Panna or wisdom as the final stage

4

WORK -- A SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

with a relevant religious [ Buddhist ] backdrop

[ Bhikkhu Professor Dhammavihari ]

Work has to be undertaken and carried out for several obvious reasons. In the world, work pertains to the area of man, and today to the area of machines as well. Machines work under the direction of man but soon robots will get ahead of him and perhaps, in the field of work, give meaningful directions to him. In relation to animals, man will continue to maintain his lead. Animals act and do things by way of built-in reflexes. Their survival is guaranteed by such behaviour. In hunger and thirst, in fear and anger, animals react on this basis. Man who has, more or less, the exclusive possession of reason decides as to the [propriety of ] time and manner of action. Buddhist teachings attribute this to the higher grade of development of his brain, at the higher level of primates, well above reptilian and mammalian. Buddhist texts say Manassa ussannatàya manussà [ VvA. 18 & KhA. 123 ]. Humans are called manussa on account of their developed mind [ = mana / manasa ].

Therefore in human society, we discover men and women purposefully and meaningfully engaged in work. They are motivated to work for various reasons. There are personal individual reasons. There are also collective social reasons. The outcome of work gives joy in different ways. Work leads to the fulfilment of diverse expectations. Everyone discovers all the time defects and deficiencies in one's life and in the world on lives in. Life is discovered to be a continuos process of rectifying, correcting these shortfalls. In illness one takes measures to regains one's health. Healthy ones regularly keep grooming themselves, clipping and dressing their hair, exercising and massaging their limbs, sometimes even adding lustre and colour to their skin. These acts are not remunerative. One might be called upon to pay another for getting various services in these areas. But in the process of doing these one earns no income. People still do them. One would therefore classify activities of this nature as non-remunerative or as work which is self-satisfying and self-gratifying.

Extending beyond this very personal range of activity, there also exists a range of work which serves the needs of family build-up. These like building places of residence, growing food for family needs, providing adequate means for family safety and security like putting up fences and walls around homes, are all musts of family life in human communities. With excessive modernization, urbanization and mechanization, many people seem to lose sight of some of these unquestionably basic and vital needs. Too many people expect their larger controlling bodies like central governments or local municipalities to be responsible for these. This is what leads to the shameless and complete breakdown of municipal cleanliness, with heavily garbage-dumped lanes in pompous residential areas of metropolitan Colombo.

But all these work contributions, it must be remembered, when they have a home-born domestic origin contribute immensely to the generation of that indispensable nutrient of family harmony which goes by the name of love. Or philanthropy, if the word love is too explosive today. Even if this kind of life style looks a going back to less developed socio-economic structures, they certainly are to be looked upon as contributing to far greater social integration and social solidarity.

In a pre-war [ second world war ] Sri Lanka, even as far back as sixty seventy years ago, this kind of activity was undertaken at a joint inter-familial level. They were known to people in the villages under the name of kayya. We recollect with joy how in a delightful participatory spirit, with a lot of food and drinks within reach, people of the then delightful country side, assembled almost at sunrise to launch such mutually beneficial projects in the village. Sometimes these extended from the inter-familial to entire regional levels, embracing such activities like tree planting, cleaning up village tanks or even giving a face-lift to the village school. In Buddhist thinking, this kind of activity is looked upon as just or good living [ dhammaññhà ]. The Samyutta Nikaya [ S.1. 33 ] list these activities as planting of fruit and shade trees [ àràma- ropà vana-ropà ], building bridges [ setu-kàrakà ], providing drinking-water on roadsides [ papa¤ ca upàNA¤ ca ]. In highly developed countries like Canada and the USA, even today, the protection and guarding of residential areas is organized on this basis of collective responsibility and magnanimous participation.

Let us now move into another area where work is attractive for a different reason. Work is remunerative. Work is also productive and brings in wealth in its wake. Money [ Dhaka ] and wealth [ bhoga ] are great attractions in life. They provide comfort [ sukha ] and joy [ pãti ]. In terms of Buddhist analyses, work can be viewed as remunerative employment. This can be put under two broad categories of self-employment and employment under others. Working for others includes both the state and the private sector. We discover here that work and money are closely tied up. Money through work comes as either as wages or remuneration for work done or as productive income generated through what has been produced.

In all these areas, one could begin with the question ' What prompts people to work ? ' Each one in the human community has and feels an awareness of a civic responsibility one owes to the family or the community to which one belongs. [ The sooner it is implanted in case of its absence, the better it is for the society in which such individuals are found.]. Every member of the human community, man or woman, has primarily to feel his personal identity. It is his or her parents and the values acquired through each religion which must sensitize them to this. It is our considered opinion that it is the lamentable failure in this area that leads to the staggering rise in suicides in this country, particularly in the category of juveniles. The abominable crimes of incest and rape in this country, in recent years, must be traced back to such pathological states. Once a person knows his or her personal identity, such a person has always to be placed in his or her correct position in the home and society. It must be as precisely fitted as part and the whole. Then he knows himself, his parents, his wife and children [ if any ], friends and relatives, and those who toil for him. These social relationships cannot be forgotten or violated. One who knows this also knows his obligations towards all these human components in whose midst he lives. The fulfilment of all these immediately raises the need for money. The Anguttara Nikaya, in a special chapter entitled Bogànaü àdiyà [ A.111. 45 ] discusses in detail these different areas in which money is to be profitably utilized. We shall take them in due course.

In the first category of self-employment referred to above, one gets the money through production, as a result of energetic application to various areas of activity [ kammante payojeyya ] such as agriculture, animal husbandry or industry. It is even wisely suggested in authentic Buddhist texts that where one does not possess enough capital to start on any such venture, that one could get the necessary money on loan, with interest or vaóóhi [...yaü pi bhikkhave daëiddo assako anàëiko iõaü àdiyitvà vaóóhim pañisuõitvà ... & ... vaóóhiü pañisuõitvà kàlàbhataü vaóóhiü na deti... Both at A.111. 352 . This idea of getting money on loan for useful and benevolent ventures, with interest is further explained as iõaü àdàyà ' ti vaóóhiyà dhanaü gahetvà at DA. 1. 212 ] or interest free , and then proceed.

Whatever may be the mode of employment [ self-employment or any other ], it is emphatically indicated everywhere that earning money must be via righteous and justifiable means which is qualified with phrases like dhammikehi dhamma-laddhehi bhogehi which is further qualified with sedàvakkhhittehi bàha-bala-paricitehi which mean ' with the sweat of one's brow and the strength of one's arms ' [ A.111. 45 & 76 ]. If self-employment were in trade, Buddhist texts indicate many areas in which sales are viewed with disfavour and are virtually banned. A.111. 208 lists them as sale of 1. weapons of death and destruction [ sattha ]. 2. living things, [ satta ], i.e. animals, and perhaps humans like slaves included therein. The Commentary takes this to include humans only : satta-vanijjà ' ti manussa-vikkayo' [ AA. 111. 303 ]. 3. flesh of animals [ maüsa ], i.e. fish and meat. [ Having twisted satta in 2 to mean humans only, he has now to twist maüsa which means flesh or meat to mean ' sale of meat yielding animals like swine and deer ' : maüsa-vanijjà ' ti såkara-migàdayo posetvà tesaü vikkayo. ibid. ]. 4. alcohol and drugs [ majja ], i.e. anything that leads to drunkenness or loss of sane judgement and 5. poisonous substances [ visa ], whether at personal individual level or at collective national level as material for chemical warfare. In terms of items 1, 4 and 5, we would consider these Buddhist injunctions as incredibly accurate anticipations of the diabolic transactions of the world we witness today : whether they be the underworld arms deals of super powers, large-scale illicit drug peddling from Mexico, Marseilles or Myanmar or the enormous outpouring of alcohol, produced legally and with state approval in the face of resultant disasters or illegally produced by our own slum-dwellers as well as by protected tycoons.

It is in view of these inestimably calamitous ill effects that come in the wake of such processes of earning money, whether by individuals or by the state as we witness today, that the concept of justifiability or righteousness of those processes [ or the quality of dhammika or dhamma-laddha of monies so obtained ] is insisted on in Buddhist social ethics. Having safeguarded this aspect of wealth production in terms of justifiability, Buddhist texts go further to clarify as to how these monies should be meaningfully utilized. Buddhists nowhere envisage a money-hoarding society. In a chapter entitled Uses of Wealth or Bhogànaü àdiyà, the Anguttara Nikaya [ A.111. 45 f. ] spell out five different ways in which one's wealth or earnings may be profitably and meaningfully spent. Such expenditure, deliberately carried out with careful planning, is held out as rewarding and as leaving no room for regrets [ a + vippatisàro ].

These five different modes of expenditure deserve closer analysis and careful study both for their magnanimity and philanthropy as well as their social comprehensiveness. The very first mode in terms of which one's well earned income is to be spent [ uññhàna-viriyàdhigatehi bhogehi bàhà-bala-paricitehi sedàvakkhittehi dhammikehi dhamma-laddhehi loc. cit ] embraces the family as a totally comprehensive unit, reckoning very much in the manner of the Sigala Sutta [ D.111. 180-193 ] with every component which contributes to its successful running. It is as if they were conscious of the necessity of total integration of the diverse segments of the larger family web into a realistic whole, almost to the extent the NASA scientists are concerned with the totality of the infinite components of a space-shuttle. Unless this co-ordination in social integration is guaranteed to the same extent as at NASA, family life of humans will never record a successful take off. Even with repeated replacement of engines or parts thereof, they will never be off the ground.

The first block centering round the family consists of [ See A.111. 45 f. ] 1. the originator of the income. He unquestionably gets the first place, with priority over everybody else. The very motivation to work and earn is the acquisition and possession of personal comfort and joy. Therefore above everything else the originator of income must make himself [ attànaü ]comfortable [ sukheti ] and happy [ pãõeti ]. 2. Next come parents or màtà-pitaro [ and very rightly so ]. Everybody starts with one's own parents, well before the arrivel of wife and children on the scene. 3. Wife and children take their place third, together with the household work staff [puttadàra- dàsa-kammakàra-porise ]. It is to be noted with admiration that the household staff are included among the beneficiaries of family income. Their very specific contribution to the sum total of family well-being appears to be strictly and honestly recognized. Elsewhere [ A.111. 77 ], even a more distantly connected section of the labour force in one's service, and therefore contributing to one's prosperity, are brought in to be included among such beneficiaries [ ...sakkaroti garukaroti màneti påjeti ]. They are referred to as working hands engaged in fields and factories or in agricultural and industrial pursuits [khetta-kammanta-sàmanta-samvohàre ].

People are also motivated to work because they wish to spend some part of what they earn in the process for the benefit of their friends and dear ones [ mittàmacce ]. This constitutes the second block. People are equally aware of the need for security against calamities and misadventures like natural disasters of floods and fires, threats from violence [ yà tà honti àpada aggito và udakato và ràjato và corato và appiyato và dàyàdato A.111. 45 ]. This provides the third motivation. History of the human community, viewed globally, shows that they are not totally bereft of or insensitive to what would be termed social and religious obligations. These certainly belong to an area which is well outside mere materialistic considerations. This fourth group consists of one's obligation to provide for a. one's kinsmen [ ¤àti-bali ], b. one's guests [ atithi-bali ], c. obligations towards the dead in one's community [ pubba-peta-bali ], d. the payment of state dues [ràja-bali ] and e. religiously guided duties like obligations towards the gods [ deva- or devatà-bali ]. This is the fourth source of motivation.

The fifth and the last division in this study of uses of one's earnings, or viewing it differently, as promptings for people to work whereby one gathers wealth, we have the generous provision of material needs [ udhaggikaü dakkhiõaü patiññhàpeti ] for the benefit of the religious community who, by their own good example, could adequately provide the desirable spiritual leadership to the community [ Ye te smaõa-bràhmaõà mada-ppamàdà pañiviratà khanti-soracce niviññhà ekaü attànaü damenti ekaü attànaü samenti ekaü attànaü parinibbàpenti. op. cit. ]. The use in this context of words like sovaggikaü [ heaven-bound], sukha-vipàkaü [ resulting in happiness ] very much highlights the popular concern for a happy and prosperous life after death [ ...sovaggikaü sukhavipàkaü sagga-saüvattanikam ]. While this consideration could be regarded as yet another attractive incentive to push people to energetic engagement in work, it also turns out to be equally propelling towards spiritual growth.

Table of Contents