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Eightfold Path: Right Livelihood (1 of 1)

The topic for today is the fifth factor of the Eightfold Path: Right Livelihood. That is usually how it's translated into English, but "livelihood," I think, for many English-speaking people suggests a career. It is broader in meaning than that. The word translated as "livelihood" is ājīva^[1]. It literally means, or is related to, the word "sustenance," or what provides support or sustenance for us.

What sustains our life? For people who work, it is often their work. Some people put more time into work than anything else. Work provides them with the support and sustenance for food, housing, clothes, and the things we need for survival. But some people don't have a career per se. Some people are retired, and some people are children. What sustains their life? Sustenance is the primary activity or source on which our life depends and by which we live.

For example, a monastic doesn't have a job per se, but their sustenance and support for their lifestyle come from the donations that people provide. A monastic doesn't eat unless someone offers them food. So, their sustenance comes from the support of others that arises because of how they live their lives. They live their lives dedicated to the Dharma, to practice, and to teaching. In a sense, their career is being a monastic, but their sustenance comes from the support that people have for that life and for what they are offering the world.

Someone who is retired has some primary source from which they get their sustenance and support. Maybe it's Social Security, the government, a pension, or their savings. They receive that, and then with that sustenance, they use it. If we are a farmer, we grow our own food, and our sustenance comes from being a farmer. If a person is a merchant, their sustenance comes from their work. They get income, spend that income, and provide support for other people.

In this kind of receiving and then giving back in a monetary economy, we are intimately integrated, affected by, and affecting the world around us. How we consume, what we consume, and what supports and sustains our life comes from some source, and that source may or may not be healthy for the planet, for others, and for ourselves. We want to be supported and have a sustenance that we feel good about. How we buy things to support and sustain ourselves, where our money goes, and what we put out into the world also has an impact that ripples out. Our money then supports either something that is unhealthy or something that is healthy in the world.

To live by Right Livelihood (ājīva) is to be aware of what sustains us. Where do the things we receive come from? Are we acquiring and using these things, and sending out what we send back into the world, in a dharmic way? You find in the teachings of the Buddha this idea that we want to live dharmically.

The word dharma has a lot of meanings. In this context, many early translators translated it as "righteously." Perhaps that is a leftover from a time when early translators were very influenced by and trying to offer an alternative to Christianity when they translated Buddhism into English. "Righteously" may be more of a Christian term, or somehow related to what was going on in England in the late 1800s, where being righteous was seen as a good thing. In the kind of English vocabulary I speak, I don't really use the word "righteous" very much. It feels a little bit like "self-righteous," which is a problem. The word I like to translate dhamma (or dharma) into in this context is "justly" or "with justice."

Are we acquiring our sustenance dharmically, acquiring it justly? Is justice being played out? Whatever we consume, buy, acquire, and whatever supports us to live—is there justice for people and for the planet? Is it justly acquired?

The primary way of understanding this, which becomes the heart of Right Livelihood or right living, is the idea that we repeat repeatedly in this Eightfold Path series: Is it causing harm, or is it bringing benefit to the world? This movement and care to avoid causing harm, and instead living for the benefit of self and others, lies at the very heart of Buddhism. Not moralistically, as I keep saying, but rather because it is healthy to do so. The idea of promoting health for ourselves, for others, and for our planet has a very different feel than doing something just because it is ethical, moral, or obligated.

This act of generosity towards all things—wanting everything to become healthy, to thrive, and to do well—also comes from this motivation toward freedom. If what we want to do is to walk the path of freedom, of spiritual liberation, we want to live our life in a way that supports that. To live our life dharmically, to live with a sense of justice, is again not because it is a heavy thing to do, but because it really feels like a movement toward our own freedom and the freedom of others.

If we are ignorant of the impact we are having on the world, in Buddhism that would be seen as a form of delusion. Waking up is not only about our own present-moment experience, but also about really feeling and understanding the consequences of how we live our life. The Buddha, more than anything else, was a consequentialist. He was concerned that the consequences of what we do are skillful, helpful, and beneficial. The consideration of what is healthy and beneficial probably shouldn't stop with just what is visible to us in the present moment, but should also give consideration to the ripple effect of our life out into the world. In this way, we can live a life of contentment, ease, happiness, and blamelessness. We feel better and better about how we live our life in this complicated, interrelated, interdependent life, participating in it in a healthy way.

How do we use our money as well? Do we use it to support what is going on in the world around us? I think of money as a kind of spin. Money is just symbolic of value, but when we spend money, we put a spin into the world. If we go buy alcohol or cigarettes, we put a certain spin into the world. If we go and buy organic produce, we put a different spin into the world. By buying cigarettes, we support the production of more cigarettes. If we buy organic food, we support the continuation and development of organic food.

What we do with our livelihood, how we support ourselves, is the same thing. What spin do we put out into the world? If we buy something that was created by the destruction of rainforests or by mining rare metals in a place that uses child labor, then there is a certain spin to our spending patterns. It has an effect and an influence that goes out into the world. We don't always know where that spin goes, but it is a negative spin. Putting out a positive spin is kind of like voting with your money for what kind of world we want to live in.

We see this emphasis on Right Livelihood, and care and attention to where the spin goes and what we do. One of the few places where the Buddha, in my reading, is really categorical in his statements about what to do and what not to do isn't just the general principle of avoiding harm or what is unskillful. He explicitly enumerates five forms of livelihood that are considered wrong livelihood. They all have to do with trading. They include being in the business of trading in weapons, trading in living beings (which would mean trading in cattle, chickens, and the business of selling animals, but also trading in people, such as slavery or the sex trade), trading in intoxicants, trading in poison, and trading in meat (such as being a butcher or selling meat). The Buddha treated all of these as wrong livelihood, perhaps because of the spin they put out into the world—that they perpetuate a certain tendency to cause harm and perhaps do more harm than they do good for others, creating more suffering.

So what is the alternative? Right livelihoods are those that really benefit the world, support the world, and decrease the suffering of our world. Since some people spend a lot of their time at work, and sometimes it is through their work that they have the biggest impact on the world, the question of Right Livelihood is a very profound one. It is very personal, very consequential, and sometimes very difficult to look at. Sometimes people realize that their profession is wrong livelihood—that they are causing harm in the world—and they are horrified by this. Some wonderfully ethical people who were involved in creating social media, computers, and this whole technology world that is so big right now built these big websites and tech companies thinking they were doing good in the world. Then, not a few of them were horrified at some point, thinking, "Wait a minute, I'm not sure that I've been involved in Right Livelihood."

I'm saying this not to single anything out, but to point out that sometimes it is a very deep personal reflection that's not always easy to consider: "Am I living for the welfare of the world, or is what I'm doing harmful in some way?"

How do we live our lives more generally? What is our lifestyle? What are the predominant ways we are supported, and how do we impact the world? That is part of the Eightfold Path. As part of the Eightfold Path, this is not a punitive investigation. It is not a moralistic investigation. It is not meant to judge us as good or bad people. It is a way of continuing to develop the spiritual path to liberation and freedom.

How we live our lives is just as much a part of the path to freedom as meditation. If we see meditation as the only part of the path, we are really shortchanging ourselves of the full potential that this path has for us.

You might want to give some thought to this today. Until we meet again, maybe talk to friends, think about this, journal, or go for walks, and really consider deeply what your relationship is to how you live and the impact that has on yourself and the world around you. I hope that in this kind of reflection, you understand—delightfully, happily, inspiringly—how to live more for the benefit of all beings. Thank you very much.