The fourth and final step of Right Action is to maintain the wholesome. Once we call up the beneficial seeds and cultivate them, we want to keep them thriving. Buddha says, “Herein the disciple rouses his will to maintain the wholesome things that have already arisen,…
The third step of Right Action is to cultivate the good. As a reminder, the first step is to prevent the unwholesome and the second is to abandon the unwholesome. But we can’t just run defense. To fully practice Right Effort, we also need to create…
The second step of Right Action is to abandon the unwholesome. This is our second week of practicing Right Action. As you recall, the first step is to prevent the unwholesome in the first place. Just keep it in check. But sometimes, despite our best efforts,…
The first of the four steps of Right Effort is to prevent the unwholesome. If you remember the metaphor of the living room and basement, we prevent the unwholesome things in the basement from taking up space upstairs. We keep them sleeping, so to speak. It’s…
This month we begin the sixth step along the Eightfold Path: Right Effort. Thich Nhat Hanh says “Right Effort is the kind of energy that helps us realize the Noble Eightfold Path.” This energy gets us there, so to speak. It keeps us engaged and practicing.…
In this final post on practicing Right Livelihood, here’s one final word of advice: just do your best. There are so many reasons why practicing Right Livelihood is complicated. Some of us feel stuck in jobs we may not believe in or agree with, but we…
Though we begin by assessing our own work, Right Livelihood is a collective reality. We’re all in this together. And that makes it a little more complicated. But it also keeps us from feeling too high and mighty. Because there’s no way to shield ourselves from…
There’s a bravery to Right Livelihood. When we step into good work, we create space for others to step into good work, too. Lama Surya Das says we are “surrounded by men and women who want to do more for others, but don’t know what to…
Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Profiting from others’ superstitions is not Right Livelihood.” This caught my attention because it speaks to a broader principle of compassion: don’t aim for people’s weak spots. If someone is fearful, or anxious, we can find plenty of ways to make money…
What is the true definition of success? How do we know when we’ve made it? In a society like ours, this can be such a disorienting question. Because our view of success most readily comes from income and money, we find ourselves grappling with how this…
