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I don’t think it helps anyone to get too judgmental about different occupations. Some may say that a doctor or nurse is more helpful to humanity than a banker or mortgage broker, but who really knows? An impeccable businessperson can do a lot of good. Some say that the legal profession lacks an ethical center, but Ralph Nader is a lawyer and Gandhi was a lawyer. So was Lincoln. I think it helps if each of us stops for a moment and considers the many ways we can practice Right Livelihood—using our hands, our heads, and our hearts to help others—no matter what we do for a living. Right Livelihood helps us make a life, not just a living. It affords us spiritual renewal, right here and now, without going elsewhere. Buddha said: “Sustaining a loving heart, even for the duration of a finger snap, makes one a truly spiritual being.”

RIGHT LIVELIHOOD IN THE

MARKETPLACE

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

—GEORGE WASHINGTON

Virtue has never been as respectable in society as money.

—MARK TWAIN

Let’s not be unduly naive. The workplace often seems confused, agitated, weak in humane values, and all too eager to reward ego-centricity and greed. Trying to practice enlightened living—authentic spirituality—will create some interesting challenges. If, for example, you discover the firm where you work is lying and overcharging customers, what do you do? If the only job you can find is as a minimum wage cashier for a retail company that is exploiting workers overseas, what do you do? If you’re a Dharma teacher, and you have a choice between a well-paying academic position or what amounts to a nonpaying or subsistence job at a small Buddhist center, what do you do? If your boss has a wickedly caustic tongue and everybody in your office loves to gossip, does Right Speech go out the window? It sounds wonderful to assume a lofty position and pretend that none of us ever has to deal with these issues, but it’s not realistic.

In the late seventies, I left India and returned to the U.S. for three years. I escorted a dozen Tibetan lamas and teachers from Kalu Rinpoche’s monastery to France and to this country, translating for them, driving them on tour, and working to establish retreat centers and monasteries in Wappinger’s Falls and Woodstock, New York. Working for Dharma, Inc. was not a paying position; I did not have any savings or assets after living in India for six years. I tried to think of a way to make a living that was moral, ethical, constructive, and interesting and still be potentially lucrative enough to help finance myself and colleagues in further spiritual practice, while bringing more of our Asian teachers to this country. My friends and I very much wanted to establish Dharma centers here for Westerners to meditate and learn more about this ancient, yet for us, newly discovered wisdom work.

I had learned about ginseng in Korea, and after much discussion and some market research, a Zen photographer friend and I decided that an organic ginseng farm would provide a right form of livelihood. We got financing and bought an old 180-acre farm in the Catskills, where ginseng naturally grows wild, employing several other members of our Woodstock Tibetan monastery. We intended to work together as friends, encourage cooperation, reduce competitiveness, treat everyone fairly, bring out the best in our coworkers, rein in our egos, and adopt ethical business practices. It was my first and only clearly capitalist venture. I discovered that even in the context of a Buddhist sangha, it was a challenge to live according to the principles we espoused—to really practice what we preached. Why should I have been surprised?

Perfection is an ideal, difficult to find here on earth. Every work situation is a little flawed, a little fraught with hypocrisies, compromises, and egotism—sometimes even our own! In some job settings, anything other than “me first” logic and dualistic thinking can seem out of place or even strange. In these environments, our spiritual paths often appear to be littered with hindrances. The workplace provides