B. Judging the ethical value of work
Often when people are looking to measure the standard of the work they are doing they rely too heavily on the amount of praise or criticism they receive from others (see example @E.1 below). The Buddha warned us that to use such an arbitrary measurement as our standard is not foolproof. In the world there are so many people of different viewpoints that you could never please all of the people all of the time. Some people cannot find a word of praise for anyone. Thus whatever the task you do, you cannot listen simply to the criticism of others — because some people’s criticism is possibly without any foundation. You have to measure the quality of work based on reason. Therefore whatever work you are doing, never base your decisions on the criticism of others. What then can you base your decisions on? The Buddha taught that we should make sure any work we do is: