I was recently reflecting on beloved Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön’s appearance on The Ezra Klein Show while flying over the Swiss Alps, and it struck me: the people complaining about corporate downsizing are completely ignoring the spiritual benefits of their suffering.
I was somewhere over the Swiss Alps, reclining in the first-class cabin of a Lufthansa flight and sipping a remarkably balanced 2018 Sancerre, when I decided to catch up on The Ezra Klein Show. The guest was the beloved Buddhist teacher and author Pema Chödrön, and her message was as simple as it was profound: we must stop running away from fear. We must embrace uncertainty. We must learn to, as she so beautifully put it, make friends with loss. As the flight attendant gently replaced my warm macadamia nuts with a fresh ramekin, a powerful realization washed over me. This is exactly what the American working class has been getting wrong about the economy.
Everywhere I look lately, I see a toxic, deeply un-Buddhist clinging to material stability. Whether it is autoworkers demanding union contracts, tech employees whining about mass layoffs, or baristas insisting on health insurance, the lower-middle classes are absolutely paralyzed by their aversion to uncertainty. They are fighting the natural, impermanent flow of the free market. When Pema Chödrön advises us to embrace loss, she is speaking to the fundamental truth that all things are fleeting, especially employer-matched 401(k) contributions. Why resist the beautiful ebb and flow of capital?
We need to reframe how we view the titans of industry. When a private equity firm executes a leveraged buyout of a regional hospital system and subsequently liquidates its cardiology department, the media paints it as a tragedy. But from a spiritual perspective, these executives are functioning as modern-day bodhisattvas. They are aggressively severing their employees' attachments to worldly comforts like paying rent or affording insulin. They are pushing thousands of people out of their comfort zones and into the beautiful, terrifying wilderness of total financial ruin.
Consider the recent waves of restructuring in the technology sector. When thousands of engineers and product managers are suddenly locked out of their corporate laptops at three in the morning, the prevailing media narrative is one of shock and betrayal. But I see an unprecedented opportunity for mindfulness. By removing the distraction of a biweekly paycheck, a vested stock option plan, and a sense of professional purpose, companies are essentially forcing their alumni to live in the present moment. There is no past, because your badge no longer works. There is no future, because the tech bubble has burst. There is only the eternal now of staring at an error message on your single sign-on portal. It is, quite frankly, a level of Zen mastery that most monks take decades to achieve.
It is fundamentally selfish to demand a living wage when so many shareholders are experiencing the profound vulnerability of missing their quarterly earnings estimates. We view our recent termination of 14,000 employees not as a downsizing, but as a mandatory, uncompensated Vipassana retreat.
Chödrön suggests that when we feel fear, we should not suppress it, but rather sit with it and say, "I agree." Imagine the transformative power of applying this to late capitalism. When the bank sends a foreclosure notice, do not call a lawyer or organize a tenant's union. Simply sit on your bare mattress, hold the heavily redacted legal document to your chest, and say, "Yes. I agree with my eviction." When you are replaced by a deeply flawed generative AI model that hallucinates basic facts, do not picket outside the corporate headquarters. Bow to the algorithm. Make friends with the machine that has rendered your liberal arts degree worthless.
This practice is especially useful when visiting the grocery store. I am told by my assistant that the cost of eggs and bread has risen sharply, causing great distress among the general population. But what is inflation, really, if not an invitation to practice non-attachment to a full pantry? When you look at a carton of eggs and realize you cannot afford it, you are being offered a profound lesson in fasting. The pangs of hunger are simply a reminder of your physical body's impermanence. Instead of complaining about corporate price gouging on social media, you should be thanking the board of directors at Kroger for designing such an effective ascetic curriculum.
And what of the healthcare system? There is perhaps no greater obstacle to enlightenment than the American obsession with prolonging life through affordable medical care. When your insurance provider denies coverage for a life-saving surgery because it is "out of network," they are not abandoning you to die. They are boldly insisting that you confront your own mortality. They are stripping away the illusion that you have any control over the universe. Pema Chödrön speaks eloquently of embracing loss; what greater loss is there to embrace than your own preventable demise due to a bureaucratic technicality? We should be giving these insurance adjusters the Nobel Peace Prize for their tireless work in forcing Americans to finally face death.
I know what you are thinking. It is easy for you to say this, you are a syndicated columnist who spends his summers in Martha's Vineyard. But I assure you, I am no stranger to the precipice of the unknown. Just last month, my wealth manager called to inform me that due to a slight miscalculation in emerging market bonds, my passive income would be reduced by nearly three percent for the fiscal year. The panic was immediate. My mind raced with terrifying scenarios: Would I have to downgrade the tile in the Aspen chalet renovation? Would I be forced to fly commercial to Dubai? But then, I remembered Chödrön’s teachings. I sat on my custom cashmere rug, breathed into the panic, and said, I agree with the three percent reduction. And you know what? The fear dissipated. I simply transferred some funds from a Cayman account and moved on. We all have our struggles.
The problem is that the working class lacks this level of spiritual discipline. They are stubbornly attached to the illusion of the middle-class dream. But as any first-year student of Buddhism will tell you, attachment is the root of all suffering. Therefore, the people causing the suffering are not the billionaires hoarding the world's wealth, it is the workers who refuse to let go of their desire for a comfortable retirement.
The next time you find yourself standing in an unemployment line, or reading a terse email from Human Resources informing you that your position has been eliminated to maximize operational agility, I urge you to resist the temptation to unionize. Do not succumb to the low-vibration energy of demanding a severance package. Instead, channel the wisdom of Pema Chödrön. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And thank the shareholders for the incredible spiritual gift of having absolutely nothing left to lose.