Right Livelihood

An excerpt from a teaching called the Eightfold Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Right livelihood is in the ethical conduct section of the Eightfold Path, and it means that one should earn one’s living in a righteous way. Wealth should be gained legally, and peacefully.  It sounds pretty simple, but it’s not so simple in today’s world, because you really have to look at what you do.  Lets say you own a liquor franchise.  You might want to think about selling that business and going into the Tofutti business.  You know? If you think about it, many people suffer due to what your product is.  Maybe you’re making lots of money at your liquor establishment, but then you see the poor people stumble back and forth on your street, and you have just got to ask yourself, are you doing the right thing? Upon contemplating right livelihood, one will come to understand that this is not correct.  This is not a good way to make one’s money.  Sell the franchise, and go into Dunkin Donuts or something, they make a decent coffee.  Something even better would be something that benefits sentient beings like a health food or some other product.  Right livelihood is like that.

The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings that one should avoid for this reason.  Dealing in weapons.  They hurt.  Dealing in living beings, which includes the slave trade, prostitution, and raising animals for slaughter.  That is wrong livelihood.  It is wrong to the core of the path.  No one should ever enslave another being.  No one should ever raise beings to die.  This is what the Buddha has taught, and to the degree that we go against that and harm sentient beings in this way, we ourselves will be harmed, if not in this lifetime, then in the next lifetime.  I tell you, folks.  What goes around comes around.

More wrong livelihood that should be avoided is working in meat production and butchery, as well as selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs.   Furthermore, any other occupation that would violate the principals of right speech and right action should be avoided, so again there’s that blend.  Right speech, right action, they are both in that ethical category.

Ethics are so important and they are really not taught in many religions.  And in fact if you go right to Vajrayana, you may even miss these teachings.  But ethics are the foundation, the underpinning of the path.  You cannot go into highfalutin practice without good ethics.  Your whole house will fall apart.  It will be like a house of cards. We start here in the world, here in the mirror, looking at ourselves. Taking account before we go onto the fancy stuff.  You must examine your own methodologies, and to make sure that you have established good ethics and right view.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo