Not Assigning Value to the Mind

    I am reflecting on the identification that people have with various kinds of work. The very first thing that people normally ask when you go to a party is "what do you do for a living" or "what is your work?" And I have experienced many times in life where I became so caught up in a particular project that the work becomes "me" or an image of who I am. In fact, everything I do models the work itself, and I start to base my value on it.
    It's interesting to reflect this back on the discussion on Master Sheng Yen's Tea Words. Throughout history, even in spiritual life, there is a tendency to try to reify one's existence; to attach some solid sense of value to it, whether it's a work of art or some project that one has worked on for many years. Even among spiritual seekers, there is a tendency to see the mind or soul as some tangible thing that moves from one lifetime to the next. Hence, Master Sheng Yen remarks:

"According to the Yogachara school, fundamental consciousness makes a person what he or she is; it is tempting to say that this fundamental consciousness is the core, essence, or true identity of someone, but these terms are misleading, since they make one think of substance, of something material, and this is not the understanding of Buddhism." (p.8)

I am thinking that what would it be like not to assign any value to this existence: to simply observe it as a witness, yet confident that this observer is indeed real?  Better still, perhaps there is neither real nor unreal about this observer or witness, which isn't even considered "valued" or "unvalued". It's hard to get this point because we always have in mind this consciousness that is moving from one work to another work, and so on down through time.
   Can work be done in this way? Yes, I believe that it can, but it takes a long time to let go of the sense that I am doing something to gain something else or to maintain a certain sense of oneself. In a way, people who are just starting a new job are often gifted with the opportunity not to make any assumptions. For example, when I first started my job, I had no expectations of even surviving one week, and I was only glad to have a paycheque at the end of the week. Why is it that years later, one's inclination is to protect what they have at all costs? This is because one no longer is working in faith  in the moment, but is resting on their previous works and taking those to be one's self.

Sheng Yen (2013) Tea Words Volume II Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications