Mobile VersionBlessing Eighteen:
Blameless Work
B. Judging the ethical value of work
Often when people are looking to measure the standard of the work they are doing they rely too heavily on the amount of praise or criticism they receive from others (see example @E.1 below). The Buddha warned us that to use such an arbitrary measurement as our standard is not foolproof. In the world there are so many people of different viewpoints that you could never please all of the people all of the time. Some people cannot find a word of praise for anyone. Thus whatever the task you do, you cannot listen simply to the criticism of others — because some people’s criticism is possibly without any foundation. You have to measure the quality of work based on reason. Therefore whatever work you are doing, never base your decisions on the criticism of others. What then can you base your decisions on? The Buddha taught that we should make sure any work we do is:
1. Not illegal: this is the grossest filter of blame in work — but it is too gross to cover all eventualities, and this is why we need to resort to the other three criteria too;
2. Not breaking with tradition: Some things don’t break the law, but because they are out of keeping with local customs or traditions, they may bring you into conflict with others. Supposing a man wears women’s clothes — will the police arrest him? Probably not, but it is certainly not very good. Or when you are eating, there is a division made between sweet and savoury food. Some countries eat savoury food before they eat sweet desserts. Some, like Japan, eat their sweet food first. Not all customs are universally good. They may be applicable only to the particular locality or climate in a place. So how can you tell if a custom is worth respecting or not? Supposing you want to choose what to wear to go to the temple. You know that it certainly won’t break the law. As for customs, you know that in different places, the way people dress is not the same — to go to the market you dress in a cosmopolitan way, to go to the cinema you dress in a fun-loving way, to go to the seaside you dress to the minimum — but if you go to the temple, because the atmosphere must be peaceful, you should dress more modestly and conservatively. It is customary to dress in a modest colour like white to go to the temple because doing so forces you to be careful of your own level of cleanliness and such mindfulness aids you to meditate better.
3. Not breaking the Five Precepts: This ensures that you don’t compromise the human dignity of others or of yourself (as already described in Blessing Nine).
4. Not compromising your Five Virtues [pañcadhamma]: This ensures that you don’t fall into unwholesome ways which compromise virtue or justice (in the ways already described in Blessing Seventeen)
Thus, if in the future, you want to be a pillar of society, then give things careful consideration before you do them. You have to do things well — not just finish them. If you want to know if there is going to be any bad side-effects occurring as the result of something we do, check by using these four principles. Check the law, customs, Precepts and virtue.
http://goo.gl/cwPlC
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