Yet he decried rigorous ascetism, and only prohibited his monks from using money, not laypeople. I don’t think that the Buddha would have any trouble conceptualising modern society human nature hasn’t changed too much, we’re still driven by greed (maybe more so than ever before in history, but it’s still plain old greed all the same), hatred and delusion. continuedĬlick here to read, “The Authentic Life” an interview with Lewis Richmond from our Summer 2010 issue. The fundamental moral position of buddhism is ahimsa - which means non harm or minimal harm - and that has powerful implications for today’s workplace world. When a person does not have a job and cannot support his or her family, that is harm - there is no question about it. But he clearly understood what is harm and what is not harm. Two thousand five hundred years ago the Buddha could not have conceived of today’s complex societies. It is not clear whether the Buddha thought of right livelihood in this way, but it behooves us to do so now. Society at large also has a responsibility to be conscious of the consequences of its economic and employment policies, even more today than in 1999 when when the economy was booming. Though Work as a Spiritual Practice, by intention, emphasized the choices and changes an individual could make in his/her workplace, I also feel that conscious livelihood should not be limited to individual awareness and action. In other words, regardless of our job (or lack of a job) we should be aware of the implications and consequences of what we do. In my 1999 book, Work as a Spiritual Practice, I introduced the idea of right livelihood as conscious livelihood. With many of the world’s people subsisting on a few dollars a day, and with 15 million unemployed here in the U.S., what does this nice-sounding concept of an ethical livelihood mean in real life? In the much more complicated societies of today, what might “right livelihood” really mean? This is a very important issue, and not only for Buddhists.
An excerpt from Lewis Richmond’s recent piece on the Huffington Post,
0 kommentar(er)
