My Boss

A good publisher knows how to use people, and, I suppose that my former boss’s original Buddhist teacher saw that quality in him. Knowledge that it was a business, after all. No romantic ideas. No notion of editors who sit around reading all the time, making publishing decisions based solely on a work’s value. 

A publishing house is a business, like any other. That it can be run in an enlightened fashion is incidental as is that product itself, which can be enlightening, in the best way.  Not so much different than running a restaurant or thrift store. And we, the staff (as we came to be called), were not his friends or colleagues, but rather employees who came up with the product (in this case, books). This included the editorial staff, whose intelligence was rightly thought of as a commodity.

I worked for him nearly forty years, but for my forced retirement (I had a life-threatening stroke) and since then (I just turned 71),  he has had no contact with me.  People ask various things, including, “Don’t you feel manipulated? That he basically just disappeared after so many years of work from you?” They expect that a hurt diatribe will come forth from me.  But the diatribe never comes.

I could  likely, and honestly, say, “Yeah, I feel sort of manipulated, but that’s totally appropriate to this line of work, and any other reaction would be just made up or would be wishful thinking, and thus false. I can be simply glad that I got to make this work my livelihood for a while, and that at least my former boss and I were two people who had no romantic ideas about it.”

I’m one of those people who feels that kindness is a miracle no matter where it appears or at what level. With that in mind I want to tell you what I remember most about my former boss, though he likely doesn’t remember it himself.

This happened during the first several years I worked for the company. My boss was at that time splitting his time between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Boston, Massachusetts.  Whenever he came down to Boston, he would enact a ritual in which he would go around greeting everyone. He was in the middle of that ritual when he came to that office I was sharing with two other people.

“How are you all doing?” He said, or something like it.

“Not too well,” I said, though for the life of me I  cannot remember what exactly had me down then and there. That fact is likely telling.

He put a hand on my shoulder and said something like, “I wish it were otherwise.” Whatever it was, it was just a  subtle touch. And a wish that I would not be suffering. Of course he had no effect on the suffering I was going through. Dukkha is inevitable to us humans. But when we realize the lack of boundary between us and everything else, so is compassion.

It’s that moment of compassion I remember about him. It turned out to be indelible. I consider that moment to be an expression of who he really is. Then I go on my way, aspiring to be as kind as possible. So that simple gesture did have an effect. Even though I continued to suffer, as is usually the case, my direction was altered. That was his teaching. I got it. I’m grateful for it.