Hi Everybody,
We're in the middle of a discussion about the nature of happiness in the modern world and we've come to the question that we're bound to bump into sooner rather than later...what about buying it? We cover the complex issue of Buddhism and Money in chapter 11 but we can't leave this happiness discussion without at least touching upon the immense importance most of us attach to the role of money in any picture of happiness we paint for ourselves. It's bound to crop up in any modern discussion of what constitutes well-being. And if Buddhism is daily life...what does Buddhism have to say about it, to help us in our approach, and what kind of additional insights can the social scientists provide us with?
Edward Diener for example, from the University of Illinois, psychologist and eminent researcher in this field, is one among many who has written about the materialist dead end or what he calls the downside of today's vastly greater affluence. And there has been a huge amount of research by him and others that points to two key ways in which this has a profound effect in diminishing our sense of well-being, both of which I suggest, could sit quite comfortably in the middle of a Buddhist commentary about the suffering that can come from just....wanting things!
One is that there is so much to be hungered after in our modern society, so much more on display in glossy showrooms and shopping malls and supermarkets and so on, that it has become a powerful external cause of inner discontent. It's a bit like all those sweets and chocolates on display at the checkout queue that can cause children to kick up so much fuss. They want them because they can see them, and can't understand why they can't have them. In very much the same way people can experience a real sense of loss and deprivation and frustration because they can't possess, can't carry away more of the stuff that's on display. In no way is it difficult to empathise with that frustration. It rings absolutely true. Most of us have been there to some degree.
The second is related to the vast wave of media of all sorts that washes over all our lives these days. So we are all constantly being called upon to measure ourselves, who we are and what we have against an endless procession of supposed role models in film and television and countless life-style magazines who are presented as being highly successful and vastly better of and therefore by implication....so much happier!
The equation seems to go wholly unquestioned, success equals wealth equals happiness. Although of course we all know intellectually that that is sheer nonsense. There is no such simple connection, or indeed any connection. But emotionally it gets to us.
and that of course is precisely the way the modern marketing and advertising machine goes to work, playing with immense skill on our natural human tendency to compare ourselves with others, and therefore focus on what we haven't got, as opposed to what we have.
That is to say, it is another immensely powerful external cause of inner discontent.
Once again it's clear that Nichiren Daishonin was acutely aware of exactly this same human weakness when he highlights the futility and the intense suffering that can come from that sort of comparison itch. He writes,
' For example a poor man cannot earn a penny just by counting his neighbour's wealth, even if he does so night and day. '
OK enough said I think for one episode. Been very busy for past couple of weeks on a writing brief so missed a couple of episodes. I'll be back middle of the week tom pick up the argument.
Best wishes,
William
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