Material Success

Yet how painfully do me scheme after wealth, difficult to acquire, easy to dissipate, as that which is got in a dream, how can the wise man hoard up (such trash)?

Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King 867

365 Buddha

Compiled by: Jeff Schmidt

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The top two types of people I can think of that would embrace this thinking are those who have already turned their back on material things for a higher purpose (such as monks, missionaries and some artists or philosophers). Then there are the poor, who pretend they are satisfied with their lot, but dream of striking it rich via the lottery or some other windfall. The poor, who have genuinely accepted their lot in life, are rare. They usually live in places where there is little opportunity to do otherwise. I would advise seeing the documentary “Happy” by Roko Belic for an insight into this perspective.
    We think these examples are sour grapes because most of us would like to get out of the rat-race of living from paycheck to paycheck. There is a spirituality that encourages material success but we rightly see most of the promoters of spiritual materialism as hucksters, hawking feel-good approaches to wealth for the desperate that does little besides stuffing the pockets towards the profit of the prophet. 
   Considering this, in the end, I have to ask myself; how much time did I waste working from Monday to Friday so that I could relax on the weekend and, eventually, retirement? How much time passed as I distracted myself from the inevitable march of time towards death? Pope Francis, regarding this understanding, quotes his mother, “The funeral shroud has no pockets.” He can say this because he is the Pope, but what about us, can I forsake wealth for happiness? Can the awards of love; family, friends and community transcend my needs for power, prestige and profit? I have found it so, but, if I am honest about it, I wouldn’t mind winning the lottery if I could also have the wealth of love in my life. I strongly suspect that, to have all the money in the world and not have love, would be a bleak existence.

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