Queen Lolo
August 21, 2007
Today's "Daily Dharma" from Tricycle continues with yesterday's theme of "Right Livelihood" and succinctly sums up what I was trying to say in my previous blog. No matter how hard we try to do it right, we inadvertently make choices and take actions that harm others. One of my favorite Buddhist writers, teachers, and practitioners, Sylvia Boorstein, writes (and Tricycle quotes):
"Right Livelihood appears to be harder to practice these days than in the time of the Buddha. The rule is still the same: Right Livelihood is organizing one's financial support so that it is nonabusive, nonexploitive, nonharming. However, these days what is abusive and exploitive is not necessarily self-evident. When the Buddha taught, unwholesome livelihood categories were easy to distinguish. Soldiering, keeping slaves, manufacturing weapons and intoxicants--all were on the proscribed list. In our time, soldiers sometimes serve as peacekeepers. It's hard to know the wholesomeness of all the products of any corporation, corporate mergers being what they are. Who knows what else is being manufactured by my detergent company's subsidiaries? . . . For me, a complete picture of wholesome Right Livelihood is even larger than the proscriptions that reflect external choices. Wholesome internal choices--healthy attitudes about one's work--also contribute to mental happiness and peace of mind. Everyone's livelihood is an opportunity for self-esteem."
-Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think
I like that. "Wholesome internal choices." Personally, I'm discovering that some of the external choices I've made, choices that at one time appeared to be right and wholesome and true on the outside, are not on the inside. And so I live and learn, adjust and choose again, in the on-going pursuit of -- and commitment to -- a greater understanding of Right Livelihood.
Posted by at August 22, 2007 06:34 AMI always get a chuckle out of the bit in the Lotus Sutra (I'd have to go home and look up the Chapter) where the Buddha basically tells his followers what are the "unwholesome" occupations, and tells his folks not to hang out with people who practice these occupations. Near the top of the list is "actors". Well, I don't know how you can get away from them in Hollwood, or even in New York....
What's so unwholesome about being an actor, anyway? Maybe it has to do with untruthfulness, or maybe the Buddha just thought the whole profession was frivolous.
Anyway, thanks for these two entries, Lolo - I am looking for work, and it's important food for thought for me.
Your friend, Byrd in LA
Posted by: Byrd in LA at August 23, 2007 06:56 PMPerhaps it's not so much the actual profession, but rather the person and his or her intentions and actions. Joking aside, I know some kind-hearted, conscious actors/celebrities who do a lot of good in the world and use their notarity and influence to make a positive impact. And I also know people who work in the non-profit sector -- a field that would seem to be the obvious choice for "right livelihood," who use their position to justify a lot of unethical actions that do, indeed, increase the suffering of others. Maybe in this day and age it's not so much about WHAT you do, but rather HOW you do it that counts.
Posted by: Queen Lolo at August 23, 2007 09:30 PMApparently quite a number of people believe you can be in the military and be practicing right livelihood. It seems then butchers, drug dealers, and prostitutes, also practice right livelihood. After all if your whole profession is based upon violating the first precept then everything goes. I don't believe this but many do. I don't think that buddhism is there to support society but to get people out of being brainwashed by the false view of society. But I would agree in principle that it is how you do things and not necessarily what you do that is important, but I think there are more limits on that then people want to admit. If your job is writing advertising for beer commercials, meaning creating the desire for intoxicants, I don't see how you could claim that right livelihood is important, because certainly you can't follow it in practice but only as an ideal that you hope to one day put into practice. I think it is better to admit that you are not engaged in right livlihood then to pretend that you are. At least then you may one day take up that practice, I also don't think the purpose of buddhism is to make one comfortable where ever they are at.
Posted by: clown hidden at August 24, 2007 05:09 PMI applaud the "right livelihood" idea, because I'm distressed by what seems to be amoral Samurai behavior in "nonjudgmental" Buddhism. I am presently unable to unify with a leader whom police call "a dangerous career criminal," and am forbidden to even discuss that with anyone, because this leader's victims are said to be merely victims of their own bad karma and it is not my place to question my superiors. Call me Unhappy Gaijin.
Posted by: Barbara Pike at September 4, 2007 08:50 PM