Monday, August 12, 2013

Work well



From right doing, right work naturally flows. It is understandable if one has had to keep working at a fast-food place to help support one's children, but one must also keep an eye out for a better livelihood, as fast-food places poison the population.

In general few jobs meet this principle, as the world system has grown toward wage slavery to enrich those already rich, to most of whom the prospect of such enrichment doing harm to the population is of little or no concern.

It can be helpful to learn a craft or trade that may provide safe and nutritious food, clean water, goods or services that are as free as possible of harm through exploitation -- or debt, which is exploitation at one remove (including the system whereby corporate entities prioritize shareholders rather than the good of society and the biosphere).

It can be objected that looking into the probable effects of work is attachment to outcomes. Not necessarily. The spirit of one's commitment to the eightfold way is to acquire a certain level of skill in not doing harm, not to acquire praise or reward for so doing. Remain in the now and just do well.


I may be white-haired and nothing but bones 
but I’m versed in the work of daily survival 
in fall I pound thistles in a wooden mortar
in spring I dry vine buds in a wicker tray
I buy Solomon’s seal from a peddler down below
for seaweed I rely on a monk from across the sea
but who would have guessed at seventy-seven
I would dig a pond for lotus roots and water chestnuts


-- Stonehouse, tr. Red Pine


(To be continued)