Editing Noble Eightfold Path (section)

=== Right livelihood ===
Right livelihood (''samyag-ājīva'' / ''sammā-ājīva'') precept is mentioned in many early Buddhist texts, such as the ''Mahācattārīsaka Sutta'' in ''Majjhima Nikaya'' as follows:<ref name=BMaha />
{{blockquote|And what is right livelihood? Right livelihood, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right livelihood with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions; there is right livelihood that is noble, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

And what is the right livelihood with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions? There is the case where a disciple of the noble ones abandons wrong livelihood and maintains his life with right livelihood. This is the right livelihood with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions.

And what is the right livelihood that is noble, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The abstaining, desisting, abstinence, avoidance of wrong livelihood in one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is without effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. (...)}}

The early canonical texts state right livelihood as avoiding and abstaining from wrong livelihood. This virtue is further explained in Buddhist texts, states Vetter, as "living from begging, but not accepting everything and not possessing more than is strictly necessary".{{Sfn|Vetter|1988|p=12}} For lay Buddhists, this precept requires that the livelihood avoid causing suffering to sentient beings by cheating them, or harming or killing them in any way.{{Sfn|Harvey|2013|p=83}}

The Anguttara Nikaya III.208 asserts that the right livelihood does not trade in weapons, living beings, meat, alcoholic drink or poison.{{Sfn|Harvey|2013|p=83}}{{Sfn|Rahula|2007|p=53}} The same text, in section V.177, asserts that this applies to lay Buddhists.<ref>{{cite book|author=Martine Batchelor|title=The Spirit of the Buddha|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fL3mykqlOJcC&pg=PT59|year=2014|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-17500-4|page=59|access-date=5 October 2016|archive-date=11 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111055838/https://books.google.com/books?id=fL3mykqlOJcC&pg=PT59|url-status=live}}; Quote: These five trades, O monks, should not be taken up by a lay follower: trading with weapons, trading in living beings, trading in meat, trading in intoxicants, trading in poison."</ref> This has meant, states Harvey, that raising and trading cattle livestock for slaughter is a breach of "right livelihood" precept in the Buddhist tradition, and Buddhist countries lack the mass slaughter houses found in Western countries.{{Sfn|Harvey|2013|pp=273–74}}