Tonight, especially featured, is Right Livelihood. So as I mentioned last week, there's and a full path. Right? Now when you come to Right Livelihood, one way to think about it is that Right Livelihood starts with Right View. And Right View is able to see this is Right Livelihood and this is not Right Livelihood.

[01:01]

And as I mentioned also last week, there's two kinds of right view. And of course there's also wrong view, but there's two kinds of right view. One kind of right view is the right view from the... which is still in terms of seeing the world as split into yourself and other. And that point of... that kind of right view is... is meritorious and matures into good results. And the good results mature on the side of the person who is imagined to be doing or thinking or viewing in particular ways. And then all the other aspects of the Eightfold Path can be of these two types. Excuse me, the other type of Right View

[02:14]

is a right view of not any longer being caught up in a dualistic view of life. No longer believing that you're separate from other beings. And this right view, in a sense, isn't meritorious. It doesn't, you know, give you good results. Doesn't give you any results, actually. It just turns out to be that it is freedom. It's freedom from the world of gain and loss. It's freedom from the world of benefit and demerit. In other words, it's freedom from the world. The world is a place of gain and loss, of merit and demerit. So when we become free of dualistic view, we become free of the dualistic world. Both those kinds of right view can see, oh, this is right view, this is wrong view.

[03:18]

Both these kinds of right view can see, oh, this is right livelihood and this is wrong livelihood. And whichever type of right view you have, that needs to be operating in order to practice right livelihood. If Right Livelihood is practiced in relationship to the first kind of Right View, of course the Right Livelihood will also be still operating in the dualistic world. If Right Livelihood is practiced under the auspices of a non-dual Right View, then the Right Livelihood will also be non-dual. Dualistic Right Livelihood is, like dualistic Right View and dualistic Right Intention, And dualistic right speech and dualistic right action, dualistic right livelihood is meritorious. And the merit matures on the side of the person that you think is separate from other beings, the actor, the person who does the livelihood.

[04:26]

So if it's right livelihood, the actions of right livelihood will bring benefit to the person who does that good livelihood. And of course, right view would also be able to see that wrong livelihood would lead to unfortunate, unhappy results for the actor, and those bad results, those non-beneficial results would come back to the actor. But when you no longer believe that you're independent of other beings and you see your life as a practice of working together with everyone in the whole universe, then your livelihood is no longer dualistic. Your livelihood is no longer meritorious. Your livelihood is no longer wrong livelihood, but your livelihood then is actually the Buddha's livelihood, the livelihood of a Buddha.

[05:30]

It's enlightening livelihood. So that sets the stage of the kind of possibilities in terms of right livelihood, two types of right livelihood, just like two types of right view. And of course, there's also wrong livelihood. Does that make sense to you, what I said so far? So when I talk about, now, right livelihood or wrong livelihood, this could be, this vision of the right livelihood could be from either types of right view. You could, like yourself, not yourself exactly, but there could be the understanding of freedom from self and other being separated, and you could still see right and wrong livelihood, like a Buddha can see right and wrong livelihood.

[06:32]

but also while still kind of suffering under the delusion of independent existence, you still can see right livelihood just like a Buddha would see it, basically. So what I'm saying about right and wrong livelihood would apply from either of these points of view. So what's wrong livelihood? Wrong livelihood is First of all, in most of the scriptures, wrong livelihood is described as wrong livelihood for monks, Buddhist monks in India. So the way Buddhist monks earned their livelihood was they begged. So that was their work. That's how they got their support, by going to town and begging. And this is a relationship that was established prior to Buddhism that religious practitioners could ask for support from people and people would give them support if they thought their practice was worthy of it.

[07:43]

So some religious people didn't get much donations because people didn't think they were very religious or, you know, they thought they were just trying to get some free meals. So, for monks, in the scriptures, what they talk about as wrong livelihood is basically wrong ways of getting donations. And... There are six basic types of wrong ways, wrong livelihood or wrong ways for these monks to get their livelihood. Want to hear about them? Not too relevant to you, but want to hear about them? Either way? I won't spend too much time on it then.

[08:46]

Anyway, they're called scheming, talking, hinting, belittling, pursuing gain with gain, and the sixth one I can't remember. Scheming is like, one of the ways of scheming is like, you go to beg, right? And so one of the types of scheming is called rejection. So you go and you beg and people give you a donation and you say, just a minute, don't give it to me. I'm not worthy of it. This is much too good for me. You know, this meal is like, This is for someone of a higher development to me. Please don't give it to me." And then people think, oh, how humble. Let's give them more. And they say, no, no, no, no, don't give me more. Really, I don't deserve. And then they give you more. So that's like one of the ways to get more donations by rejecting the gift on the basis that you're just too humble, too unworthy to receive it.

[09:51]

That kind of endears you to people. Another kind of scheming is called deportment. Of course, Buddhist monks are supposed to practice deportment, right? Supposed to be aware of their posture, mindful of their posture. Right action, right? Part of right action is to be aware of your body. What posture is your body? What are your hands doing? What are your feet doing? So one of the ways to get donations is to, like, walk in a really, you know, beautiful way, like have really great posture. Like people look at you and say, wow, look at that posture. Ooh, give that guy some donations. Or another kind of deportment was called grimacing. And you might think, well, why would that be a way to get more donations? The thing is that when you're meditating, when you're really meditating hard, sometimes you look like this. Some people get really into it, you know. They're very serious and very concentrated.

[10:53]

So you walk around with your bowl to get donations. People go, oh, wow. Here, here, here. Get that guy out of here. Now, of course, it's okay to have upright posture and to grimace when you're concentrating. But the point is that some people did that Just at those times that they were begging. The rest of the time they were just eating and taking naps. But when they went to beg, they really looked great. They really looked awesome. And so they got a lot of donations. Their point was to impress the people to get stuff for themselves. This is not right livelihood. This is kind of like trickery. It's a kind of deception. Another kind of... There's a lot of examples. I'll just give you a couple of other ones. A couple of other ones would be like indirect talk, like you would say.

[11:55]

Somebody wouldn't give you a very good donation, you would say... Oh, no, this is more like belittling. Belittling is like the person gives you a donation, you say, Oh, the prince of donors... The queen of charity. Oh, how great. This is so great. You're really giving a lot. I'm going to tell the people down the street how much you gave me. They'll be very impressed. Just a minute. I think I have a little bit more for you. Just a moment here. Oh, this is more like it. I won't have to tell anybody about what you gave me now. Do you understand? In other words, threaten to... It's kind of blackmailed. um another one is like if you uh you're out you're out begging you know and and you see the children of some household and you go and act really nice to them when the when the parents are watching or another one is when when the donors are watching you go and give away some of your food so they can see

[13:08]

So basically there's endless varieties of ways that monks could try to present themselves or threaten the donors in order to get more donations. Although they didn't do any work themselves, they could either be, they could use their speech and their posture in certain ways as to provoke or invoke more donations. And the Buddha said that that is wrong livelihood. Of course monks wouldn't do any other livelihoods that were harmful because they're begging. So it's mostly that the way that they relate to their donors, they'll be wrong. You're supposed to come and beg and just ask for the food and don't do anything more than that and see what they give you. And a big thing for a Buddhist monk is Buddhist monks traditionally and still are supported by others.

[14:16]

People support them. Of course, everybody is supported by others, but the Buddhist monk really emphasizes that. So even when you get a donation, even if you didn't do something as gross as this in the process of trying to get the donation, or even if you weren't directly asking for it, still sometimes people give you donations because they think you're really a good person. So then the Buddhist monk is always thinking about, am I worthy of this offering? And at Zen Center, when we have a meal, at the beginning of our, as part of our meal chant, for our formal meals, we say, innumerable labors brought us this food. We should consider how it comes to us. Receiving this offering, we should consider whether our virtue and practice deserve it, whether we're worthy of this gift coming to us. And so when we eat, we actually think, am I actually worthy of this meal?

[15:25]

Does my practice deserve this support? Think about that. And there are stories of really... horrendous things that have happened to monks who received donations from sincere donors who really weren't worthy of it. It's pretty scary. So that's for monks to think about whether your practice is really such that, you know, you should be practicing and other people should be working in the fields or in the shopping malls and giving you donations so you can continue in your practice. Just think about that. And that's putting aside any kind of trick you would do to try to get the food. For laypersons, for people who aren't professional meditators, then there's in some sense traditionally five areas that were discouraged, which were considered as wrong livelihood for laypeople, that is dealing in arms,

[16:36]

Military arms, dealing in meat, dealing in intoxicants, dealing in beings, and dealing in poisons. So selling arms, making arms, carrying arms, bearing arms as a profession. Now that would be different from bearing arms to protect people. or making arms to protect people. But to make arms actually as a way to make your living rather than as a way to protect beings, that would be wrong livelihood. To make a profit from people killing each other or hurting each other or to make, yeah, that's basically it. Or you yourself doing it. Dealing in beings means selling people selling slaves, buying and selling slaves, or any other kind of services where you're actually like dealing in people.

[17:46]

You're like making money off other people in some way. And you might say, what about an employment agency? Well, in that case, I don't think you're dealing in people. I think in that case, you're helping other people get their livelihood, and you're making a living not in dealing in people in that case, but helping other people do their work. So that wouldn't be like dealing in people, dealing in beings. And I think it would also apply to dealing in other animals that were being enslaved. And that intoxicants, of course, is like selling alcohol and drugs, making a living, making profit off of selling alcohol and drugs. which probably now you see would include cigarettes, right? And coffee. Could be coffee, yeah.

[18:48]

And also making a living off either slaughtering animals, being a butcher, and or, and, you know, selling the meat that somebody else might have cut. Of course, the butcher is What do you call it? Much harder on your heart. To be a butcher is much harder on your heart than to sell the meat once it's already cut. This wouldn't apply necessarily. Yeah, I think it would maybe apply. If you found some meat that hadn't been, you know, like if you found an animal that had died, I think that maybe it's okay for you to eat that animal or to give that meat to someone. But to make a living off of other animals' meat, that's questionable there. And then, of course, selling poisons is also not right livelihood.

[19:53]

Basically, anything to make a living off harming beings, that's basically the thing you're not supposed to be doing in right livelihood. And again, even donations to you, it doesn't harm beings to make donations to you, but it harms you to connive and deceive. Count you, you know, if you hurt yourself in the process of your livelihood, that's also not good livelihood. And butchers, you know, really do get oftentimes really battered in the process, like get their eyes kicked out by pigs and stuff like that. So harm to yourself and harm to others would be included in the wrong livelihood. And harm to yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, or harm to your development of compassion and wisdom, that would be harm too. So those would be wrong livelihood. So livelihood should be arrived at, where's my little card, should be arrived at legally,

[21:05]

peacefully without coercion or violence, honestly, no trickery or deceit, and harmlessly. And I have one tough example, which I'll just put out there and we can talk about it later, and that is income tax. Laura? Oh, I have a question about livelihood that promotes... wrong view. So it's not necessarily... That's harming. The livelihood that promotes wrong view is harming. If you work in the propaganda business, for example, if you'd spread... If you'd spread... Like going back to wrong speech, right? If you lie about people or slander people, that's wrong speech. And you get paid for slandering people. is wrong speech and wrong livelihood.

[22:07]

Not only are you lying, maybe, maybe not even lying, you might be just saying something, slandering somebody doesn't necessarily mean it's untrue. You could say something about somebody that was untrue, that was true, and still slander them, like somebody could have some disease or something. And you could tell people... about this disease and that could ruin that person's reputation and maybe they get fired or people wouldn't like him anymore. Even though you told the truth, you would lower people's opinion of them. And to get paid to lower somebody's opinion, like somebody say, if you would tell that person about so-and-so's disease, I'll pay you $10,000 because then they'll get fired and I can have their job or something like that. So that would be a case of wrong livelihood and also wrong speech. And also, of course, wrong view. Because you wouldn't be acting like that if you had right view because right view would be, oh, this is unwholesome and I'm going to get in trouble for this.

[23:15]

This is going to be bad for me and bad for them, bad for everybody. So based on wrong view, saying something that you paid for that develops wrong view and develops harm, it's wrong livelihood. And also in the process of right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness are also involved. So in right livelihood, there's right view, right effort, right mindfulness. In right action, there's right view, right effort, right mindfulness. In right speech, there's right view, right effort, and right mindfulness. So all those, whenever you have these right view, I mean right speech, right action, right livelihood, those three are always there. Right view, right effort, and right mindfulness are there too.

[24:17]

Because right view is how you can tell which, you know, what's right livelihood and what's wrong livelihood. What's right speech and what's wrong speech. What's right livelihood and what's wrong livelihood. That's right view. It can be either type of right view. Right effort means that once you see which is which, if it's wrong view or wrong livelihood, then right effort would be you would abandon the wrong livelihood. And if it's wrong livelihood, you would mindfully execute the abandonment of the wrong livelihood. With right livelihood, you would make the right effort to develop the right livelihood, and you would do that mindfully. That would be right mindfulness. And those right mindfulnesses and right livelihoods could be of the dualistic type or the non-dual type, either one. They would still apply. You'd still need to use all three of those factors for

[25:22]

Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood. Is that clear? That you'd use those three over and over? That they would be operating on the first one and the fifth and sixth of the eight would apply to the previous five. So there's quite a bit more I could bring up, but maybe I'll stop for now for a little while and see if you have some more comments or questions about right livelihood. Yes. Maybe you were getting ready to get into this, but what about when you mentioned income tax, what about manipulating the system maybe for what you think are right ends?

[26:37]

Yeah, right. So I had a discussion with some people about income tax and It was a difficult discussion, and afterwards one of the people who had been in AA for quite a while, and he said, you know, one of the main principles of AA is to tell the truth, really like, what do you call it, ruthlessly tell the truth, don't lie, as part of the process of recovery. He said, but the one area where people in AA really have a hard time the one place that they all kind of want to make an exception is on income tax. One of the main examples of that that's brought up is like some people that have jobs where they get paid and they get a tax statement, and they have other jobs that they do where they don't get, they don't, just money comes to them, but there's no income tax statement, so nobody knows, there's no record of them getting paid.

[27:39]

And, of course, people give gifts, right? You know, like if your uncle gives you $100, is that income? And I guess it is at a certain point that it's income, I guess. If you ask the IRS, do they say that every penny you get, is that supposed to be income? You're supposed to keep track of every penny you get, basically? Is that right? Of course, we don't dare ask them, right? But anyway... Huh? Yeah. But this person was saying that she had been reporting this job, but this other job where she gets mostly cash and nobody knows, she hasn't been reporting that. So she's wondering about that. And in some ways I say, well, you know, maybe it's too confusing to call that wrong livelihood. Like, because you didn't do something wrong to get the money. It's maybe more that it's like you've got the money and the government says, you live in this country, give us some of your money.

[28:42]

Tell us how much you made and we'll tell you how much you should give us. So if it's too confusing to look at income tax in terms of right livelihoods, you could look at it in terms of, well, I got the money in a way that I think was not harmful to people. But now the question is, is it telling the truth? In other words, go back to right speech. Is it right speech to say, I made this much money this year? When actually, in a sense, you made quite a bit more. Is that right speech? So it's kind of right livelihood in terms of telling the truth about your livelihood. So it's like right livelihood overlapping with right speech. Or you could say right action if you write it on a piece of paper. You might think, well, I think the money, if I give the money to the government, they're going to use it to harm people. So yeah, they might. They might. Like they might give the money to a policeman who'll give you a ticket that you don't deserve.

[29:49]

But they might give it to somebody else that uses it well. But the thing is, you pay maybe part of your income tax. You can say, well, the part I paid, the part I reported was for the good stuff they do and the stuff that I keep and don't tell them about is for the bad stuff they do. It's kind of a problem. Isn't it? Kind of a problem. Why? Why is it a problem? Pardon? Why is it a problem? Well... It could be a problem if you have this thing, you say, I made this much money. and that's how much I made, and then you sign it, and it says, to the best of my knowledge, this is how much money I made, and you sign it. So why not just say that? I mean... Why not say what? This is how much money I made. I actually made this amount of money, and sign it.

[30:55]

I mean, why... What is the... What is the rational... Why are we rationalizing whether to tell the truth or whether it's bad speech or... No, no, I'm saying, if you report how much money you make, including all the money you make... What's wrong with that? No, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But if you don't report at all, that might be a problem. I know, but it is a problem. I mean, it is a problem. There's no doubt that there's a problem if you don't. Yeah, that's all I said was that was a problem. So you agree, right? Absolutely. So what's your problem? Why are we talking about it? It's obviously a problem why I mention it. Yeah. It seems like I'm trying to justify it. But if I do try to justify it, there's a problem in me trying to justify it, right? Yes. So why try to justify it?

[31:59]

Yeah. Yeah. I know the answer to it. Do you know the answer to it? Why you would try to justify it? It seems there's another... He'd want to justify it because you don't want to give him the money. Okay, why don't you want to give him the money? Because you want to keep it for yourself. Why do you want to keep it for yourself? Because you'd rather have it than give it to them. Why? Because you think you're better than them. Okay. It's not right, but that's what you think, right? You think you're better than the government, maybe. You think I can use the money better than the government can. You might think that. Or something like that. I don't know. There could be other stories you tell yourself, but... I'm also wondering why it would be okay to make arms to protect somebody.

[33:06]

What's the difference between that and selling arms or having anything to do with it? I think the motivation is, are you wanting to harm, are you sort of willing to harm people in order to support yourself? Well, if you're... I mean, so you're seeing others. I mean, you're sort of trying to justify... yourself and others by making arms to protect others. I mean, that's still a duality. Well, let's say it is a duality. Okay, let's not, let's not, let's take the first cases as duality. That I think that you and I are separate and you and that person over there who wants to hurt you are separate. Let's say I think that. And maybe I make some arms to for you to be protected from that person. And I do it, but I don't do it for me to make a living off of it. I just do it to protect you. I'm not trying to make any money from it. Okay, well, that's sort of saying it's okay for that reason, but it seems there must be another reason why you would not

[34:16]

want to make arms to protect somebody? Because you would be harming by making arms to protect somebody. Well, first, you don't want to harm people at all. Let's say you don't want to harm people, period, right? Right. So you're trying to protect this person, and also you're trying to protect the person who wants to hurt them. You actually want to protect the aggressor and also the person who might be hurt. And you create arms to protect both sides of the thing, you feel. Let's say that. But you're not doing that. You would be killing one person. But your intention is not the harm. Your intention is to protect. But your intention isn't really that. I mean, your intention would actually be to kill somebody. No, no, your intention would be to kill someone, but with the real intention of benefiting the person being killed. That would be your intention. Well, that is so much a rationalization that... But it's not necessarily a rationalization because you're only doing it... For example, you're not killing the other person.

[35:25]

You don't dislike the person who's going to be killed. You do not dislike them. You love them. You only want to kill them because they're going to kill somebody else. And you want to protect them from the karma of killing this other person. And you also... You are saying that if you kill someone to protect them from killing someone else, that it is somehow justifiable. It's not justifiable. It is still killing. However, for the sake of the other people... Yes? Yes? You are making a decision of who is an other person and what that other person did to deserve your action. It's not so much what they did, but what they're about to do. If someone has already killed someone... Or about to do. This is about to do. I didn't know. You wouldn't really know. You wouldn't really know. This is a case where you would kind of like... you'd have to be pretty evolved to do this.

[36:32]

I'm having trouble believing. I'm having trouble thinking and practicing a practice where I am not harming someone and killing them. And that is problematic. Right. I understand that. So, in the case... Even if my intention, even if I tell myself with all my heart, It's not just your intention. It's your intention plus being accurate. That this person is about to do something which will be very harmful to them. You'd have to understand that. In that way, I would have to understand that. First of all, you'd have to care about this person that you're about to kill basically more than yourself. Because you are about to jeopardize your life and welfare in order to protect this person by stopping this person from committing murder. I would just think there's another way of doing it. If there was another way of doing it, you certainly would do that other way.

[37:34]

But somehow that seems to be the basis of the teaching, that there is another way, that there just is another way. And that is the problem before us, to find another way, to always have that other way in our mind. Um... Maybe there always is another way, but you might not be able to think of that one at the time. But that is the hope. Right, but in the meantime, while that is the hope, you might have a situation where someone needs you to do this for them. Once you make that decision that someone needs that, you are giving up that hope. No, not necessarily. This is not the end of the story for this person that you're helping. If it was the end of the story for this person you're helping... then you just let them kill because there's not going to be any reason. They're going to kill this person. Somebody else is going to kill them after they kill the person. I don't know that. It's sort of fiction. It is fiction here. It is fiction, but this story does happen quite a bit that somebody wants to kill somebody and they get stopped.

[38:37]

And also sometimes people kill the person and they get shot afterwards. They get killed afterwards. That story does happen quite a bit. The whole, it seems that the whole necessity of nonviolent action is to always somehow Go for that. The minute you would say, well, in this case, you know, I have to kill you, sorry, but I really do want to practice nonviolent action. I think that nonviolence could also be interpreted as doing what is coming from the heart of nonviolence. So sometimes nonviolent people put their bodies, their own body, in the way of something that endangers their own body. And that's considered by some people as nonviolent. To let violence be done to your body, to put your face in front of a baton as a way to show someone that you don't like the violence which they're representing. And then violence happens to you because you're in the way of it. And if you're doing that to be mean to the people that are hitting you, if you're doing that with the intention of getting them to be cruel to you, if that's your intention, then I'd say that's violent.

[39:47]

I would, too. But if you walk in front of someone who is doing some violence and your intention is to help the person by presenting your love to them in the form in which they might hurt you, that's the spirit I'm talking about. And if that person, in the process of hurting you, was also going to hurt somebody else. And you felt by, let's say, you were accurate, that you had the ability to tell that they were about to kill this other person. And you tried to stop them. And your intention was not to hurt them at all. You very much wanted to help them. You want to stop them from doing this thing for their own sake, first of all, because they're going to get in much more trouble than the person they kill. Being killed doesn't cause you any trouble, spiritually. It's not a spiritual setback to be killed. For whom? If you kill me, it's no skin off my spiritual nose. It doesn't hurt me spiritually for you to harm me.

[40:53]

No, I don't think it would hurt me spiritually. It hurts you spiritually to harm me, right. It doesn't hurt me for you to hurt me spiritually. So if somebody, if a Buddha's walking over, if not a Buddha, let's have a really Buddha-like bodhisattvas walking over here. She sees you about to harm me. She wants to protect you from your spiritual downfall, and she stops you from harming me. She only wants to help you. That's all she cares about is to protect you from doing harm to me. That's her intention. She loves you. And she's willing to get in big trouble doing something to you, which people might say she's being cruel to you or whatever. They might put her in jail or something by what she does to you to stop you from that. But it seems like the same scenario could be what's going on. I mean, I may be saving you from harming. No, no, no, no. I mean... Oh, yeah. If you're being cruel to me... That could be way... But you're not really being cruel. You're attacking me to stop me from doing some harm to someone else.

[42:00]

That's different. Then I'm the one who's in danger spiritually and you're protecting me. But, you know... That is possible, but it doesn't very often happen if somebody makes that mistake. But it could happen. That you're trying to protect me spiritually and someone else thinks you're trying to harm me. That could happen. And that they would interfere in that. That could happen. And if so, I'm benefited, you're benefited, and they're benefited. Everybody's fine. You're helping me. You're helping yourself. Really, I'm not I'm not I'm actually not I thought I was using your example though That you were trying to I was just saying that you're trying to help me the point is are you trying to but? The point is saying the perception could be a point is even though the perception could be off Yes, and then but but to be for example to to say something That is wrong

[43:02]

But you're trying to tell the truth is not as good as to say something that you're trying to tell the truth and be right. But the most important thing is that you're trying to tell the truth. You may be wrong, but you learn by your error. The point is you are trying to be helpful. If you're trying to help me, that's what really counts for you. And if you keep trying to help me, you'll get better at it. And if you keep telling me, if you're trying to help me and I keep saying, you know, you're trying to help me, you're trying to protect me from all these things I'm thinking of doing which are going to undermine my spiritual development, but I disagree with you and I tell you and you talk with me and you understand, then the way you try to help me will evolve. But the most important thing is that you're trying to help me. So is your livelihood actually intended? Are you trying to help people? And if you don't tell the truth on your income tax, are you really doing it to help people, or are you just doing it to help yourself?

[44:08]

If so, then, well, it doesn't really make much sense then, does it? you're saying that it's all right to lie down a little bit to help people i'm saying it's okay to lie just just plain old lie to help people yeah not okay it's not exactly okay it's just that spiritually speaking it is good to tell the truth it's good for you to tell the truth because By speaking the truth, by saying the truth, you develop a sense for the truth. If you tell the truth to people, if you speak the truth, it helps you see the truth in your own mind. So telling the truth is very good for us. It's kind of a warm-up to seeing the truth. It's an interpersonal way of realizing the truth which sets you free.

[45:10]

So telling the truth is very helpful. But more important than telling the truth is loving people. Because loving people is really the truth we're trying to realize. So if you see a falsehood, if you see a lie, and you understand there's a lie, then you're not too bad in this case. You can't keep telling lies all the time. It gets too confusing. But in this particular case, here's a lie. This lie will help this person. I might get in some trouble for telling this lie, but since it's so... You know, if I'm going to get in this much trouble, five pounds of trouble, and this person's going to get ten pounds of benefit, then I think maybe I should lie for this person to get that benefit. If this person's going to get five pounds of benefit and I'm going to get five pounds of trouble, well, then I'll still do it because I love them. How about that? Lie. Lie. then I shouldn't do it.

[46:13]

But there are a lot of lies, a lot of untruths that do help people and hurt me. Well, let's say somebody was looking for, you know, going to give somebody a chance to receive something really good, something that really would help them. Okay? Like, I don't know, a year retreat in the mountains? You know, had number 13, you know? And you had number 7, and I had number 13. And then they say, who has number 13? And I say, well, Pat does, and they give it to you. That's a lie, which is to my spiritual advantage, and maybe helps you. That's one that just came to mind. Another one would be you're about to do something very dangerous and you're a little worried about it and you ask me, you know, if I think you can do it and I have some doubts that you can do it and you say, do you have any doubts that I could do this?

[47:32]

And I say, no, because you're already shaky and if I say yes, I feel like you'll fall off. you know, your roller coaster or your bicycle or whatever. So I say, I lie. I say, I have no doubt you can do this. And my confidence, my treating you, my forgetting about, you know, my thoughts that you're like a person who's got some problems, my treating you like you're a confident Buddha, that helps you do this thing which you need to do. And if I convey my shakiness about you, it might undermine you. And you might force me in a position where I can't think of any way Any clever way to sort of avoid point blank saying a lie. You know? I might try to sort of like say it indirectly like, you know, like I sometimes say when your child's going out on a date and they ask you how do they look, you know, and you think, geez, you look atrocious, you know. But, you know, if you tell them that they just might, you know, drive off the road or something.

[48:33]

So you just say, You're just totally beautiful. Which is true, but it kind of evades the thing about how they look. Because they've just like totally mutilated themselves. But you don't mention that because that wouldn't be helpful. It wouldn't be. It's kind of true in a sense. But your intention is to benefit them above all. And to tell the truth. actually usually does help, usually does establish benefit. Telling the truth usually develops trust and confidence and clarification of the situation. But sometimes when you're very clear that it's a lie, it's good to tell a lie because beings are greatly benefited by some lies. And of course there's many other examples where someone's going to harm somebody and they want you to tell them where the person is, but you mislead them and you lie. to another human being. And you know you lie, so you're not totally deluding yourself, but you're lying.

[49:37]

And you might get in trouble for it, too, if they find out. But you're trying to protect this other person, so you lie. And they benefit. And also you protect this person who's going to hurt them from the harm because they can't find the person to do the harm. So you protect the aggressor and the victim, and you can maybe get in trouble. You endanger yourself. So that's some examples. Is that okay? Okay. Just a second. Marcia? In the private sector where your business, the success of your business and your livelihood is directly dependent on the failure of others, in other words, the competition. You might be making furniture in order for you to survive the business. You need to outdo the competition. You need to engage in advertising, which might cause others to go out of business and also might give people who fear advertising the idea that they actually need something.

[50:42]

Those are good ones. So again, those are two different ones, or maybe three different issues there. One is, if you're making something, do you have to put your competitors out of business to survive? I don't, not necessarily, not necessarily. The question is, do you want to put your competitors out of business? If you want to put your competitors out of business and that's the way you're doing your job, then I would say it's wrong livelihood because your intention is to harm. Your intention is, if it harms others for me to make a good living, well, so be it. That's not right livelihood according to this scenario. If you're making furniture and a person across the street is making furniture, you might think, well, if I make really good furniture and he doesn't make as good furniture, then people are going to buy furniture from me and then they won't buy his furniture. So he might go out of business. But my intention in making good furniture is not so that he'll go out of business. I don't want him to go out of business. I'd be happy if he could make a good living making that kind of furniture, and I could make a good living making this kind of furniture.

[51:49]

I would be happy with that. But if, in fact, me making good furniture means that he's going to go out of business, I might stop making furniture, or I might make not so good furniture. Or another possibility is I might say, look, I notice I'm making this furniture now. I notice my sales are going up, and I have a feeling yours are going down. You know, let's go into business together. Why don't you come over here, you know, and you want to come over here and learn how I'm doing it and then either join my business or learn how I do it so they'll buy stuff from you too. The point is you don't have to do things worse necessarily in order for your competitors to survive. You can do things well and they can survive too maybe. But if you're trying to put them out of business, what some people do is actually they make things worse to put people out of business too sometimes, right? They make smaller and chintzier products so they can reduce the price to put people who are doing a better job out of business.

[52:54]

That's their intention. They want to eliminate their competition. That is totally wrong livelihood. That's wrong intention, wrong view. and wrong livelihood and wrong action. That's what you're trying to do. You're trying to hurt your competitor. But if you're trying to make a product with the intention of benefiting beings by the product you're making, if you want to make furniture because you want to make people happy with your furniture, you want to make something for them that will encourage them to take care of themselves, to encourage them in wisdom and compassion, if that's what you're making, if that's your intention, that's right livelihood. And if you do not want to hurt anybody by what you're doing and do not want to put anybody out of business, then that's part of right livelihood too. And if you notice that you are causing problems for other people, then you would try to ameliorate the harm you're doing by making some kind of arrangement or some kind of deal or, you know, giving them a job at your place or whatever.

[53:56]

Or even... giving them your business. Say, here, you have my business. And they might say, well, I don't know how to run it. I don't know how to make these kind of cabinets or this kind of furniture. Say, well, come over and learn first. What was your other question? About advertising. Yeah, advertising. I think advertising is okay. But if your advertising is with the intention of putting your competitor out of business... not to mention saying, my competitor makes lousy stuff, and my competitor's a jerk, and I wish my competitor would commit suicide. Anything that would harm beings, or anything that would mislead beings, like we were talking about before, any kind of propaganda, or you say, create a need that's not there. Okay? And what about that, create a need? How would you create a need that's not there? Like, for what? Huh? Huh? What? What? Greed, making people want things that... Making people, trying to incite greed in people, then I think that's wrong livelihood.

[55:05]

And so advertising as trying to incite greed in people is harming people. That's wrong livelihood. And if you work for... In this field of corporation or business where what you do in your daily life is not directly profitable, maybe you're just putting the pieces together, putting the food into the furniture or it might be from other product, but you know that the strategy or you know that the corporation is basically out there to make a profit and to drive the competition of the business and to create needs. What do you do with that? Well, first of all, the most important thing is, always the most important thing, from the beginning of this class, always the most important thing is, what is your intention? Are you working for this company to benefit people?

[56:07]

Or are you working for this company to make money for yourself and hopefully not cause too much trouble? You can end up to say, well, I would like to make a living for myself and hopefully the business doesn't cause too much trouble, but I think this business I'm working for is causing some trouble. So then you might think, okay, maybe is there some other business I could work for that's causing less trouble? You say, well, let's say there is. That company seems to be causing less trouble. So maybe we should go work for them. What if they don't hire you? Well, then you've got a problem. What if they do hire you? What if they pay you less? Getting paid less made me get paid less. And you say, I think it's okay. I'll get paid less and the company seems to be doing less damage, so I'll do that. But still, we live in a society and we're connected to everything. You can't get away from it. So always keep thinking, what is your orientation? What is your orientation? Are you trying to benefit?

[57:08]

Are you trying to benefit? Is that really what you're thinking about all the time? If not, then work on that. If so, then how does that apply to the situation? What is the most beneficial situation for everybody? For your company, for the other company, for the consumer, for the other people in your company? All that stuff. That's your orientation. Sometimes you can't figure it out, but you keep trying and keep trying and keep trying. Now, this kind of calculation... which is part of the mundane right livelihood. It's still you and other, you and other, them and other. You're still trying to figure this out with your discursive thinking, your dualistic consciousness. You're doing your best in this regard, and that still is good livelihood, still right livelihood, and it is beneficial, it is meritorious, but it is not liberating yet because you still have this dualism. So what you need, what we need in the midst of all this, we're doing all this kind of mundane calculations of right livelihood, trying to keep track, is this dualistic thinking directed in a loving, meritorious, kindly way towards all beings?

[58:25]

Is that the direction of my dualistic thinking? I want to help beings, but I still think they're other than me. Is that my orientation? Let's say yes. I still think they're other, but I do want to help them all. I even want to help the people who are running that company who's just doing damage. I want to help them too. I don't want to help them do the damage. I want to help them stop doing the damage if I can. So that's my dualistic, dualistic, dualistic, dualistic good, dualistic good, relative [...] good for the most possible people. Okay? Always thinking that way. But this never really is enough. In the midst of that, all that activity, there has to be this other kind of presence, this other kind of meditation, which is to sit in the middle, and that's not trying to figure anything out. It's just sitting in the middle of all this and is concentrating on the fact that what you think is external is actually just a creation of your mind, this externality.

[59:33]

And until we cut through this sense of externality, we do our best to keep track of whether our motivation is good and whether our action is in accordance with our good motivation. But until we cut through this duality, we're always trying to figure it out. And we do our best, but you never really can be sure. And it's very tiling. But if we can find this way of being in the middle of all this complexity, and all this judgment, which itself doesn't get involved in that, which doesn't mess with it at all. From that place, right livelihood comes. Without this calculation, it spontaneously arises from not being fooled anymore by duality. Without eliminating the duality, the duality is all around, but you no longer grab it or reject it. Because this whole thing is created by your own mind, you understand that.

[60:45]

But if you don't take care of all the details and complexities of the dualities, of the right and wrongs, and keep track of your motivation and your intention, if you don't keep track of that and keep trying to act in accord with your positive intention, and keep track of what happens when you act in accord with your negative intentions, if you don't keep track of all that, then you can't realize the one who doesn't mess with it. You have to be clear about all this activity that's going on in order to not fool around with it. Because if you're not paying attention to it, you do slip into it. And you do become captivated by it. But if you pay close attention to it, you have a chance to see the difference between paying close attention and doing your best and not doing anything at all. So you both have to be very careful about your karma of body, speech, mind, and livelihood. You have to be very careful of that and very observant about it and do your best and keep track of what is your motivation, what is your intention, what's the inclination of your mind.

[61:52]

You have to keep track of that. But then in the middle of all that, you have to just sit still and not do anything at all. You have to just be the way you are without moving anything around. And that way of being in the middle of this, when that becomes settled enough, then right speech, right action, right livelihood come without thought, spontaneously, without you figuring it out, without you proving it. But it gets proved. It gets proved. It is verified. the results will verify it. It's not karmic anymore, but the results are verified because the results are freedom, freedom, freedom. That's the non-dual, super mundane right livelihood. That's the right livelihood, which is not just good, but is liberation and is liberating, which sets beings free from right livelihood so they can come back into right livelihood

[63:01]

which sets being free from the duality of right and wrong livelihood, so they can do a right livelihood, which is Buddha's right livelihood. So we have to be very busy with our livelihood, very busy with keeping track of what we're up to, at the same time, not be busy at all. Be completely still in the middle of this extremely dynamic, intense, demanding situation of our livelihood. How are you feeling? You look like you just got knocked on the head or something. I feel like there's something missing in this life. Yes, what? Something missing? It's like it's pertinent, but it isn't at the same time, or it's not.

[64:09]

And the thing I relate to most is being present to myself in the middle of activity. Yes. And it seems that if I get angry, for instance, in a situation, it is basically a measure of my not being mindful enough. uh you're saying that when you get angry it's a measure of you're not being mindful enough sometimes being angry a lot of the time being angry is a measure of not being mindfulness mindful enough or not being patient enough yes it often is but not always sometimes anger is appropriate and sometimes a buddha could be angry Yes. But it helps people, that anger. It's beneficial. But a lot of the anger that we're involved in is just because we're impatient with some discomfort. And it doesn't help. For instance, I notice a lot of negativity. Yes.

[65:09]

Around where I work. Yes. And... If I don't maintain a certain amount of mindfulness about that... About the negativity. I can be pulled into it easily. Yes, that's right. So that to me seems to be more closer to what's possible for me in terms of spiritual growth than to try to figure out if I should put every penny down for the government. Well, start with what you're saying. It becomes very slippery. And it seems to be kind of a waste of energy. I could live a pure life and say, OK, I'm not going to fudge at all. But it's to my advantage, in a certain way, to fudge as much as I can, as much as everybody else, to get the most out of my income. Yeah.

[66:10]

It's like a white lie and a black lie, so to speak. Of course. I think it's perfectly all right to take advantage of this system. And if you're not doing it, you may be not advancing yourself in a certain way. And I'm not saying that... Some people don't fudge at all. And for some people, it's really easy not to fudge. Some people, all their income... is reported. All the income comes on the tax thing. And it's very easy for them to... It's very easy for them not to fudge at all. Some people, that's very easy. Some people just don't even know about fudging, so it's very easy for them not to. There are tax lawyers paid... Yeah, but it means some... Anyway, some people have a really easy time. But if you're put in a situation where... it's not so clear.

[67:13]

For example, you're given a big gift and you don't even, let's say you don't know you're supposed to report it, but you think, oh, maybe I should go find out. Even though I'm not sure, so you go find out. But some people have a hard time with that. And some people don't. And some people don't. Some people have easy time, some people have a hard time. But I think I agree with you that maybe the example you say that's really easy for you to work on in terms of your challenge of working on being mindful of the negativity in your work environment, yeah, go to work there. That's great. At least it's possible and it's immediate. I mean... If it's immediate, do it, do it. No problem. Go ahead. By the very nature of the business I work in, there's a certain amount of pollution involved. Yes, and if you're mindful of the pollution, that's good. So I know it exists, but I'm not going out of my way or change my livelihood because there is some pollution going on. It's just basically inevitable.

[68:17]

Well, when something's happening, it is inevitable, okay? And whatever's happening, if we can pay attention to it and find a balanced... presence in the midst of that whatever's happening, we can understand. And whether it's inevitable or not, anyway, if it's happening, it's happening. So we don't really have to say it's inevitable. In fact, it's happening. So that's what we need to work on. And if we work on it properly, we will realize understanding. If we realize understanding, that's the purpose of our way of Buddhist Eightfold Path, is understanding. The purpose of it is understanding which sets you free. So if you have a place to study, study. And if you don't, try to find one.

[69:21]

Was there some other hands? Yes? Is there a way... something here saying about accepting or just you're talking about having understand and say, here finds that there is some thing he finds that his company doing things that don't follow within a full path in terms of right action or right livelihood, and so you get this example. Well, you discover this about your company, and so you have to... you understand it now, you're awakened to it by the fact that you've looked. You have a right view in that sense. So, you have this thing now, you have an understanding, you have what you've described as... a place of sitting quietly with it and being with it. And then it seems like the other part is that you make a decision about how to act upon this understanding.

[70:32]

And is there a way, would someone who's come to understand and understand An unbiased way of being that you are involved in that way remaining in that situation work You didn't necessarily have to quit your job just because you came aware of the fact that I don't know Well, and I can make us take one step backward first step is here in a work situation How is what you personally? Are doing is that right livelihood? Start with yourself and try to ascertain whether what you're doing is right livelihood or not. From the point of view of ascertaining whether what you're doing is right livelihood, you go from there. If you find out what you're doing is not right livelihood, if you find out that what you're doing is wrong livelihood, then the thing to do is abandon your own wrong livelihood. That's the first thing to do. If you abandon your wrong livelihood and adopt a right livelihood, then

[71:36]

keep practicing the right livelihood. If you already are practicing right livelihood, keep practicing right livelihood. Practicing right livelihood will start to clarify your mind and soften your heart. And as your vision gets better and your heart gets more open, then you understand better how to help others. Then you ask them, are they doing right livelihood? See if they think they are. If they think they are, they think they are. If that's their intention, if that's really what they're trying to do is good, and you see that that's really what they're trying to do, well, then you'll see that. And that's quite a different situation as you find out that they also don't feel like they're doing the right livelihood. If they feel they're doing the wrong livelihood, the question is, do they want help in finding a way to abandon their wrong livelihood? If they do want help, you can help them. If you're doing it yourself, you're in a good position to help them do it. And that way, you can gradually work through your own right livelihood, to help others find theirs. That may be better than changing jobs.

[72:39]

But if you yourself are doing wrong livelihood, you kind of have to change your job or change the way you're doing it if you're going to practice right livelihood. So we start with ourself. And from that place, gradually, we can help others learn the same thing. And potentially, through that kind of effort, spreading a business, a big company, could be transformed gradually. But you can transform your own right livelihood, of course, most quickly. And sometimes if you transform your own right livelihood, you will be fired. It does sometimes happen that people stop telling lies and get fired. So that might happen to you, and that's the price you pay. But you might be able to keep, sometimes they keep their jobs, sometimes happens.

[73:42]

And then from that position of doing that hard, maybe rather hard transition from wrong livelihood to right livelihood, then you're in a position then from there, if you can keep that up, of helping others if they're having trouble with their livelihood. And if you're doing a good job and you're enjoying it, some people may seek your assistance or be encouraged by what you're doing and give it a try themselves. Deborah? What? Yes. Well, again, is your intention in having that job Is your intention to benefit beings? Is that your intention to have that job? Or do you feel like serving these things is harming beings? If you feel like what you're doing is harming beings, then how can you abandon the behavior that harms beings?

[74:53]

That's before you to figure out how to do that, to do your best to change what you're doing if you feel like it's harming beings. And if you feel like what I'm doing now is harming, but doing this wouldn't be harming, or this would be more helpful, and this is more in line with my intention to benefit beings, then it's pretty clear for you. It doesn't mean it's true for somebody else, though. Because somebody else might think, I think it helps beings to serve meat. I think it's good for them to eat meat. I think meat is good for them. That's their intention. then they're trying their best to help. But if you think something is less good, even though somebody else agrees they think it is good, if you don't think so, you're giving less than your best. Sometimes you might give a donation and somebody else thinks, gee, that was very generous, but you feel like it was chintzy. If you feel like it's chintzy, you're right. If in your heart you were holding back, then in your heart you were holding back. And just because somebody else thinks, geez, you are more than generous, it doesn't count because you didn't think so.

[75:55]

Because you were thinking, I don't really like this person enough to give them that much. I mean, this would be a real donation. This is how much I'd give somebody I liked. But I don't care about this person, so I'm just going to give enough so that it looks good. And in fact, my friends think I'm really generous. But actually, that's not how much I'd give if I really cared. And I don't care about these people, and I just don't want to get in trouble. As a matter of fact, if I didn't get in trouble and nobody knew, I'd give nothing. Well, that's not generosity, and you know that. So some waitresses could serve, I think some waitresses could serve meat and alcohol, and they really mean it, they really think that it's beneficial. And they do it because they think it's beneficial. However, if that waitress found out that this was not beneficial, then she would stop doing that because she was doing it because she thought it was beneficial. And somebody kind of told her, do you know if you feed that person alcohol, you know that person's an alcoholic. And they get in the car, they're going to, you know, blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah, and say, oh, I didn't know that.

[76:56]

Then she would stop. But the point is, if she was trying to help the people, she would be very amenable to information about that it wasn't helpful. If she wasn't trying to be helpful and then someone came in and said, you know, if you feed those people stuff like that, it's not going to be good for them. She said, I don't care. I wasn't trying to be helpful. What are you telling me for? I'm just doing this for a living. And these pigs who come in here, I'm happy for them to eat that crap. They're a bunch of jerks anyway. I mean, I love to feed them. I'm not trying to help these people. These people are cruel, you know. I'm glad they're eating this terrible stuff. Well, that's wrong livelihood. Even if the people are mean and so on and so forth, they're still being cruel to them. Some people like that. They work in those restaurants. They just say, let's give them more of that poisonous food. Just let them lap it up. They want to give it to them and charge more for it. Great. That's what some people feel. And that's not right livelihood for that person. That's harming that person who has that attitude.

[77:57]

That's what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is that if your intention is to do good and to benefit, you can be educated. You might be wrong, but you're susceptible to, you know, the customer has something to say to you about this because you're trying to help the customer or whoever it is. So you generally evolve in a positive direction when your intention is positive, even though right now you sometimes make mistakes. If your intention is negative, then you evolve negatively and you don't learn, you know, except how to be worse, which means you learn less, you unlearn less. you get more and more stupid and more and more unwise by your negative directions. But you can tell for your own self, you can tell right now, if you do mean to benefit beings or not, if you do want to help beings or not, you know that. And if you're not clear, you know you're not clear. And if you know you don't, you know you don't.

[78:59]

Whatever you know, you know. And if you're perfectly clear, I really do want to help this person, then that's pretty clear. I really do want to help this customer. I really do want to help this coworker. I really want to help them. It makes me happy to help them. It makes me happy that they're happy. It's pretty clear. That's the kind of motivation that is coming from right view, right intention, right intention. Loving kindness, harmlessness, and non-attachment. Those are the intentions. How does that go into your work? Does it apply to your work? If it does, that's it. You got it. And you get feedback and say, that wasn't, you said you're trying to practice non-attachment here, but it looks like you're holding on pretty tight to your position. Oh, really? Maybe so. Oh, yeah, I guess I am. Oh, thank you. You tell your coworkers, you know, guess what? I'm practicing loving kindness, gentleness, and detachment at work. So if you see me veering off in those directions, I'd like feedback on that. Okay, we'll tell you.

[80:01]

You know? Tell your customers, too, you know? Tell your competitors. I'm practicing loving kindness, gentleness, and non-attachment. That's my, that's our, that's the motto of my work. So if you, I want feedback from my competitors, from my coworkers, from my customers, let me know. How am I doing? And if you're... I'm not going to say that. Huh? I'm not going to say that. So you might all think about whether you want to say that in your work, whether you want to say that to your customers, your coworkers, your competitors, your boss, your supervisees, whether you want to say that to them, and get their help in practicing right intention in the workplace. That'll make it, that'll be interesting. So why don't you consider whether you want to do that, and then maybe next week come back and tell us what you decided. I'll be thinking about it too.

[81:01]

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