Luke 3:14 Meaning Soldiers Also Asked Him

The soldier is the mind organized around force, the part of the self that has learned to secure its safety by threat and by taking. To do violence to no man is to lay down attack as a way of being, for attack is always the mind striking at the guilt it has first placed outside itself. And to accuse none falsely is to stop the ego's favorite work, the manufacture of another's guilt to relieve one's own.

Contentment with one's wages is the quiet that follows when the mind no longer believes it must seize peace from the world. A mind that has stopped attacking and accusing finds it needs nothing more than what it already is, and rests, having discovered that its worth was never something to be wrung from anyone.

Soldier: the mind organized around force, the part of the self that secures its safety by threat and taking, and is asked to lay down attack.

Kamma: Action and its fruit Kamma is deed, and deeds ripen. Soldiers come down to the water asking what to become, and are handed three changes to payday and patrol instead. The ripening follows the hand on the spear, not the uniform it wears.

Sīla: Virtue in conduct Sīla is the training in what body and mouth do. No doctrine gets given to these men, only rules sized to an ordinary day on duty. A change of heart at the river is settled the next morning, when a frightened farmer opens his door to armed men and still keeps his grain.

Adinnādānā veramaṇī: Refraining from taking what is not given This is the precept against theft. Extortion by violence is its plainest form, since a coin handed over with a sword in view was never given, only moved. What gets surrendered is the daily use of the power to frighten, which is most of what makes the work pay.

Musāvādā veramaṇī: Refraining from false speech False speech includes the accusation invented for gain. A soldier's word carries weight before a magistrate, so one sentence from that mouth can put a neighbor in chains with no weapon drawn. Letting it go means letting go of the second income, the shakedown that needs only a report.

Santuṭṭhi: Contentment Santuṭṭhi is satisfaction with what one already has. The pay is fixed and thin, and wanting more is what sends a hand toward a villager's gate in the first place. Enough is a condition of the wanting, and wanting outruns any raise.

Sammā-ājīva: Right livelihood Right livelihood is earning in a way that does no harm. These men keep their post and are told how to hold it, so the trade is measured by what it does to the people standing in front of them. The early texts judge soldiering more harshly than this answer does, though they weigh it on the same scale.