Right Livelihood Part 1: How do We Choose How We Make a Living?

Jennafer Duerden, October 20, 2021

Lately I’ve been pondering a lot on the Buddha’s teaching about ‘right livelihood’. This is something that has long troubled me in my career and indeed my daily life and became particularly prominent in my mind at the end of 2020 when I decided to resign after 13 years working in the aerospace industry.

I graduated with a Master’s degree in Engineering specialising in Astronautics, broadly speaking, the science of rockets and space technology. This is a field with a multitude of applications and graduates in this field are immediately faced with many ethical decisions that can affect the course of their career. Some would see space exploration as having many positive benefits for humankind: accelerated development of new medicines, a potential planet to live on in case we eventually destroy our own, scientific discoveries that could change the world. Others might view this industry in a more negative light: budgets of billions of dollars that might be better spent on societal welfare, an incredible build-up of space debris and waste, an excuse to continue destroying our planet with the hope of potential space colonies. Similarly, knowledge of rocket development can be utilised to send people to explore outer space but it can also be utilised to make high grade weapons with the potential to maim or kill millions. Satellites can be used to run vital telecommunications networks but they can also be used by governments to operate powerful spy networks. I remember certain students not being granted licenses to use some of the satellite simulation software we needed for our projects due to the perceived risk by the government of them passing this delicate information on to terrorist networks in their own countries (a highly discriminatory and controversial decision). ‘Right livelihood’ is a concept you cannot escape in the engineering industry and defence is very big business.

Upon graduating, I was somewhat constrained with my choice of jobs to apply for. Having won awards for outstanding academic performance and specialising in the complex mathematics of rocket trajectories, I could probably have taken my pick of many lucrative positions in the defence industry. There was, however, no question in my mind that I did not want anything to do with an industry whose prime objective is to create weapons and vehicles that have the potential to destroy human life. That included missiles, submarines, military aircraft, government satellites systems, tanks and nuclear weapons. A lot of people have said to me that these dangerous weapons will be made anyway, whether I take part or not, that they’re vital for keeping the status quo or that if you design such weapons you’re absolved of guilt because you’re not the one pulling the trigger or hitting the launch button. I have always steadfastly disagreed with this point of view; I might not have been using the weapons myself but I would be earning my living from and supporting companies involved in many evils going on in the world. Although I’d never heard of the Buddhist teachings at this point of my life, I had my own personal concept of ‘right livelihood’. Oppenheimer, the inventor of the nuclear bomb, famously said after the Trinity test ‘Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds‘(1). Although Oppenheimer had a complex moral reaction to development of the nuclear bomb, believing that the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were morally justified, he always believed he had blood on his hands and held himself responsible for ‘the ensuing arms race and threat to civilization brought about by the bomb.’(1) I believe he also struggled with the concept of ‘right livelihood’.

What does Buddhism tell us about ‘right livelihood’ and where does the concept come from? ‘Right Livelihood’ is part of the ‘Noble Eightfold Path’. The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path is one of his principle teachings, extending all the way back to his first discourse. In the Magga-vibhanga Sutta (2) he asks, "Now what, monks, is the Noble Eightfold Path? Right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration”. He goes on to explain that Right Livelihood “is the case where a disciple of the noble ones, having abandoned dishonest livelihood, keeps his life going with right livelihood.”(2) In order to understand what a dishonest livelihood consists of, we can examine the Vanijja Sutta (3) where Buddha elaborates:

"Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison. These are the five types of business that a lay follower should not engage in."

We can see that these five types of ‘wrong livelihood’ are things that cause suffering in the world. Weapons lead to suffering through injury and loss of life, business in human beings could refer to people trafficking or exploitation of labour, the meat industry is responsible for the suffering of millions of our fellow sentient beings, intoxicants such as alcohol or drugs lead to suffering through addiction and illness and poisons such as pesticides and pollutants cause massive damage to our health and the environment. Since the ultimate goal of Buddhism and the fundamental principle of the Dhamma is the cessation of suffering, ‘right livelihood’ is a key concept of the Buddha’s teachings. A career in the weapons industry was recognised in the Buddhist teachings as a ‘wrong livelihood’ despite pre-dating Oppenheimer’s nuclear bomb by several centuries.

As for me, I decided to go into the civil aviation industry and spent 13 years working for the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer. I enjoyed a successful and fulfilling career that led me to work in various countries on many exciting design projects and supported what some would consider to be a reasonably luxurious lifestyle. Despite that, something didn’t sit quite right with me. As time went on, I started to feel an increasing sense of emptiness with my work and my life. Whilst I wasn’t designing weapons, I didn’t feel like I was really contributing anything useful to the world. Of course, in our interconnected world, people need to fly in aeroplanes. But as someone that tries to be environmentally conscious, having been vegetarian (and later vegan) for 25+ years, taking great care with recycling/plastic use etc, is working in the transportation industry really a positive contribution? It’s a complex ethical question but was I inadvertently contributing to ‘business in poisons’ i.e. CO² emissions? I certainly wasn’t using my skills to work on ‘green’ environmental projects or develop sustainable solutions. Thinking about business in weapons, a large subsidiary of the company was developing military aircraft. Regarding right speech and right action, in 2020 the company reached a plea deal in one of the largest bribery scandals ever seen in industry. From a different perspective, the firm had a major contract with Sodexo, a company with a long history of controversy and accusations of criminal conduct, including human rights abuses and exploitation, racketeering and animal welfare, a company allegedly profiting from business in human beings, business in meat, business in poisons. But how far do we take this concept of right livelihood? Is it our fault if our employer engages in certain practices? Are we the ones choosing which contracts they make?

I tried to discuss my discontent with my work many times with friends and colleagues and was frequently told that I was being selfish, I should be thankful I was employed in a great company, earning good money. Life could be far worse and I was being ungrateful. However, in 2020 I could no longer ignore this deep feeling of disenchantment with my livelihood. Not only could I not see what positive contributions my work was making to the world and those around me, wondering if I could do something else that would help other people, I also realised that the core values of the company didn’t align with my own ethics. I thought long and hard about what I could do instead and at the end of 2020 I resigned to pursue a new path as a teacher that has now led me to this adventure with Ru-Yi. My resignation was met with a certain degree of astonishment from acquaintances and colleagues. Who was I to dare to leave such a career that other people would love to have? I was told I’d never earn that sort of money again, I must be having a crisis, I was lost. My resignation also had a big impact, both financially and personally.

Whatever the opinions of others and the small struggles I might end up having, I am sure I won’t regret it for even a single moment. Why? Because I finally feel I’ve found my right livelihood: helping others. Coming back to the Buddha’s teachings: I recognise that not everyone has the ability to quit their job and start again. It’s also clear that what constitutes right livelihood is a complex topic. With the interconnectedness of the world, with companies, with people, can we ever be sure that our employer is engaging in right livelihood? Where does our personal responsibility start and end? My friend and teacher told me that there are indeed very few professions that don’t in some way involve wrong livelihood. Not all of us can go and live in a monastery and we can’t all be teachers. Even teaching is not always a noble profession since there are many unscrupulous education companies. We could also question what our students are doing with the knowledge that they gain from us. Again, where do we draw the line?

Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that we can all at least try to find our own right livelihood, the best we can. That might mean taking a leap of faith and changing careers or it might mean using some of our spare time to engage in voluntary work. It could also mean being more mindful of what our employer is doing and having the courage to speak up about things that constitute wrong livelihood. Someone working in procurement might think more carefully about what contracts they sign and with whom. We might encourage our employer to offer more vegan options in the canteen, to stop using certain chemicals in manufacturing processes. If we consider the interconnectedness of things, we should also consider that people are able to profit from wrong livelihood because we create a demand for it. If nobody bought cheap, mass produced clothing, then sweatshops exploiting children wouldn’t exist. Such is the complexity of consumerism and right livelihood that I’ll elaborate on it in a further article.

It’s perhaps too easy to say it’s none of our business, to consider ourselves as individuals that bear no responsibility for the outcomes of our work. Instead let’s do our best to not end up like Oppenheimer, with metaphorical blood on our hands. I’ll finish with a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

"To practice Right Livelihood, you have to find a way to earn your living without transgressing your ideals of love and compassion. The way you support yourself can be an expression of your deepest self, or it can be a source of suffering for you and others. "... Our vocation can nourish our understanding and compassion, or erode them. We should be awake to the consequences, far and near, of the way we earn our living.” (4)

1: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph241/anderson1/

2: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn45/sn45.008.than.html

3: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.177.than.html

4: (The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching [Parallax Press, 1998], p. 104)