Page 120 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

supporting themselves on what they have been able to save out

of their earnings and devoting all their time to Buddhism for a
while. This does, of course, mean cutting down one's needs, or

rather one's wants, but it is surprising how much one can cut
down if one really makes up one's mind to do so.

Such a development would be good not only for oneself but for
Buddhism, because the Buddhist movement is expanding and we

need more people. We need — and I hope that here I don't go
too far astray from tradition — people who will be 'part-time
monks'. In the Western Buddhist Order, now in process of

formation, we hope to have a category of this sort, i.e. a category
of people intermediate, as it were, between the ordinary lay

person, fully immersed in the mire of samsara and doing his best
to bloom like a lotus in the midst of it all and, on the other hand,
one who is committed in the 'full time' sort of way that the monk

is. Between these two extremes we need people who have got
one foot in the world and one foot in the spiritual dimension, as it

were, to act as a bridge between them. A category of this sort
very definitely has a place in the modern world. *

Perfect Livelihood represents, then, as we emphasized at the
beginning, essentially the transformation, in the light of Perfect

Vision, of the society in which we live. Though Right or Perfect
Livelihood pertains primarily to the economic aspect of our
collective existence, we should not forget that the social and

* It should be remembered that this lecture was given in 1968. The Western Buddhist
Order/ Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha now consists of some 300 members in 1986,
many of whom are 'full-timers'. Some of the latter are members of Buddhist 'Right
Livelihood' workers' co-operatives.

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