We talk a lot about what we should understand, but what should we do? At the center of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Livelihood, which stands in stark contrast to all of the ways that people can cause suffering in human society and the natural world. For more and more of us this is not such a great mystery in its basic practical forms, but there is always more to be done and more to be understood.
Mercantilists up to the time of Adam Smith and the American Revolution held that the point of Political Economy was to enrich the already rich in the home country at the expense of colonists and the colonized. We see this also in every empire of the ancient world, and in feudal societies based on war and rapine, and on squeezing the poor at every opportunity. Smith explained that the Wealth of Nations really consists in providing the necessities of life and more to the entire population. Market Fundamentalists revived the old, blinkered point of view, and then turned it into Trickle-Down economics and the Starve the Beast program.
Long before any of them, Shakyamuni Buddha pointed out that we must act so as to reduce human and animal suffering, which includes Right Livelihood. This idea was taken up in other forms by Gandhi, and explicitly by Fritz Schumacher, as we see in Small is Beautiful: Economics as Though People Mattered. I Diaried the book yesterday for Readers and Book Lovers, so I am not going to go through the economics and technology here. I will instead stick to the koan, which we have seen in this series in A Medical Koan.
Every step on the Eightfold Path can be understood in part in practical terms, and then can be undertaken as the usual koan of self.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Authorized King James translation of the Hebrew Bible
That is, do it selflessly, and thus thoroughly, in the same way as one is to love God
With all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Only do what only you can do.
Computer Scientist Edsger Dijkstra
In the Vimalakirti Sutra, the great layman Vimalakirti (Stainless Reputation), when confronted with such matters, kept silent. At other times, he went into all of the places in the world where there is suffering, and showed sufferers the way out.
To do something yourself, without copying others, is to become an example to the world.
Dogen Zenji
Schumacher took this up in his essay Buddhist Economics, which is included in Small is Beautiful. As I said, I highlighted many examples of reducing the sufferings of poverty in my post about it. Others have taken this further, and are carrying on his spirit of innovation and compassion.
Illuminating Suffering, Safeguarding Lives and Nature: The 2023 #RightLivelihood Laureates
Right Livelihood Laureates pave the way on sustainability - we do our part by following their lead.
We are in the middle of a crisis. The world is facing enormous environmental challenges from the effects of exceeding planetary boundaries. Recent research shows that unless swift action is taken, human activity will irreversibly turn the Earth into a much less habitable place.
This has been the message of many in the Right Livelihood community, which boasts some of the earliest and most outspoken proponents of urgent climate action globally.
Right Livelihood for Buddhist monks is to advance their own training so that they can assist others to do so. Right Livelihood for lay trainees begins with avoiding those employments that obviously cause suffering, from killing animals to destroying nations for power and profit. Then we can go much deeper into the matter.