Right Livelihood means leading a life without deceit, treachery, trickery and usury. The five condemned occupations are trading in arms, living begins, flesh, intoxicants and poison. Anyone following this path can not work in a munitions factory, a butcher's shop, a pesticide company, or a company whose wastes kill wildlife or is harmful to human beings and the environment. This includes participating in gambling hall, a brothel, hunting and fishing.
In short, a Buddhist practicing Right Livelihood can not undertake any work that might hurt any living beings or the environment. Instead he should seek the opportunity to engage in and enjoy meaningful work in every day life.
Please note that, Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood, all come under the basic rule of morality. This includes 3 bodily actions [ abstention from killing, from taking what is not given and from sexual misconduct ], 4 verbal actions [ Abstention from false speech, harsh speech, tale bearing, vain talk or gossip ]. Both of bodily and verbal actions are related to 3 mental actions [ non - covetousness, not ill will and right view ]. All of these basic precepts are called the Tenfold Wholesome Course of Action, " not to do any evil ", which will lead to the higher moral practice of the Three Admonitions to " cultivate good and purity the mind. "
In the text, Buddhadhamma, Phra Dhammapitaka [ P.A. Payutto ] wrote that : there were some western theologians and even some Thai Buddhist have not studied the Buddha's teaching thoroughly, yet they criticized Buddhism as being a negative religion, which teaches people merely to abstain from unwholesome deeds, without teaching them how to promote positive wholesome acts, Furthermore, these critics argued that such teaching is just passive and subjective.
The venerable monk comments that, if those people had studied the right paths of morality systematically, they would understand that the Buddhist middle path for the training in morality, is neither negative, passive, subjective, nor an ethic of thought as they claimed. Buddhism teaches us how to conduct the right way of life in accordance with the law of nature. Buddhism is quite different from other theistic religion in many ways.
First, the Training in Morality is only a part of Buddhadhamma. It is not a dogma, that the followers must have loyal faith in God. Buddhism regards dogma is an anathematic concept. Faith without analytical thinking will not promote wisdom, and is a wrong view and wrong thought in the Buddhist teaching.
Secondly, and especially in the Southern School of Buddhism, hierarchical teaching of morality starts from the Basic Five Precepts and Ten - folds Course of Action especially, by refraining from unwholesome deeds, succeeded by mindful and insightful meditation in order to achieve to goal of spiritual liberation.
The third difference is that, Buddhism regards mental action as being more significant than bodily and verbal action. The moral code of conduct according to Buddhism is only the training method under the cause and effect law of nature. It is not like the divine commandments in theistic religions, where those who transgress will be punished according to the judgment of God. In stead, Buddhism merely regards merit or evil as the means of upgrading or degrading the quality of the mind. Both meritorious and evil acts, in the Buddhist sense are different from merit and sin in theistic religions.
THE BUDDHA'S Core Teachings
No comments:
Post a Comment