For lay people, the right livelihood means earning one’s living in an ethical way, where one does business honestly, straightforwardly, without cheating others, and without lying. One also does not have an occupation that involves harming, like working for the military, a bomb factory, or an insecticide company.

For monastics, the right livelihood means living on alms and obtaining the four requisites of food, clothing, shelter and medicine in a suitable way. It means not pretending to be a great practitioner when one is not, deceiving others or dropping hints, flattering people, putting them in positions where they cannot say no, or bribery — giving a small gift in order to receive a larger one in return. These are what the lamrim calls the five wrong livelihoods. Right livelihood is something all of us can apply to our lives. Difficulties may come up and nothing is totally karma-free, but we should do the best we can in the situations that we are living in.

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