Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

August 19, 2007

“The Fifth Step Along the Buddhist Path: Right Livelihood”

Rev. Kathy Duhon

Welcome to all of you who have taken time out from your busy vacation schedules to spend some time at church. Someone once said, “A vacation is when you pack seven suitcases, three small children, a mother-in-law, two dogs and say, ‘It’s good to get away from it all.’” Well, those were the good old days. Now you usually also pack the cell phone and the laptop, and there’s no getting away from it all. May this time together in our service be a sacred time when you can, at least for an hour, be at peace, let it all go. Today we look to Buddhism in our sermon series on the Eightfold Path, a beautiful contemplation of how to live in peace.

The Buddha was a teacher and a physician of the spirit. He spoke of the condition of life, its suffering and impermanence, and then he devised and taught the practices that would bring health, happiness and compassion. The Buddha’s Eightfold Path, as Huston Smith explains, is “a course of treatment”, which we have been examining. We have already considered the first four steps, Right View, Right Intentions, Right Speech, and Right Action, and today we move on to the fifth step along the Buddhist Eightfold Path, Right Livelihood.

I know, I know, what a kick in the pants to talk about work before Labor Day. Our livelihood is the way we spend much of our time – what we are doing in the world that guarantees our subsistence. This is not necessarily a job that we get paid for, although that is the common sense of the word. I like the word which is used on various forms – occupation – how do we occupy our time? Is it with compassion for ourselves and others, being helpful and not harmful? Right livelihood is the way we love the world while we work.

I remember a commercial from my childhood appealing to stay-at-home Moms by noticing that they actually had many occupations, and naming several of them, something like: she’s a cook, chauffeur, launderer, peacekeeper, housekeeper, teacher, and Mom. I believe the idea was that all that might give you a big headache or some such, and they had just the right product to take care of you.

Most of us have many occupations. We are gardeners and animal caregivers, musicians and dancers, carpenters and mechanics, writers and artists, chefs and coaches, teachers and child care workers, and all of the above may be what we do without any pay. Our occupation, our livelihood, is how we live in the world, in interdependence.

What do we do for our livelihood? This is a huge ethical question that religious leaders of all kinds have addressed, the most important recently being Pope John Paul II’s encyclical called, “On Human Work”, dealing with issues of justice and meaning in our modern international system for working.

In Buddha’s day, it would have meant specifically the work that kept you alive, including monastic work. And he was clear that one’s livelihood, where most of our waking attention is focused, needs to be carefully considered. All the meditation or spiritual practice done in the morning before work, or else the prayers or chants done in the evening after jobs are finished, have little relevance if one spends the greater part of the day pulled toward what is harmful and unhealthy for oneself and the world. Unitarian and U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson, a man of many livelihoods, said, “It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read.”

To consider what livelihood we engage in, as an ethical and religious question, is not always done. Seeking what the universe is calling for us to do, that place, as Frederick Buechner has called it, “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”, is the way along any religious path to health, holiness, and happiness. Unfortunately it is not always very clear.

The Buddha tried to be clear in his larger teaching, that we should be life promoting, not life destroying, in our chosen livelihoods. How we occupy the greater part of our days should be ethically based in living meaningfully, not in making a living as an end in itself. The Buddha gave examples of occupations that were not in line with spiritual practice, but his specific suggestions are as time-bound as any religious leader’s. You should not be a poison peddler, slave trader, prostitute, butcher, brewer, arms maker, tax collector, or caravan trader. (Some of them must reflect the corrupt nature of the occupations at that time, I imagine.)

I don’t know if the Buddha objected to people having a military livelihood, although Buddhism has tended toward pacifism and peacemaking. Some of you likely heard the segment on NPR last week with Iraqi War veteran Aidan Delgado, about his new book, put out by our own Beacon Press, called, The Sutras of Abu Ghraib.

Aidan spent some of his years growing up in Thailand and was introduced to Buddhism. He is a Buddhist and a vegetarian and also someone concerned about our country, who enlisted not long after September 11^th. By his third month in Iraq, he was so distressed about the behavior of his fellow servicemen and women that he applied for Conscientious Objector status. Eventually, when his tour of duty was over, he was honorably discharged, but he first found himself transferred to guarding the Abu Ghraib prison during the worst months of torture there.

Delgado said that the daily degradation was the real problem, however, more than the torture that we have seen pictured. He seemed to feel that everyone in Iraq has had some contact with our military personnel when they were behaving disrespectfully, aggressively or brutally, and that forms how they think about us. He doesn’t believe that’s who we are. He felt sure that everyone who joined the military initially felt, as he did, that they were “reluctant warriors”, who would only be forced to kill as a last resort. But that changed. Delgado described how they gradually became less humane as people, just by the circumstances of their occupation as military people in a military occupation gone wrong.

When we try to find the right livelihood, it is for many reasons, to be life promoting, to be helpful, to be spiritual, to be called, to live meaningfully, but then there is also the other side – to not be drawn into what will harm our spirits and the world. Few of us are in as conflicted of a livelihood as a Buddhist guarding a prison where torture is taking place, but most of us find our livelihoods, our occupations, challenges to the spirit at times. There can be stress, boredom, mean-spiritedness from co-workers, anxiety, humiliation, oppression, domination, unethical business practices, fierce competition, cruel criticisms, temptations to selfishness, and all kinds of other harmfulness. We can find ourselves negatively affected in ways that ripple outward into all of our relationships. A Buddhist teaching says, “Avoid the company of deluded people when you can. When you cannot, keep your own counsel.” It can be hard to avoid the company of people behaving badly in some livelihoods.

The way to decide right livelihood is simple, and also not. Does it draw on my passions? Does it provide for myself and my loved ones? Do I thrive in this environment? If the answer to these or other questions we have about how we are occupying our time is no, does that mean we change occupations? Maybe we should, but not necessarily. It might mean that we change our own approach, our attitude, our way of being in our livelihoods – we become more assertive, or less so, more appreciative, less picky, more adaptable, less crazy, more centered and at peace.

For example, not everyone is a parent, but almost everyone who has reached adulthood has done a little childcare at some time or another – a fairly universal livelihood for us. And one that we may not be well suited for, but may be able to make changes in our lives in order to do it well – becoming more patient, or creative, or whatever it takes. It’s often hard to tell what way is the best way to right livelihood. Sometimes it’s to change ourselves and sometimes it’s to change our occupations.

What is the right livelihood for you? The Buddha taught that this is a worthy question to reflect upon and to consider for how we live ethically. May you find ways to occupy your lives that are filled with compassion and creativity, with meaningfulness and helpfulness. So may you be at peace.