Money, Karma, or a Zen Strawberry?

Money, Karma, or a Zen Strawberry?

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Dev, Wisdom Quarterly

Good verbal actions, by helping others, are also a store of merit (michaelsaso.org)

 

(Aswin/flickr.com)

For the love of money people will do a great deal. But it is not the money. Paper money grows on trees. We add the significance.

Few love money for money. "Money" is, of course, what it symbolizes -- the effective power to sway.

Money buys lots of things: speech, education, sex, medicine, life, death, knowledge, Congress, the presidency, the Internet, armies, mercenaries, even slaves.

Wait, there's something I can't buy?!

Of course, there is much moneywill not buy: intelligence, wisdom, kindness, empathy, compassion, rebirth in one of the heavens, enlightenment, happiness... These things are of inestimable value. So it is good they are free.

WTF? (idropkid/flickr.com)

 We obsess about money even as our government crashes the "greenback" dollar. Bye-bye, bank account. There will be real property, gold, silver, food, and abilities. When the gas stops flowing, we can put ethanol (alcohol) and vegetable oil in our cars. But will we know how to garden, farm, or grow edible plants? Will we have learned to survive in the concrete jungle? Do we know where every household has a few gallons of potable water hidden without knowing it?

Quit money: Interview

Get it now while it lasts -- get all that money will buy and learn about the things it won't. With a little leisure -- rather than squandering it lamenting or ruminating -- we can get all the industrial world has to offer. Soon enough the famine comes, soon the killing fields, soon the struggle overcomes us. But we are here now.

So be here now. Why worry? Act. Why stress? Do. Why not smile? Smile.

Or ask, WHAT WOULD A WISE PERSON DO RIGHT NOW?

For an answer, think of the original British comedy Bedazzled (1967). The devil is up a telephone pole in Berkshire with a foolish man named Stanley, who sold his soul for seven wishes. Half of them are used up, and he has little prospect of finding happiness and fulfillment trying to use the rest of them. The devil always outsmarts him by giving him exactly what he asked for, which naturally comes with an unsavory twist.