Page 105 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

This may all seem rather remote, rather archetypal and mythical,

and not of very much concern to us; but Buddhism, although it
can dream, and dream very beautifully, is not content merely to

dream. The whole approach of the Buddha's teaching to these
questions is very sane, very practical, and very realistic.
Buddhism is not content to dream about some ideal society of

the future, or some ideal world on another plane. It tries to
create the ideal society, the ideal community, here and now on

this earth. It tries, therefore, to transform, to transfigure, this
society and this world into the image of the future, into the
image of the Ideal, and it tries to do this in a number of different

ways. One of these ways is the teaching of what we call Right
Livelihood, the fifth step of the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path.

The preceding stages of the Noble Eightfold Path have been
concerned with the descent of Perfect Vision, in the sense of our

initial spiritual experience of insight into the nature of existence,
including ourselves, and the transformation by that experience

of our emotional life, our communication with one another, and
our ordinary, everyday behaviour. In other words, the Eightfold
Path, so far, has been concerned with the transformation of our

separate, individual selves. With this step, Perfect Livelihood, we
are concerned with the transformation of the collective life, the

life of the community, the life of society.

This is an aspect of Buddhism which is not very much

emphasized, in fact it is sometimes rather played down, but the
idea that we should transform not only our individual lives but

also society at large is very definitely a part of the total Teaching.
Collective life or collective existence, has three principal aspects.

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