Business ethics are quickly becoming meaningless. As a matter of fact, ethics can actually become roadblocks to maintaining the almighty bottom line. We have seen this lately in the mortgage markets where dishonest loans lined pockets on Wall Street while ruining many common people's lives. Also, congressional hearings were recently held to investigate credit card companies that are upping interest rates even though their customers pay their bills on time and violate no rules. One credit card company defended this practice by saying that they must do this to remain competitive. To this a senator replied, "And what about common decency?"
This is not saying that capitalism has not served our country well. Competition has lowered prices and encouraged innovation. Concentrating on the bottom line has produced lean organizations that produce results and can compete in the world economy, and technologically we are to be admired.
How we conduct ourselves at times, however, is not to be admired. The question is; will this negligence in paying attention to how we conduct ourselves in some way damage our quality of life, and maybe our very souls? This of course further begs the question; what are our values? Some value wealth, prosperity, and comfortable lifestyles. Others, like the Buddha and Christ, had other values.
Most of us live life automatically; we handle whatever comes up. Few of us take the time or trouble to determine, proactively, how our lives will be lived. We might have some long-term and short-term goals, but those goals seldom involve how we will live; only what we will accomplish.
Even if our goal is to become a better person, that goal involves an egotistical goal - becoming something. Becoming a better person or becoming a wealthy investor is no different - neither necessarily good nor bad. What matters is how we go about reaching our goals - how we treat our fellow human beings in the process. Is it the goal that's important to us, or how we live while reaching that goal? Does the goal become more important than how we will conduct ourselves in achieving it? This is the real bottom line as far as human decency is concerned. Whom do we walk over to get what we want? If it's all bottom line, of what use are our old folks, or our sick children? The mentally challenged and the poor? They are nothing but drags upon our success. What have we become?
Christ was a healer and stood up for the downtrodden and outcasts of society. That was how his life was lived.
The Buddha was the same. He once said to his monks, "a monk . . . strives for the non-arising of evil unwholesome states that have not arisen. Strives for the abandoning of evil unwholesome states that have arisen. Strives for the arising of wholesome states that have not arisen. Strives for the stabilizing, for the collation, for the increase, for the maturity, for the development, for the perfection through cultivation of wholesome states that have arisen."
That's how the Buddha and his monks lived - no interest at all in wealth or fame, only how he and his monks conducted themselves.
Both the Buddha and Christ's lives exemplified compassion and caring about their fellow human beings. They didn't do it to impress anyone with their holyness, or to become famous, they did it because that was how sensitive their hearts were.
The question is; how many bottom liners could read what was just written and not laugh out loud? This is where we are in the world today with all of our fantastic advances. Is the human spirit and soul being destroyed in the process?
E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com