the practice of non-self (Vu, 2021a; Vu & Burton, 2021). Individuals can experience strong pressures to ‘re-center’ the self through a temptation to strategize self-identity as an ‘enlightened’ version of self as a kind of leadership brand (Vu & Burton, 2021) by constructing a fantasized identity with self-justified reasoning to facilitate the ‘enlightened’ version of who they want to be (Brown & Toyoki, 2013). For instance, individuals can utilize karmic reasoning to justify self-serving or individualistic behavior so long as the ‘ends’ are perceived as collective and social (e.g., justifying bribery on the basis of good intent and positive community outcomes). This reflects how morality can be reducible to psychology as it matters little what we do since wrongdoings are acceptable as long as our attitudes and dispositions are correct (Reichenbach, 1990, p. 27).

There are struggles within the practice of non-self that would likely dissolve when individuals are no longer disrupted by discerning, non-discerning, or dualistic perceptions, and acknowledge the absence of an absolute self-existent substance or a substratum in all phenomena (Vu & Burton, 2021).

Concluding Remarks

This chapter introduces a selected number of Buddhist practices that embrace other-centeredness and context-sensitivity in response to unprecedented times. Hyper-individualism remains one of the biggest challenges in dealing with crises. For instance, individualistic orientations were found in incidents of terrorist attacks (Daniel et al., 2013) and during the global financial crisis in 2008 (Sortheix et al., 2019), when self-protection values overrode collective efforts facilitating coping mechanisms. Unger (1977) suggests that people tend to revert to hyper-individualism and potentially find refuge in neo-tribalism when they see the sovereignty of the state consistently undermined by corporate power. Self-seeking behaviors have made the COVID-19 pandemic much more dangerous, which highlights the need to stop romanticizing market society and hyper-individualism (Klinenberg, 2020). Hyper-individualistic orientations can be navigated by Buddhist-enacted practices. Compassion mindfulness training and the notion of non-self embrace other-centeredness that highlights the importance of other-focused orientations and collective action to move beyond individualism and a need for a change in contemporary organizations to move beyond the dominance of the managerial elite (e.g., Bell & Bridgman, 2018; Kornberger & Mantere, 2020; McLaren, 2020; Pio & Waddock, 2020), which partly contributed to instrumental and capitalist ideology influencing materialism and individualistic orientations (e.g., Lovins et al., 2018; Pirson, 2017; Pio & Waddock, 2020). Furthermore, the Middle Way approach can be activated to suppress temptations and the pursuit of material growth and wealth to attain a more balanced approach that focuses more on other-centeredness and sustainable long-term orientations and outcomes. Perhaps, by revisiting the Middle Way of wealth creation proposed by Payutto (1994): (i) wealth should not be acquired by exploitation but in a morally sound way; (ii) wealth should be saved and protected as an investment for the further development of livelihood and as an insurance against future adversity; (iii) wealth should be used to support the self, social harmony, and community welfare; and (iv) wealth should not become an obsession. Organizations and policy-makers can start thinking about alternative ways of balancing and managing wealth to better prepare for unprecedented times and to navigate within the context of ‘the new normal.’

On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic reflects a phenomenon of transience, interdependence, and unpredictability. Context-sensitivity remains important in workplaces to navigate such unpredictability. A skillful means approach offers an alternative way for organizations to context-sensitively address challenges in crisis. A skillful means approach helps managers gain a practical sense of collective awareness without self-fixations (Brummans et al., 2013, Vu et al., 2018) to be in full “contact with the realities and needs of the situation without self-centered ego or by preconceptions or methods” (Rosch, 2008, p. 153). It also embraces flexibility by understanding how phenomena operate in impermanence to articulate a more contemplative approach that facilitates eventfulness of situations, temperance, sensitivity, and reflection (Vu et al., 2018) rather than imposing fixed interpretations or organizational policies that are based on predetermined outcomes or past experiences that may no longer be relevant in the context of the ‘new normal.’ Skillful means can also facilitate learning from the different perspectives of different organizational players, in turn facilitating collective mindfulness, which helps both managers and organizational members understand the context better (Vu et al., 2018, p. 588). It is, however, important to highlight that skillful means does not imply making sense of the context by all means. Skillful means can demonstrate its whole meaning and power in practice only if it is initiated in the relevant context out of compassion (Vu et al., 2018; Vu & Gill, 2018).