Wise Lawyering: Practicing Peace

When I think back on being 20 and choosing to be a lawyer, there was a lot of, “why not? That seems like a cool path.” There was less of, “how will this serve?” or “will this contribute to a more harmonious world?”

I see now that whether my work created harmony or discord was always the important question.

Pema Chodron invites us to ask, “am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?” That’s the question I would ask my 20-year-old self today. It’s the question I ask my 65-year-old self as often as I can remember: “Today, will I be practicing peace?”

What about you? Are you practicing peace? Or do you wake up each day, ready for war?

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen, and this is Wake Up Call 456. I’ve been talking about the Eightfold Path to liberation, and here we are at what is sometimes considered step five, one of the ethical elements, wise livelihood. We’re here after looking at wise view and wise intention, the wisdom elements of the path, and wise communication and wise action, the first two of the three ethical elements. 

I was looking at a Tricycle Magazine article about wise livelihood by Walpola Sri Rahula, who was a Sri Lankan monk and also a professor at Northwestern University, my alma matter. I’m paraphrasing, but Sri Rahula said, “Right livelihood means that one should abstain from making one’s living through a profession that brings harm to others such as trading in arms or lethal weapons, intoxicating drinks or poisons, [humans or] animals, [gambling or] cheating, [or that otherwise causes killing or other harm], and should live by a profession which is honorable, blameless, and innocent of harm to others. He went on to say that right livelihood, as well as right communication and right action, should, “aim at promoting a happy and harmonious life both for the individual and for society. This … is considered…the indispensable foundation for all higher spiritual attainments. No spiritual development is possible without this moral basis.

I want to come back to the specifics in a minute, but Sri Rahula – and most teachers I’ve studied – are essentially saying that wise livelihood is about choosing a way to earn a living that doesn’t cause harm and that promotes harmony. Interestingly, the California Rules of Professional Conduct and the Model Rules at least don’t disagree with this.

For example, in their opening sally, the California Rules say they’ve been adopted and approved to protect the public, the courts, and the legal profession; protect the integrity of the legal system; and promote the administration of justice and confidence in the legal profession. So that’s pointing at harmony and non-harming, in a way. The Model Rules end their preamble by saying, in part, that a lawyer should cultivate knowledge of the law beyond its use for clients, employ that knowledge in reform of the law and [to] further the public's understanding of and confidence in the rule of law and the justice system, because legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support to maintain their authority. 

And then One California county, San Diego, has taken this to the next level and says in its bar rules, lawyers should not be influenced by ill feelings or anger between clients in their conduct, attitude or demeanor toward opposing counsel; and…should conduct themselves so that they may conclude each case with a handshake with the opposing lawyer.

I like these for ways of thinking about how we might want to consider how we work. Can we work with protection of the public, courts, and legal system, in mind? With its integrity in mind, or at least with the parts of the legal system that we believe are in integrity, in mind? And with the idea of furthering the public's understanding of and confidence in the rule of law and the justice system, with the goal of protecting our constitutional democracy? Especially in these times, those feel like important elements of wise livelihood. 

And then what about the work itself? Meaning, what about the choices we make about the work we undertake – or in many cases, the choices we have to make, or that others (like employers or clients) require us to make if we want to keep our jobs…which we may need in order to support ourselves or a family or our parents or all of the above? 

How do we – lawyers – square those very real needs, with what sound less like guidelines (which is what I’ve been calling the suggestions for wise communication and wise action) and more like admonitions: abstain from making a living by trading in intoxicants, poisons, weapons, or humans, and make a living in a way that is honorable, blameless, and causes no harm? 

Because, what is an intoxicant? Certainly alcohol and drugs, but what about social media, regular media and entertainment, and the devices that serve those up? What about anything that perpetuates the patriarchy, because isn’t the patriarchy an intoxicant for those who sit at its top? And what about religion as an intoxicant? I’m no Marxist but in my own experience, for better and worse, I can see how religion can be an intoxicant. And then to the even larger question of how I might be “dealing” in any of these, to use the words of Sri Rahula and also the ancient texts, what if it’s not me directly but my clients, or my firm or organization, that’s dealing in these things? 

And then similarly, what is a poison, or a weapon? Maybe I don’t represent the NRA or Monsanto or Coca Cola or any corporation dealing in poisons or weapons of any kind, but again, what about my firm or organization? If I’m a public defender and my client used a weapon and I defend them, where does that put me? I’m honoring the constitution but am I engaged in wise livelihood? And if I’m a prosecutor and I make a plea deal with that defendant, where does that put me?

The same questions arise for me when I think about not dealing in human beings: hopefully I’m not representing anyone engaged in trafficking but what about entertainment? Sports? Is all of that ok? And then what about the earth: what if the work I’m doing is causing harm to the earth? Or not even my work, but the work of clients whom I’m representing for something totally different? 

Once I was working for a developer who took me to this beautiful bluff overlooking the San Francisco Bay and gleefully swept his arms back and forth, explaining where the hundreds of housing units would go, and the school, and the commercial district. I remember wanting to sit down in the grass and cry, but I didn’t. I did the work. 

And then to the even larger question of our investments. Mine are in socially responsible funds but they weren’t always and even though they are now, how closely am I monitoring that? 

I don’t have any answers to any of these questions. But I feel like the questions are important, because what more important thing can we do as lawyers, than to bring as much wisdom, and frankly, as much peace, to the world? Norman Fischer, who, for me, always has such good wisdom, says something about this kind of peace in his book, The World Could be Otherwise. He says, “In meditation you eventually see a direct connection between your fidgeting, your uncomfortable body, your obsessive mind, and your conduct. You see that you never get away with anything, that shoddy conduct casts shadows on your mind and heart that you feel, sooner or later, as mental or physical discomfort when you sit down to meditate. …Hurtful things you used to say and do without particularly noticing…you now understand as consequential…. Accepting this, you are kinder to yourself and everyone else. This kindness, based on a grounded understanding of human nature, is the root of ethical conduct. 

Let’s sit.

“Are you going to practice peace or are you going to war?” – Pema Chodron