Blessing Eighteen:
Blameless Work
Blameless Work
A. INTRODUCTION
A.1 Blessing Eighteen in the Sequence of the Blessings
The workplace is somewhere we have already been familiar with since Blessing Fourteen — but last time we visited, we were interested in work only as a means to earn the salary we needed to support the close family (as covered in Blessings Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen). Now we have matured a little further in the sequence of the Blessings, we return to our work, not as simply something which needs to be completed, but to be completed well! Within the context of this Fifth Grouping of Blessings, ‘Becoming a pillar of society’, it matters not simply that we finish our work, but also how well we do it and how beneficial it is to society too! In this Blessing we are to learn about the quality and the ethicality of the work we do — important factors in being the sort of person others in society can look up to.
A.2 Buddhist Economics
‘Economics’ is not a term native to Buddhism. “Buddhist Economics” is a phrase coined by E.F. Schumacher — but the concepts involved (especially Right Livelihood at the mundane [lokiya] level) are very relevant to explaining a second visit to the workplace is necessary. Like the diligent but shoddy and corrupt worker tolerated by Blessing Fourteen, contemporary western economics tries to measure social well-being by financial transactions alone. Western economists try to avoid involvement of values when considering the ‘economics’ of different actions — and their approach is thus radically different from that of Buddhism. To give some examples of iniquities in the modern economic analysis, transactions which are considered . . . :
• Economic non-events: Any work which doesn’t get paid a wage is a non-event to an economist — so much for voluntary work in the temple!
• Economically equal activities: The purchase of a bottle of whisky and or a sack of rice to feed a village of hungry refugees have the same economic value
• ‘Negligible’ economic by-products: That vices are by-products of attending night-clubs, rampant consumerism the result of advertising, temptation towards unethical business practices the result of competition — have no place in the economic equation.
Costs given consideration in the Buddhist economic equation: To Buddhism, by contrast, the economics of livelihood has a human face (i.e. it acknowledges values). Below are listed some of the factors to be encouraged in the equation of Buddhist economics:
• Physical health and security of the population: If the public are made ill by unethical business practices, the medical costs it is the victims who end up paying the bill through their own taxes! When consumerism exacerbates crimes, guess who has to pay for police investigations and prosecution of the offenders?
• Spiritual Health: the ravages of over-consumption and over-production reflect unhealthy mental processes in the population generated by the superficial emotions of want, choice and material satisfaction — emotions which Buddhism does not encourage;
• Quality of work: Shoddy work is produced by shoddy minds. Buddhism foresees a working environment where workers are enthusiastic to give their best, because in so doing, apart from job satisfaction, workers will have the chance to train and better themselves and refine their minds through their working experience;
• Job satisfaction: If workers enjoy their work and are industrious, productivity will be high. On the other hand, if they are dishonest, disgruntled or lazy, this will have a negative effect on the quality of production and the amount of productivity.
• Respect for individual human dignity: To be ethically sound, economic activity must take place in a way that is not harmful to the individual,
• Respect for interpersonal human dignity: To be ethically sound, economic activity must take place in a way that does not encourage one individual to take advantage of another;
• Respect for fair economics/human dignity of society at large: society or the natural environment. In other words, economic activity should not cause problems for oneself, agitation in society or degeneration of the ecosystem, but rather enhance well-being in these three spheres.
A.3 Three types of Worker
Workers in the world have many styles and qualities, but in conclusion you can divide successful workers into three major kinds:
1. those who finish what they do without being interested in the quality;
2. those who finish their work to the best of their quality;
3. those who care that the result of their work is beneficial to society;
The Buddha taught that anyone who wants to be a pillar of society must pay attention to the quality of every piece of work they do as well as finishing it.
A.4 Three types of work
Work in Buddhism, as already discussed in Blessing Fourteen (a source of food both for body and mind) is a term which relates to a much wider scope of activities that that implied by our 40-hour week! Thus, before going into further detail as to which sort of work is blameworthy and which not, it is important to recognize the scope of this analysis. The term ‘work’ includes:
1. physical work (e.g. cooking or governing the country);
2. verbal work (e.g. training our children or grandchildren, business negotiation or chanting) (most of the details of this sort of work have already been discussed in Blessing Ten);
3. mental work (adjustment and development of our own thoughts to overcome the inbuilt tendency of our thoughts to degenerate into preoccupation with sensuality [kāmavitakka], vengefulness [byāpāda-vitakka] or aggression [vihiṃsavitakka].;
The principles of ‘blame’ discussed in relation to work, although mostly dealing with the context of physical work here, can in fact equally be applied to verbal and mental work too.
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