Drive for Status at Work

 What would life be like if we didn't go to work with the idea of gaining personally in any way? I am thinking about our study group tonight, and how we discussed, among other things, Master Sheng Yen's line in the book Chan and Enlightenment: "The ancients pointed out that what people pursue most is none other than merit, fame, gain, and status." (p.146) During the discussion, I shared my own personal difficulties with trying to live without attachment to these things. For one, most organizations are using monetary profit as the key force in evaluating and driving their workers. Given this 'reality', it may seem difficult to transcend a profit/gain mentality in favor of one which places all sentient beings first and foremost. The second challenge that I have is wrapping my head around the notion of benefitting all sentient beings. Is it even possible, I wonder, for an ordinary sentient being to even begin to imagine all sentient beings, much less benefit all?
   The only way I can really understand it is to treat everything and everyone around me non-dualistically, in the sense that "I" and "they" are not truly separate, but are more so mirror images of each other. In this regard, maybe it's not so necessary to try to imagine "all" sentient beings as though they were in the same room together. Rather, it's more in keeping with Chan practice to see the present situation from an open and non-discriminating stance. In other words, trying to encompass an imaginary all is not as important as being able to see the moment arising as a totality, without giving into the tendency to fragment the experience into 'me' and 'you', 'like' and 'dislike', and so on. To let go of status, in this context, is to let go of the tendency to grasp what I like or what I think I need to get ahead, in favor of a way of seeing that includes me and the other. Operating in this way, I am relieved of many of the pressures that come with the sense of an I including the drive to look more successful or competent than others.
   Once I am no longer so pressured to achieve or be a certain way at work, then I can start to really treat the situation as a form of mind, rather than using the self as a starting point. This one is tricky because it might even require suspending the belief that my value depends on what I do in relation to others.