Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Buddhist ethical conduct including the Five Precepts (Pañcasikkhāpada), and Eightfold Ethical Conduct (Aṭṭhasīla).
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Lombardi4
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Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by Lombardi4 »

Is selling cigarettes a kind of wrong livelihood? It is not explicitly mentioned by the Buddha as wrong livelihood, but that may be because probably there were no cigarettes during his time. Certainly tobacco smoking is harmful to health, so maybe business in cigarettes should be counted either as "dealing in poison" or "dealing in intoxicants" (two things explicitly mentioned as wrong livelihood).

What's your take on this?
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retrofuturist
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Stefan,

My take is that it wouldn't literally be a violation of the precepts, but I think it is something you would want to avoid if possible, and if you must do it, then don't compound the negative outcome by ruminating over it.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Lombardi4
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by Lombardi4 »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Stefan,

My take is that it wouldn't literally be a violation of the precepts, but I think it is something you would want to avoid if possible, and if you must do it, then don't compound the negative outcome by ruminating over it.

Metta,
Retro. :)
Thanks Retro,

I don't intend to enter that business; it was just a general question regarding morality.

:smile:
Last edited by Lombardi4 on Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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cooran
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by cooran »

Hello Stefan,

Is tobacco a drug
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1912" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with metta
Chris
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Lombardi4
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by Lombardi4 »

Thanks Chris.
PeterB
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by PeterB »

It is not clear to me to what extent we can be guided by ethical principles formed in a very different culture and 250 centuries ago...the Buddha did not know about tobacco. Neither apparently was it one of things he forsaw as posing a danger to his spiritual descendants. This is not surprising.
However WE know that smoking is linked to a range of cancers, not just lung, but eye, mouth, sinus, oesophagus ,larynx, stomach, kidney and bladder.
It is also strongly implicated in a range of heart diseases, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, infertility, babies who are small for dates, glaucoma and is a contributory factor in a whole host of other conditions including tooth decay, gastric ulcers and asthma.
We do not need to refer to culturally determined ideas of right livelihood.
Our own sense of what constitutes ethical behaviour should be sufficient.
Nori
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by Nori »

Its made explicit in the Suttas - a right livelihood is harmless (for both oneself and others).
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bodom
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by bodom »

PeterB wrote:It is not clear to me to what extent we can be guided by ethical principles formed in a very different culture and 250 centuries ago...the Buddha did not know about tobacco. Neither apparently was it one of things he forsaw as posing a danger to his spiritual descendants. This is not surprising.
However WE know that smoking is linked to a range of cancers, not just lung, but eye, mouth, sinus, oesophagus ,larynx, stomach, kidney and bladder.
It is also strongly implicated in a range of heart diseases, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, infertility, babies who are small for dates, glaucoma and is a contributory factor in a whole host of other conditions including tooth decay, gastric ulcers and asthma.
We do not need to refer to culturally determined ideas of right livelihood.
Our own sense of what constitutes ethical behaviour should be sufficient.
:goodpost:

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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tiltbillings
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by tiltbillings »

PeterB wrote:However WE know that smoking is linked to a range of cancers.
We also know that tobacco companies have deliberately manipulated the highly addictive nicotine content of cigarettes in order to hook the smokers
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
PeterB
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by PeterB »

True.
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Ben
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by Ben »

Hi Stefan,
As Peter and Paul have stated - sometimes you'll just need to use your judgement.
The fact is that tobacco does kill and it kills very many people annually.
The guiding principle that seems to support the precepts and the path factor of right livelihood seems to be that of ahimsa (do no harm). That is - knowingly doing no harm to oneself or others. In which case I think any reasonable person can defend a decision not to sell tobacco because it breaches this moral principle.
All the very best.

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
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Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
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- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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chownah
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by chownah »

To support Ben's post here is the definition for ahimsa from Nayanatiloka's Dictionary:


Avihimsā, ahimsā, avihesā: harmlessness, nonviolence, absence of cruelty. The thought of harmlessness or non-cruelty; avihimsā-vitakka is one of the three constituents of right motivation sammā-sankappa, i.e. the 2nd factor of the 8-fold path see: magga. In the several lists of elements dhātu appears also an element of harmlessness avihesā-dhātu, in the sense of an irreducible elementary quality of Noble thought, speech & behaviour. See Dhp. 225, 261, 270, 300.

chownah
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Ben
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Re: Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

Post by Ben »

Thank you, Chownah!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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