Hi Everybody,
Can I just thank everybody for the sort of feedback I've been getting all week as a result of Jason's podcast of the first chapter of The Case for Buddhism. It's been just amazing. Jason's Buddhist Podcast of course has been going for much longer than the blog and has a far wider reach, so it pulls in more response, but for any writer, there's just nothing to equal the pleasure and the satisfaction that comes from knowing that people are reading your stuff, and that it seems to be useful. So...thank you. Right thisepisode, we're in the middle of this quite complex chapter on Buddhism and money. We've covered a number of important issues in the last two episodes. on the way in which the pursuit of money has been shown to affect, or distort our value system, and we've come to this key question, what does Buddhism have to say about all this? Well, let's see.
' As I mentioned earlier, since Buddhism claims to be about our ordinary daily lives, and since money undoubtedly has a very important part to play in those daily lives, Buddhism somehow has to embrace that fact in its teachings. Man may not be able to live by bread alone, as the Christian scriptures tell us, he needs some sort of spiritual life as well, but he certainly needs to be able to buy bread! That is to say, he needs money. The fact is that Buddhism has a lot to say that is refreshingly direct about wealth and how we might best relate to it. Perhaps the crucial point we need to grasp, mainly because it runs directly counter to a widely held stereotype, is that Nichiren Buddhism is not in any way about not wanting things, or not having things, or indeed about giving things up. How could it be, since it is about the reality of daily life, and part of that reality for all of us, is to have things?
So Nichiren Buddhism is not about diminishing or reducing or setting arbitrary limits, on what we might or might not possess. Not at all. It teaches simply that since we clearly have extensive physical as well as spiritual needs, we have to attend to both if we are to achieve the most meaningful and the most fulfilling and value-creating lives of which we are capable. That, it teaches, is the very purpose of our lives, and the key to achieving success in this, as in so many things, Buddhism argues, is establishing a keen sense of balance.
Earthly desires.
Those physical needs are often described as earthly desires, not earthly in any pejorative or derogatory sense, but simply in the sense that they are needs and wants that relate to the material aspects of our life. And Buddhism clearly accepts them as playing an essential role our sense of well-being. That is to say, they are not in any way marginal. Wanting things is part of our basic humanity and has been ever since there have been things to want from sharp stone hand axes and pretty cowrie shells, used for currency in several primitive societies, to a better paid or more satisfying job and a more comfortable home, and a car big enough to carry the whole family and the dog, and a bit of spare cash for an enjoyable holiday. Buddhism is ordinary daily life.
So Buddhism makes clear that we shouln't in any way try to reject, or try not to think about these wholy natural wants in our life, or see them as somehow separate from or worse, in conflict with our spiritual life. Because there is no conflict. Not at this everyday, ordinary level of wanting. It doesn't really matter what it is that launches us down the road of establishin ggoals for our life, and then committting ourselves to a Buddhist practice as a way of strengthening our lives and setting out to achieve them. The understanding that lies at the very heart of Buddhism, and proven over countless lifetimes, is that once we set off down this it will inevitably draw out the perception that what we are really seeking is meaning and purpose, and a sense of self-worth, and the durable sense of well-being that comes from the exercise of compassion and altruism, whetehr or not we happen to achieve those material goals we set out with.'
That's it for today. I'm in the middle of a new book so it's quite difficult to do two episodes a week, but I am trying to make sure that there is a regular weekly episode.
See you next time,
William
The book The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle as a download. And, once a month as a Buddhist Podcast. We've already recorded Chapters 2 and 3.
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