Occupation

In primitive times, people knew only how to gather wild fruit to live. When they made new discoveries about animal food, they began to hunt and to catch shrimp and fish to add to their supply. Gradually they advanced to settling down to raise livestock and grow crops. In that period a person had to do everything their own needs required: build a house, plant crops, hunt, make knives, axes, bows and arrows, hollow out a boat... In time, people learned to trade. One person brought meat to exchange for a finely made blade. Good reputations travel far, and many others came to plead for a blade from someone with a special gift for forging spears and lances. From then on, that smith stayed at home and devoted himself entirely to weapons, exchanging them for the food of others.

As specialisation grew, society naturally formed a division of labour, each person taking the task that suited their own aptitude.

The simple market began from that time.

Once occupations were divided, people became dependent on one another: the smith needed the farmer's food, the farmer needed the woodcutter's house posts, and the woodcutter needed the tanner's shoes.

When a market of supply and demand appeared, it fluctuated according to the objective laws that govern the economy of the whole human community. At times the demand for knives and hoes rose and the smith grew rich. Sometimes the weather turned erratic and the farmer grew poor.

Factors act on the market unexpectedly, and no one can foresee whether their own occupation will prosper or decline. Every occupation carries some element of luck or risk; that is, every one is a form of business venture. A person has to judge the situation, invest effort and property, and time will tell whether they succeed or fail.

The more complex a society becomes, the clearer and sharper its division of labour. One person only programmes computers; another only makes antibiotics. One only designs fashion; another only performs music...

Then, within each trade, the division of labour goes on to a remarkably deep and fine degree. In building a house, no single worker takes on every stage. You need bricklayers, steel-reinforcement workers, painters, plumbers, electricians...

So, living in society, nearly everyone must have a trade to make a living. Yet it is a karmic affinity from some past life that drives us to choose our own trade, and to take on the karma that comes with it.

Some people choose the medical field simply because they practised it in a previous life and felt very much at ease and comfortable in that working life. He dreams of nothing else and does not envy the next mountain over. In this life, from childhood, his path was clearly medicine, with no more hesitation or calculation needed. And he enters the profession smoothly and successfully.

Some people used to offer cloth to genuine monastics and give cloth to the poor. That karmic cause leads her, in this life, to the cloth trade, and she becomes rich.

Some people love to build roads, bridges and public wells in order to make merit. In the next life he becomes a civil engineer with a large house and plenty of money.

Some become a groom for an employer only because, in a past life, he and the horses were debtors to that employer. He alone was fortunate enough to keep a human body. The others fell into the form of horses. As their old bond has not run out, he still lingers around the horses to look after them.

Some were singers in a previous life, ordered from above to praise the soldiers and urge young men to join the army. In the next life, they carry military karma for the rest of their lives.

Some people work as drivers. It is not certain that this is because they were drivers for a living in the past. Perhaps in a previous life he was a wealthy man who loved driving. In this life he is poor and returns to driving for a living, following his earlier passion.

As already said, a thought is the cause and an action is the result. Sometimes a person worked in one trade in a previous life, but their heart was set on another. That wishful longing also brings about the result of a change of trade in the next life. For example, a doctor who loves reading dreams of writing. But his busy work means he never fulfils that wish in this life. Only in the next life does he begin to stray into literature, although he is still quite involved with medicine.

Some doctors grow rich off their patients; that is, they live in comfort on the suffering of others by charging excessive fees. Their merit is damaged. In the next life such a person is still in the medical field, but poor and with only a minor qualification.

Some people devote themselves to the study of art and so have little time to make merit. In the next life they become artists, but poverty is firmly in their grasp. Only those who have made merit generously can succeed in the arts, become famous and grow rich.

The ancients had a saying: "Great wealth comes from Heaven; small wealth comes from diligence", meaning great wealth comes from heaven (luck), small wealth from hard work. The same is true of success in a career. Business opportunities come from somewhere beyond what they planned. Sometimes they are even tired, drop their work to go out and relax, and still meet a business contact. Conversely, some people rack their brains to find every means and still miss out and fail. In the same trade, one person makes a fortune while another is ruined. All of it is due to past karmic conditions.

The Buddha advised lay people to earn a living through an honest trade (right livelihood). The occupations of society are many and varied. But there are trades in which the more one works, the more merit one gains, and trades in which the more one works, the more wrongdoing one accumulates. For example, slaughtering, brewing alcohol, dealing in drugs, selling depraved films, books and papers, and clearing forests... are trades that pile up wrongdoing. Living by such trades, one will always meet suffering and misfortune in later lives. Karmic results such as illness, early death, madness and rebirth as an animal will certainly come.

There are trades in which the more one works, the more merit one gains, such as building roads, bridges, schools and hydropower plants, and work in security, education, environmental protection, health care and food supply... In general, occupations that bring benefit to society give their practitioners merit, provided they serve with dedication and nobility. Sometimes a person is in an occupation where merit is easily made, but they are so selfish, thinking only of their wages and making things hard for everyone, that they too suffer a serious loss of merit.

Thus there are two elements to an honest occupation: choosing a trade in which merit is easily made, and serving wholeheartedly. Think of the common good of society and work with enthusiasm, rather than thinking only of personal profit. Of course everyone needs to enjoy the fruits of their labour in the money they earn to live on. But a person who knows how to make merit is always one who "contributes more than they enjoy". Work in such a way that we feel our contribution to society is always greater than the benefit we take in. If we do, we will have great merit later on. As for those who want to enjoy the most while putting in the least effort, they may look rich and prosperous for the moment, but in the future they will be miserable for lack of merit.

Every week or month, when we review the money we have earned, let us compare it with the effort and benefit we have contributed to society. If we see that our effort is greater, we have the right to smile happily, knowing that we are gradually accumulating merit over the years. Conversely, if we see that we have done nothing of benefit to society and yet earned far too much, we should feel worried rather than glad, and should find ways to make offerings and give alms to make up for the merit that is being depleted.

There is an occupation that is not an occupation: that of the monastic. On most forms, a monastic always writes "monastic" under occupation. Does this mean everyone accepts being a monastic as a way of making a living like any other trade? Some officials who have little sympathy for monks and nuns also regard being a monastic as a job for earning one's rice!

However, this matter is rather delicate.

Looking at it from the side of supply and demand, a monastic is someone who meets believers' needs for religious practice, ritual offerings and the teaching of doctrine, while believers, according to their heart and means, support the monastic's livelihood. This resembles a service with an exchange, and it requires the monastic to have a certain level of expertise in ritual and doctrine.

But from another side, the "exchange" in the religious sphere is not commercial in character, because a monastic regards performing rituals and teaching doctrine as a sacred duty to help the spiritual lives of believers, not aiming at profit, and not fixing prices or the offerings that believers must present. Likewise, believers who respect the monastic's virtue and wisdom should rely on and support that monastic so that he or she is free of worldly concerns, rather than thinking they must pay in material goods to receive the benefit of the Holy Spirit.

Of course, no organisation, no party, no religion, however good, can avoid being infiltrated by bad and selfish elements.

It is these elements that have damaged the reputation of religion and of the monastic ranks, whereas the nature and course of the religions has no aim whatsoever of profiteering or seeking gain.

In any case, a genuine monastic uses their whole life as an example and their words to preach morality, and deserves the respect and support of believers.

This world is full of wrongdoing, so spreading morality is an urgent need of society. Morality needs to be taught everywhere: in the family, at school, in associations and in religions. Each place has its own way of setting out its system of morality. Religion has both a mystical character and a moral character. On the moral side, religion is a beautiful image of humankind, because it preaches and reforms the human heart into one that is gentle, good and aspiring. On the mystical side, religion is doubted and criticised, because there are many points that do not yet (please stress the word "yet") agree with science.

Most people turn to religion for a spiritual purpose. But a genuine religion is one that can help people reach that spiritual purpose, can help them reform their morality in line with the civilisation of the community, and can reason in a way consistent with science so as not to be discarded as backward. If a religion leans wholly toward the mystical side, making its followers eccentric and strange to the community, and at the same time has too many anti-scientific points, that religion will be discarded.

A person who wants to become a monastic must likewise choose wisely a religion that can help them become holy and afterwards benefit many people in all three areas: the spiritual, the moral and the scientific. Only then will the image of the monastic be one that is both transcendent and close to people. Being a monastic is then no longer a trade for earning a livelihood but a noble vocation, needed for life today and tomorrow.