The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives
The Buddhist Hour
Radio Broadcast for Sunday 6 October 2002
Broadcast Script 245
Glossary:
livelihood: kind or manner of
life; conduct; a means of living, a source of
maintenance
superstition: irrational awe or fear of the
unknown; belief in a religion considered false or pagan; religious
belief or practice founded on fear or ignorance credulity regarding
religion or the supernatural.
advertising: give notice of;
make generally or publicly known, call attention to by a published
announcement; describe or present (goods, services) publicly with a
view to promoting sales, give warning or information
righteous:
of a person, just, upright, virtuous, guiltless; conforming to the
precepts of divine law or accepted standards of morality; acting
rightly or justly
diligently: assiduous, attentive; of a
person: steady in application; assiduous, industrious, attentive to
one’s duties.
conscientiously: obedience to conscience,
(habitually) governed by a sense of duty; done according to
conscience, scrupulous.
personality: the quality or fact of
being a person as distinct from a thing or an animal; the assemblage
of qualities or characteristics that make a person a distinctive
individual.
coercion: the controlling of a voluntary agent or
action by force. the faculty or power of coercing or punishing; the
power to compel assent
extraversion: a turning outwards, a
making manifest
Today's script is entitled:
Working towards Right
Livelihood
All human beings must work for a living. Even a beggar
works hard for his or her living.
When humans capture animals
they make them work for their living. There is no escape from work.
But sometimes work does not benefit oneself or others. This is wrong
livelihood.
Today we are talking about working towards right
livelihood, how it relates to work culture and how this practice may
benefit ourselves and others.
The practice of right livelihood
can be explained with regard to four aspects as Ledi Sayadaw writes
in "The Noble Eightfold Path and its Factors Explained":
The first is restraint from livelihood based on wrong
conduct.
Wrong conduct here means restraint from unwholesome
bodily actions such as killing living creatures, restraint from
taking what is not given and restraint from sexual misconduct.
It
is also wrong conduct to engage in unwholesome verbal actions. These
are false speech, tale bearing (gossip), harsh talk and useless
chatter.
Wrong conduct also means to trade in any of the five
kinds of merchandise that the Buddha stated expressly should be
avoided as they bring harm to others. These are weapons, living
beings (slave trade and prostitution), meat, intoxicants and poisons.
The second aspect is restraint from livelihood based on
improper means.
The third aspect is restraint from livelihood
based on deception of others.
This means that one's livelihood
should not be based on trickery or deceit, such as false advertising
or misrepresentation of quality or quantity or other deceptive
practices.
The forth aspect is restraint from livelihood based
on knowledges such as palmistry, interpreting dreams, giving charms,
foretelling the future etc.
Thich Nat Hanh writes, people have
superstitions, such as believing that their fate is sealed in the
stars or in the palms of their hands. No one can be sure what will
occur in the future. By practising mindfulness, we can change the
destiny astrologers have predicted for us. Moreover, prophesies can
be self-fulfilling.
The first sermon given by Buddha, known as
the first 'turning of the wheel' concerned the Four Noble Truths.
These are: the truth of suffering, of the origin of suffering, of the
cessation of suffering and of the Eightfold Path leading to the
extinction of suffering.
Right livelihood one of the factors
of the Eightfold Path and as such is one of the factors that leads to
the ending of our suffering.
The Eightfold Path consists
of:
Right View (samma-ditthi)
Right Thought
(samma-sankappa)
Right Speech (samma-vaca)
Right Action
(samma-kammanta)
Right Livelihood (samma-ajiva)
Right Effort
(samma-vayama)
Right Mindfulness (samma-sati)
Right
Concentration (samma-samadhi).
Traditionally, the eight
factors of the Eightfold Path are grouped into three: wisdom,
morality and concentration.
In this division, right livelihood
is connected with morality.
Bikkhu Bodhi writes in The Noble
Eightfold Path that if we are earning our livelihood in a way that is
not righteous, in "any occupation that requires violation of
right speech and right action", this is not right livelihood.
One's livelihood will have been earned "by legal means, not
illegally... peacefully, without coercion or violence... honestly,
not by trickery or deceit and... in ways which do not entail causing
harm or suffering to others".
Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
writes in Basic Themes, a person who earns his or her livelihood in
this way, by being wholesome in action and in speech, will do great
good to others and to society as a whole. Such wholesomeness will
also bring much benefit to the person themselves as they will gain
"the freedom and peace in... life which will help lead to inner
calm".
Right livelihood (samma ajiva) does not corrupt
wholesome minds and is conducive to our practice.
Right
livelihood is moral work discipline, which gives rise to consistent
and unstrained wholesome moral action. It is embodied in right
speech, right action and right livelihood. It is the development of
these work practices that matter.
If we look specifically at
the workplace, it is said in Bhikkhu Bodhi's book The Noble Eightfold
Path that "workers should fulfil their duties diligently and
conscientiously, not idling away time, claiming to have worked longer
hours than they did, or pocketing the company's goods." There
should be "due respect and consideration... shown to employers,
employees, colleagues, and customers" and an "employer, for
example, should assign his workers chores according to their ability,
pay them adequately, promote them when they deserve a promotion and
give them occasional vacations and bonuses. Colleagues should try to
co-operate rather than compete, while merchants should be equitable
in their dealings with customers".
Looked at this way it
does not take long to realise that the practice of right livelihood
can only benefit oneself and others. By contrast, in reading the
newspaper or watching the news on television, the reports of
industrial strife, unfair dismissals, harassment and fraud that
regularly appear make it all too obvious how much suffering is
involved in wrong livelihood.
Right livelihood comprises
numerous work skills, which persons have to develop each for himself
and herself. Perseverance is a skill that is acquired by a constant
application of one's own will to do.
John D. Hughes has
identified, on a subjective basis, five trusts that appear to be
useful in the information area. The Trusts identified and used were:
1. Trust in the technology used
2. Trust in persons using
it
3. Trust in work as input
4. Trust in work as output
5.
Trust in managers interests
If you would like to read more
about the Five Trusts, you can find information on our website at
www.buyresolved.com.au/john_hughes/index.html
There are many
theories of personality and even more measures.
Carl Jung
suggested the basic personality types of Introversion and
Extroversion and the components of intuition, sensation, thinking and
feeling.
Type theory aims to help persons identify or confirm
the ways they are likely to be most effective and fulfilled.
Type
theory also aims to help people understand and value others more: to
encourage the constructive use of differences.
Thirdly, Type
theory helps persons understand key aspects of the development of
their personality type throughout life.
The Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator is a development of Carl Jung’s work and is widely
used in the fields of counselling, education, training and
management.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indictor is an unusually
positive and constructive approach. Bayne’s book The
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: A critical review and practical guide
includes its application on three areas: counselling, education and
management.
Ideas and evidence are reviewed on type and topic
such as empathy, personality change, learning, style, writing, the
‘good manager’ and coping with stress.
The
Myers-Briggs Type Indictor assumes that four pairs of preferences are
particularly important. Taking one of these as an example, type
theory suggests that some people prefer extraversion and generally
find that behaving in an extraverted way is more comfortable for them
than introversion.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indictor sets out to
measure preferences only, not how well or poorly developed those
preferences are.
The success or otherwise of employee
selection, appraisal, career development and job design depends in
part on an understanding of personality and motivation.
Type
theory, though, is very clear that a good manager may be any of the
types; that type development matters much more than type itself; and
that type tends to affect style rather than effectiveness of
management.
A major aim of type theory, noted earlier, is to
encourage the constructive use of differences. In particular, it can
explain, at least in part, attractions and conflicts between persons
and the strengths and weaknesses of particular groups. Type theory
can lead to a greater appreciation of differences, as well as
increasing understanding and tolerance of them.
A broader
understanding of the Buddhist work ethic involves the notion of
keeping the mind free from any influence that may dull the mind. For
example if pupils watch up to 10 hours a day television it is most
likely that such a medium ceases to educate them and is being used as
an escape from their unsteady reality.
Apart from work study
education, all of the popular pastime’s persons use to fill in
their surplus time are to a large extent seeking escape from their
boredom by being busy for business sake. While work is something we
all do as humans, work for work's sake cannot be justified. To be
right livelihood it must involve turning from what is not righteous
and pursuing what is right, with energy and application.
Buddha
Dhamma practice leads to the Mangala Blessings that are listed in the
Mangala Sutta.
The Mangala Sutta highest blessings are higher
satisfiers than what we accept as the cultural norm.
The
cultural norm teaches us to strive for minor blessings such as
Wealth.
Ironically, attainment of the Mangala Highest
Blessings brings to the practitioner the minor blessings as a
by-product. This is due to the law of cause and effect.
For
such reasons there is still a need for unskilled persons to learn how
to work. This can only occur when the person wants to practice the
correct work skills and change his or her antisocial behaviours.
Friendliness and the desire to learn will make the learning
process very fast. Persons who desire to learn but have unfriendly
minds will be able to learn, but at a much slower rate and without
finer knowledge and expertise.
The rate of appearance of new
jobs and disappearance of old jobs is estimated to be twelve fold
over the career of somebody leaving school in 2001 in Australia. The
persons who will have continuous employment over the next three
decades are persons who are friendly and can learn new skills, ideas
and competencies.
We conclude today's script on working
towards right work with a practical teaching based on the work of
Thich Nhat Hanh:
As we study and practice the Eightfold Path,
we see that each element of the path is contained within all the
other seven elements.
To practice right livelihood means to
practice right mindfulness.
Every time the telephone rings,
hear it as a bell of mindfulness. Stop what you are doing, breath in
and out consciously, and then proceed to the telephone. The way you
answer the phone will embody right livelihood. But do it quickly.
We
need to discuss among ourselves how to practice mindfulness in the
workplace, how to practice right work.
Few can obtain the
ideal of work in a way that encourages this kind of thinking and
acting, in a way that encourages our ideal of compassion, is to
practice right livelihood.
May you come to practice of right
work this life.
May you be well and happy at work.
May
all beings be well and happy at work.
This script was written
and edited by John D. Hughes, Julian Bamford, Evelin Halls, Jason
Glasson, Julie White and Pennie White.
References:
Bhikkhu
Bodhi (1984) The Noble Eighfold Path, The Whell Publication No.
308/311, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka.
Lee,
Ajaan Dhammadharo (1982) Basic Themes, Wat Asokaram, Samut Prakaan
10280, Thailand.
Sayadaw, Ledi (1977) The Noble Eightfold Path
and its Factors Explained, The Wheel Publication No, 245/246/247,
Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy Sri Lanka.
Thich Nhat Hanh
(1998) The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering
into Peace, Joy and Liberation, Rider, Sydney.
The New Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary (1993) Ed. Lesley Brown. Clarendon Press
Oxford UK.
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Document Statistics
Counts
Words:
1794
Sentences: 106
Paragraphs: 69
Syllables:
2846
Averages
Words per sentence: 16.9
Sentences per
paragraph: 1.5
Percentages
Passive Sentences:
20
Readability Statistics
Flesch Grade Level:
11.9
Coleman-Liau Grade Level: 12.6
Bormuth Grade Level:
10.6
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 53.7
Flesch Kincaid Score:
9.6
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Coleman-Liau
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average number of letters per word and number of sentence per 100
words.
Bormuth Grade Level: Indicates the grade level of
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sentence. These scores indicate grade levels ranging from 6.3 to
11.6.
Flesch Reading Ease Score: Indicates how easy the
document is to read based on the number of syllables per word and
number of words per sentence. These scores indicate a number between
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Flesch-Kincaid Score : Indicates
the grade level of the document based on the number of syllables per
word and number of words per sentence. This score predicts the
difficulty of reading technical documents, and is based on Navy
training manuals that score in difficulty from 5.5 to 16.3. It meets
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Flesch Scoring Table
Flesch Reading Ease Score Flesch
Grade Level Reading Difficulty
90-100 5th Grade Very easy
80-89
6th Grade Easy
70-79 7th Grade Fairly easy
60-69 8th-9th Grade
Standard
50-59 High School Fairly difficult
30-49 College
Difficult
0-29 College Graduate Very difficult
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