Page 113 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

to skin a cow or a bull, twenty or thirty times a day, year after

year. What would be your mental state then? And this is the
occupation of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands,

of people in the world today.

An Australian Buddhist monk whom I once knew told me that he

had made a study of slaughterhouses in Australia and the people
who worked in them. He had found that among men working in

slaughterhouses — for some reason or other we never hear of
women working in them — there was a high incidence of serious
mental disturbance — I think about sixty-six percent. Men who

worked in slaughterhouses usually lasted only two years. After
two years human nature could stand it no more, and in most

cases the men reached a point where the mental disturbance
was so serious they were unable to carry on. We should not
think that this is something that does not concern us, because

concern us it does. We are directly, morally involved, for it is our
demand for meat that obliges people to earn their living, and in

fact degrade themselves, in this way.

With the help of these few, admittedly extreme, examples, we

can begin to see the importance of Perfect Livelihood, and
perhaps appreciate that without some measure of Right or

Perfect Livelihood we can make very little spiritual progress. You
can hardly imagine a slaughterhouse man attending a weekly
meditation class. It would not do him any good, even if he was

able to sit there. I think I could guarantee that if such a person
did come, and did try to meditate, before many weeks had

passed he would be having horrible visions of the living beings
he had slaughtered.

Buddhists in this country, I am glad to say, have begun

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