Queen Lolo

Apology To A Tree

A Buddhist Apology To A Tree
by Queen Lolo
August 20, 2007

Today's "Daily Dharma" from Tricycle magazine goes like this:
"Changing Our Lives Through Action"

"Right livelihood is not just a philosophical ideal. It is a practical, achievable reality. Finding and maintaining right livelihood does require regular, consistent action, but the steps are clear and the results immediate. Finding your own right livelihood depends primarily on getting in touch with your "beginner's mind." Mindfulness challenges us to stay with things as they are and to change our lives through action that harms no one. Working together, mindfully and compassionately, we can create a community in which all our livelihoods are "right." -- Claude Whitmyer in Mindfulness and Meaningful Work from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book."

So here's what I want to know: In today's world, it is really ever possible to do work that truly harms no one and no thing?

Can any livelihood really be "right?" It seems the deeper you go into ANY paying profession, the more you realize the inevitable impurity of even the most sincere and well-intended effort and actions. In this consumer-driven material world, almost everything done for gain results in some type of loss or harm.

Maybe it's not about attaining perfection in the quest for right livelihood, but instead, getting as close as possible and being mindful of where we fall short. Or simply approaching right livelihood as a practice or path, rather than a destination.

Along these lines...

I once asked a rabbi why there are so many prayers and laws in Judaism. His explanation, when filtered through my Buddhist heart and soul, went something like this: It's designed to keep you awake, to keep you conscious of the "cause and effect" of your actions, and to make you mindful of exactly what you are doing. The laws and conditions for eating meat, for instance, encourage awareness and gratitude for the life that was given/taken for your enjoyment.

To me, this means that while you can't completely avoid harming others (and that's true even if you're a vegetarian, Honey) you can at least be mindful of the impact of your actions and the suffering endured for your benefit.

Maybe I can learn a little from my ancestors. Perhaps offering a prayer or a single breath of awareness to those I consciously and unconsciously harm in the course of my work can make my livelihood a little more correct.

No matter how benign my work may appear, I know that even when sitting quietly in my room writing text for a client's brochure, a tree will be harmed to make the brochure's paper. And perhaps a young printer will have to work overtime to meet my client's deadline, leaving her sick husband at home to care for their colicky new baby all alone. And maybe while the sick husband is in the bathroom throwing up for the tenth time, the baby cries so loud she wakes up truckdriver next-door who is then so groggy from lack of sleep the next day that he crashes his truck into a schoolyard at noon.

You just never know.

In today's world, even if you do your best to cause no harm, you can still make a mess of things. So what's a Buddhist to do?

IS there any "right livelihood" in this day and age?

How much (if anything) do we have to give up to attain it?

Is "right livelihood" attainable, or is the point to simply strive for it?

Posted by at August 21, 2007 08:49 AM