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Buddha recommends the payment of pensions

by A. G. S. Kariyawasam

In Buddhist India a king named Chandappajjota was ruling over the country of Avanti, which was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas at the time. This king had, as one of his several coveted possessions, a female elephant named Bhadravatikaa, which was both a very fast traveller and a great fighter in battles.

King Udena, the ruler at Kosambi of the Vatsa country, was Pajjota's rival in power and splendour and he was once captured by Pajjota. However, Udena managed to escape and elope with Pajjota's beautiful daughter Vaasuladattaa, mounted on the very she-elephant Bhadravatikaa of Pajjota, under very romantic circumstances, as related in the Dhammapada Commentary (i, pp. 196 ff.pTs).

In the possession of her new owner King Udena, Bhadravatikaa enjoyed great cares and favours. However, these favours continued only till she was young and active, for no sooner than she become old and unable to work as usual, not only were those cares and favours all withdrawn but the animal was completely neglected. Unprotected and destitute in her old age senility, she was forced to roam about in the woods with difficulty to find out her own food. Disappointed quite painfully over the king's ingratitude she once met the Buddha and explained her helplessness imploring the Buddha's help in the following words:

"Ven. sir, when I was young and able to work actively Udena loved me very much saying that his life, kingdom and all other glories were saved by me from Pajjota. He showed me great honour by adorning me with all kinds of ornaments; he had my stable smeared with perfumed earth: coloured hangings were put all around it: a lamp was burning continuously lit with perfumed oil: a dish of incense was kept there all the time: a golden pot was set on my dunghill: I was made to stand on a costly and multicolored carpet: I was given royal food and drink of the choicest of flavours: but now, when I am unable to work as formerly due to my old age, he has cut off all these facilities and neglected me totally: unprotected and destitute, now I am forced to roam about with difficulty in the forest glades in search of my food: as I have none else to help me I hereby implore you to persuade the king to restore to me those erstwhile facilities and favours in my old age too".

The Buddha took up the matter seriously and on a selected day proceeded to the king's palace, attended by a retinue of monks.

The king welcomed the Buddha with due honours and provided him and the Sangha with the mid-day meal. After the thanksgiving the Buddha opened the subject by asking the king as to the whereabouts of Bhadravatikas. "I do not know where she is" was the king's reply.

On hearing this the Buddha reprimanded the king for his callous attitude towards Bhadravatikaa and reminded him as to how she had been great service to him in his manifold royal duties. He further added the following meaningful words.

"O king, when your servants are active and serving it is your bounden duty to look after them well: this you have been doing: but, it is quite improper for you to neglect them in their old age when they cannot work due to ageing: you should be thankful and grateful to them so long as they continue to live: Bhadravatikaa was once your great helper: now she has become old and worn out with age: now she cannot be active as of yore: now is the time you should look after her well: it is unkind, improper and ungrateful to forget her and leave her to suffer in her old age: quite uncared for and unprotected now she lives by browsing in the wilds: as she has served you well and good throughout her active days, you should without any delay restore to her all the cares and comforts you gave her earlier: she should be treated that way all through her natural life."

The king agreed to the Buddha's admonition and restored the elephant to her former respectable position.

This incident had triggered off a vital discussion among the bhikkhus who began to discuss its pros and cons quite seriously. When the Buddha came to know about it he related a past story, the Dalhadhamama Jataka (No. 409), wherein the same sequence of events had taken place during a bodhisattva birth of the Buddha. Here it would be pertinent to quote the Buddha's advice there to the king as per the subject under discussion:

"By selfish thoughts men cease the honours they pay
As you the elephant by throwing the outworn workers away:
But good deeds and services received when forgotten,
Ruin pursues the work they undertake:
But good deeds and services when not forgotten
Success attends the work they undertake:
As per the blessed truth, I say to all.

Be grateful for services given to employees Success will then follow as always should be"

These and the earlier quoted words of the Buddha in recommending the "pension rights" of Bhadravatikaa were reached last week in India itself when in the Trivandrum state assembly its forestry minister, Mr. Sudharakaran gave vent to the following words (as reported in the Daily News of 26th July 2003) in defence of the Indian elephants against their being exploited in heavy construction work, logging, security patrols etc.: "We are taking serious note of growing cruelty towards captive elephants and their reaction to their human captors.

The Kerala government has issued norms for the upkeep of elephants which, among other things, insist that elephants retire from work at the age of 65 years and thereafter they should receive a good menu, health-care and living conditions: they will also be entitled to medical check-ups by vets."

These words of a contemporary politician as well as the Buddha's words in the 6th century B.C. regarding the pension rights of employees, are fine examples for the absolute necessity of this vital facility for both animals and humans. The Buddha's recommendation is more valuable because he goes out of his way as a religious teacher to highlight this problem more than two-thousand five-hundred years ago. The payment of pensions to those who have attained to old age after service is thus fully advocated by the Buddha. The she-elephant Bhadravatikaa is a representative case applicable to both beast and man.

All told, the general advice of the Buddha to all employers is quite eloquent since in the verses earlier quoted he has said that only unmindful and ungrateful employers who commit this grave error of neglecting their employees in their old age.

The other lesson the Buddha highlights is that when such employees are provided for in their retirement only the particular undertaking to which they belonged achieve success. On the negative side when they are neglected ungratefully the undertakings also become failures. Retributive Kamma operates here showing thereby the vital nature of the issue.

We know that the idea of a pension is to provide the vital necessities of life to the old employees to continue their natural life till they die.

Employers are committed to this duty ethically, legally and karmically. In the case of the Licchavi Confederacy too, which had earned praise from the Buddha as per their system of governance, this pension requirement is specially mentioned when it is said that they did not neglect their erstwhile employees "like tooth-picks that are daily thrown away after use."

The ten meritorious actions (dasa-punya-kiriya) enumerated in Buddhist ethics includes this under the term veyyaavacca.

No government or any other institution should ever consider pensions and such other payments made to retired workers as an uncalled for grant or a burden because it is their bounden duty to do so. It has been accepted more or less as an eternal law down the ages. That is why the Buddha himself was concerned so much about it. That such payments should be adequate to lead a decent life is also an integral part of this sacred duty.

In our own country how many oxen are exploited as beasts of burden and when old age sets they are sold to the butcher. Even cows, after taking milk as long as possible, can end up in the butcher's tent.

But let none forget that this is a retributive kamma as shown here.

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Vipassana changes the spirit of business

by Raja M., MUMBAI, India

After a 10-day Vipassana retreat southeast of Dallas, Texas, Thomas L Freese, vice president of Freese & Nichols, changed his approach to business management. Motivated by an ancient Indian self-observation technique called Vipassana, he began to think about blending such values as compassion and ethics with bottom lines and profits in his daily work.

Are formerly hard-headed Western businessmen falling for yet another handful of magic dust flung from the hands of the gurus of ancient India? Freese was relieved. He says: "Vipassana leads to clearer thinking and clear thinking is good for business."

A lengthening list of US, European and Asian corporate executives agree. Senior staff of companies including Microsoft, Citibank, IBM, Merrill Lynch and Zee TV experience Vipassana as a powerful human-resources tool. Special Vipassana courses are being organized worldwide for business executives and government administrators. Freese was part of one such course this May in "Dhamma Siri", near Dallas, one of six Vipassana centers in the United States.

Vipassana means "to see things as they really are" in the ancient Indian Pali language. A practical, universal tool to purify the mind, some call Vipassana a technology for inner peace. Others describe it is a deep surgical operation of the mind. An objective study of mind-matter interaction, Vipassana has nothing to do with any religion, cult, dogma or blind belief. Vipassana enhances the overall quality of life, as I have discovered from practicing it for more than 10 years.

Vipassana is taught in residential courses - from the beginners' 10-day regimen to 45-day and 60-day courses for advanced students. Completing a course demands discipline, will-power and following such rules as not communicating with fellow students and the outside world for the duration of the course. The rule of silence until the penultimate day of the course is to calm and quiet the chattering mind and turn attention inward.

Happily, continuing a millennium-old tradition, no fee is charged for Vipassana courses, not even for board and lodging. Expenses are met solely through voluntary donations and services of previous students. Vegetarian buffets and simple, comfortable accommodation are provided in centers that are usually green, eco-friendly expanses.

The technique was practiced back in the mists of time before being rediscovered by Gautama Buddha, who practiced it to reach enlightenment. Vipassana then disappeared again, and was lost to India 500 years after his passing. But a chain of teachers in Burma preserved the technique in its purity for 2,500 years.

This volition to share merit earned helps to reduce the ego, the apparent "I" that the Vipassana student experiences as merely a mass of constantly changing mind-matter phenomena.

Experiencing that impermanent nature of reality within changes one's outlook to life and fellow beings. Wisdom and compassion rise to the surface.

Sylvia Clute, a former attorney-general candidate in Virginia, described how Vipassana helps her combat stress: "I am not attached to the actions of others, so I don't create conflict by responding negatively."

Besides realizing its potential to reduce conflict and enhance teamwork, corporate leaders experience how Vipassana increases efficiency, patience and self-dependency and progressively eliminates such negativities as anger, jealousy, and depression.

Certainly, it takes work. Changing habits is tough and takes time. Besides an annual retreat, Vipassana students are required to practice at home twice daily for an hour each. But those benefiting realize the commitment as an investment paying dividends for a lifetime. Veteran Indian industrialist Arun Toshniwal says: "After practicing Vipassana for over 25 years, I find that my capacity for work and clarity of thinking [have] increased. I gain time. Our staff attends Vipassana courses with paid leave."

Toshniwal is also an authorized Vipassana teacher, one among more than 600 trained assistants appointed to conduct courses voluntarily on behalf of Satya Narayan Goenka, 78, and his wife Ilaichidevi Goenka, Vipassana's principal teachers.

"Goenkaji", as Mr Goenka is known outside India, is a retired business tycoon from Myanmar who settled in Mumbai with a large, happy joint family. "Having been in the rat race of making money from a young age, I know fully well how much tension and misery a business person goes through," he says. "Vipassana helps gain the mental wealth without which the material wealth becomes meaningless."

Goenkaji was authorized to teach Vipassana in 1969 by his teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin, independent Burma's first accountant general. "The time clock of Vipassana has struck," U Ba Khin declared when Goenkaji started teaching Vipassana in India, the land of its origin. U Ba Khin conducted Vipassana courses in his office premises to remove corruption in the Burmese government.

U Ba Khin professed an ancient prophecy that Vipassana would return to India and from there spread throughout the world. Indeed, either with or without the prophecy, Vipassana has spread rapidly since 1969, mostly by word of mouth, in cultures as diverse as Britain, Russia, Japan, Mongolia, Brazil, Iran, Thailand, China and Scandinavia.

In India, the central government and some provincial governments offer paid leave for their staffs to learn the discipline. Courses are organized for prison inmates, students of technological powerhouses, and scientists at the Bhaba Atomic Research Center, a nerve center of India's nuclear programme. Leading business schools such as Symbiosis send entire batches of management trainees for Vipassana courses.

Goenkaji conducted the first executive course in the United States in April 2002 in Massachusetts as part of a grueling 24,000-kilometer road odyssey across North America in which he conducted courses and addressed the public, the media and the United Nations as well as leading institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"The moment a defilement arises in the mind, misery too instantly arises. When one starts experiencing this reality within oneself through Vipassana, a change automatically starts coming for the better," Goenkaji says. He was a keynote speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2000.

Organizations such as Spirit in Business, which invited Goenkaji to address a seminar during his North American tour, wants to enhance management principles. Founded in Amsterdam and with bases in the US, Spirit in Business (SiB) forged an alliance of companies such as American Express, Verizon and Forbes, senior corporate leaders from Videophone, Goldman Sachs, HP, universities such as Case Western Reserve's Weatherhead School of Management and the Copenhagen Business School, and taught leaders such as Peter Senge, Daniel Goldman, David Cooperrider and the Dalai Lama. Its aim is to "explore, promote and celebrate the reconnection of ethics, values and spirit in business leadership".

The writer is a Vipassana practitioner based in Mumbai.

Courtesy: Buddhist News Network (BNN).

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