Venerable Sir, please explain the two steps known as Right Bodily Action (sammā-kammanta) and Right Livelihood (sammā-ājīva).

‘Right Bodily Action’ (sammā-kammanta) means to perform righteous actions by body that are wholesome actions. This means to abstain from killing, to abstain from inflicting cruelty upon beings, from stealing, from use of intoxicants, and from sexual misconduct. When bodily unwholesome actions committed produce karma-results, for the most part, they arise as illnesses or abnormalities that inflict pain on the body itself. As karma-results of killing, humans die at a young age having had shorter life expectancy, suffer from deformities or are constantly plagued by illnesses. Because of stealing, one becomes poverty-stricken, destitute. Due to lack of food, clothing, medicine, brings suffering upon themselves in terms of bodily comforts and pleasures―or better said, the lack thereof. Because of sexual misconduct, a man in this life becomes a woman in the next, or becomes asexual, a eunuch, or suffers physical distress in terms of venereal diseases. If revered-you can make a resolve in life and come to the position to think, “I will expose my body only to my lawful husband or wife,” it will be immensely helpful for developing Right Bodily Action. Otherwise, as a result of sexual misconduct committed due to excessive sexual desire, there remains the danger of being reborn as types of animals who’re forever copulating―such as pigs, sows, male or female monkeys and macaques. As karma-results of drinking alcohol (use of intoxicants), not only would one, in this life, suffer from serious diseases, become rejected by society, have broken relationships, but also upon death there remains the risk of being reborn as mentally disabled human beings, or as alcohol-craving male or female peta-ghosts lurking in places where the smell of alcohol lingers. Reflecting wisely on the precarious state you face when you veer away from Right Bodily Action, strengthen yourself in Right Bodily Action.

‘Right Livelihood’ (sammā-ājīva) means to conduct righteous business synonymous with wholesome actions. Abstaining from selling alcohol or intoxicants, abstaining from trading in meat, abstaining from trading in poisons and pesticides, in weapons and ammunition, and in animals and slaves, are counted as Right Livelihood. You might be noticing how the steps relating to morality―Right Bodily Action and Right Livelihood―are rapidly deteriorating in society. Why this deteriorates, and humans steeply descend into unwholesome actions as a result, is purely due to the deficiency in Right View. When Right View is lacking, the belief in karma and karma-results weakens. The belief in rebirth that is dependently originated in accordance with wholesome and unwholesome actions weakens. The fear of fourfold-hell abates. Simply because of this deficiency in Right View, man lets Right Bodily Action and Right Livelihood deteriorate severely. When looking at society, it can be noticed there is a marked increase in children born physically disabled or profoundly retarded. Or with brain disorders. Or with bodily congenital terminal illnesses. Due to such births not just the children, but the parents too find themselves in utterly helpless situations. The primary reason for such births is killing beings, or inflicting cruelty upon beings, or trading in alcohol, intoxicants, poisons, weapons coming under ‘wrong livelihood.’ The more commonplace such abysmal trades will become, the more dramatically births with severe illnesses will increase in society in the future. Purely because the three things Right Speech, Right Bodily Action and Right Livelihood the Buddha set forth in relation to morality have become lacking in humans, a gravely disease-filled environment is looming large in future society.

The Buddha says human life expectancy will gradually decline. This is a phenomenon. A law of nature. It is nothing but immorality that provides causative factors needed for this withering of life expectancy to happen. The person who’s skilful to wisely contemplate the shortening of life expectancy and occurrence of terrible illnesses that pervade present society, seeks solutions for it solely by incorporating in their lives the phenomena of Right Speech, Right Bodily Action and Right Livelihood coming under morality in the Noble Eightfold Path. But if these steps coming under morality are to develop in you in a meaningful way, it is imperative that you be consummate in Right View and Right Thought.

Venerable Sir, how can Right Bodily Action and Right Livelihood be turned into supermundane Right Bodily Action (lokuttara sammā-kammanta) and supermundane Right Livelihood (lokuttara sammā-ājīva)?

Revered-you, consider; no matter how much you live within the bounds of Right Bodily Action and Right Livelihood, what do you get as a result? Wholesome-saṅkhāras (wholesome karma-formations). Are those wholesome-saṅkhāras permanent or impermanent? Impermanent.

Close your eyes and, with the faculty of wisdom, contemplate about the prolonged life expectancies and lifetimes with the best of health you had received previously in saŋsāra as a consequence of practising moral precepts. With the faculty of wisdom, reflect on how you had received as prolonged a life expectancy as 20,000 or 30,000 years, having been born during dispensations of past buddhas. Those saṅkhāras you experienced: are they permanent or impermanent? Impermanent.

If so, don’t become attached to those wholesome-saṅkhāras again. Strengthening yourself in moral precepts, constantly incorporating Right Bodily Action and Right Livelihood in your life, strengthening yourself in wholesome actions, when you see the impermanence of those wholesome-saṅkhāras, you will have incorporated in your life supermundane Right Bodily Action and supermundane Right Livelihood related to penetrative insight-wisdom (vipassanā paññā). It is this power that thrusts you towards the fruit of stream-entry, where you perceive the impermanence of the five clinging aggregates―the pañca-upādānakkhandha.