The Love of Money: A Practical Spirituality in Zen Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
Mark 10:25
As somebody raised a poor folks’s Baptist via my childhood and earliest adolescence I heard any quantity of sermons that repeated that passage concerning the camel and the attention of the needle. It’s cited in all three of the Synoptic Gospels.
That thought concerning the wealthy and the poor popped up when somebody on a Facebook feed just lately wrote disparagingly of “millionaires.” He meant the wealthy, of course. And evoked the wealthy of the gospel, whether or not consciously or not. Many tropes and assumptions of our tradition have roots in the scriptures. As a Zen practitioner, I’ve observed it turn out to be a normative assumption. Although I additionally discover, not intently examined.
I do know the sense is bone deep for me. The sermons I heard in my childhood thundered a message that one can’t serve God and mammon. And that the wealthy, by which they understood folks with extra money than it takes to pay the lease and put meals on the desk and to purchase some clothes, have been all in imminent hazard of their immortal souls going through everlasting torture. By my finest guess of their working definition wealthy meant just about anybody from center administration up.
And then, of course, there are the millionaires and the play of thoughts bubbles. I notice that on the coasts, actually right here in Los Angeles, if somebody owns a house outright, say they bought it thirty years in the past; they in all probability fall into the definition of millionaire. That by itself isn’t what I believe after I suppose millionaire. I attempted to dig round for when the time period originated, and what it meant then.
Etymology Online claims an earliest attestation in 1762. Something in French, which isn’t cited nor linked. But I’ve no motive to doubt it. Calculating what that may imply in right now’s {dollars} is difficult. For my functions the query is likely to be what was a millionaire in 1950 value? I believe that’s a tough benchmark for a way folks have been considering all through my childhood. That million {dollars} in the center of the final century is about twelve and a half million {dollars} right now. There are a number of worlds of distinction between having one million {dollars} in actual property, and what was meant in my childhood when somebody was utilizing the phrase millionaire.
I do want so as to add this. Not that housing isn’t prohibitively costly in our time and place. Another level that rolls together with the questions of fairness and justice, which I discover the questions of the wealthy and the poor image. But to not miss that many individuals, perhaps most individuals who personal properties should not in reality wealthy in any sense that deserves disparagement.
The bigger level isn’t “millionaire.” It’s “rich.” Although what wealthy is, is one other image that begs some unpacking. Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the adjective “having abundant possessions and especially material wealth.” In that sense I believe of that line attributed to many individuals, Mae West included, largely, I discover, ladies, “I’ve been poor, and I’ve been rich. Honey, rich is better.” Enough, and maybe greater than sufficient.
But “rich” can also convey a way of extra. It is also inescapably linked to “poor.” Much wealth is constructed upon the labor of others, and typically constructed upon their struggling. And it has been so for so long as people have had historical past. In each tradition there are smaller numbers of folks residing lavishly on the expense of others. That wealthy.
Somewhere in his letters, Karl Marx notes how “Money degrades all the gods of man and converts them into commodities.” He additionally mentioned “The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.” While raised in a nonreligious nominally Christian convert household, Marx’s writings typically appear to channel ancestral rabbis exhorting folks to show away from the idols of wealth. He typically appears extra what I used to be raised to name an Old Testament Prophet. Expressions of an outrage as outdated as human oppressions. Which seems to be very outdated, certainly.
The Jewish custom has at all times held a rigidity between wealth and poverty. It doesn’t condemn wealth. In reality wealth is seen as a blessing. But it calls these with means to not oppress, to be beneficiant, to care for individuals who are poor, and to alleviate their burdens. Proverbs is affected by expressions of take care of the poor. Proverbs 14:21 “Those who despise their neighbors are sinners, but happy are those who are kind to the poor.” and 14:31 “Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him.”
Much of the books of Amos and Micah are rants towards the oppression of the poor by the wealthy. The Jewish custom additionally warns of complicated wealth with godliness. A standard confusion over the ages. The complete ebook of Job activates the falsehood that wealth is the end result of God’s favor.
Then there’s the non secular custom of my grownup life. Buddhism has two messages concerning cash. The one we predict of is that of the onerous evaluation of human harm. Here we’re taught greedy after that which passes away is the doorway to struggling. And every little thing passes away. People who embrace the monastic path, the traditional vinaya, hand over all cash and throw their lives into the palms of these of goodwill. If they’re fed, they eat. If not, nicely, they don’t. In some types of the vinaya a monastic isn’t allowed to the touch cash. An excessive expression of piety that finally ends up creating servers who carry the cash on their behalf.
Not paying consideration makes hypocrites of us all.
For those that don’t take monastic vows the ethics of cash in Buddhism are extra difficult. An instance of the historic Buddha’s counsel to house owners is the Digha Nikaya 31, the Sińgālasutta, which counsels moderation and generosity. It additionally speaks of guarding the household’s wealth and not squandering it. Functionally for individuals who’ve not embraced the monastic path, Buddhist knowledge writ massive, is to not be seduced by cash. Do not let it turn out to be a god.
Not not like one other passage from the Christian scriptures. While I’m not a fan of the letters of Timothy, the product of a hand writing in the crazed apocalyptic mystic Paul’s identify, however a era or so later, and dealing largely with issues of institutional life. But right here it rings true. 1 Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is the root of all of evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
People generally misquote it as “money is the root of all evil.” The turning level is the place do you give your self? What do you’re keen on? What issues? And what issues most? Two issues, not one or the opposite. It’s all perspective.
Speaking of perspective. Me. I used to be raised poor. Not working class, poor. Constantly transferring. Meals got here, but when sizzling canines got here with the macaroni and cheese, it was particular. Memories of my mom’s disgrace when my father was in jail and she discovered shelter for herself and her kids in an unwed mom’s house. The disgrace is the factor that almost all clings to me, all these years later.
I’ve been a monastic. I’ve been poor. I’ve not been wealthy, however I’ve lived the final thirty or extra years of my life center class. American center class. While I respect the complete renunciation of the monastic, and the apocalyptic renunciation of Jesus and (some) of his followers, I discover that center means of the Jewish custom, that center means of the Buddhist custom most useful.
Money, in and of itself, isn’t the issue. Wealth needn’t be the issue. Although it may be. We should be cautious.
Missing that time the cash does should be attended to, in common results in private difficulties. And, as perhaps Mae West mentioned, poor isn’t a great factor. Not involuntary poverty. It’s simply extra struggling.
So. Back to that quote attributed to Jesus. The one a couple of camel and a wealthy man and the attention of a needle. On the one hand a straight out assertion. If you’re wealthy you may’t obtain heaven. On one other, maybe we discover a koan. One of these assertions about the true sure up intimately with an invite.
As the Buddha of historical past instructed in the Sińgālasutta, prudence, and consideration to earthly wants, is an obligation. And, and that is necessary, to disregard that results in harm. Hurt for oneself, and one’s household, and for the larger world.
And. Because.
We are all of us tied up collectively. Preacher Casey was proper. We are all one massive soul. We and this blessed planet. Not one, precisely. But, not two, exactly, both.
And. With that.
One essential level. Any financial system, any nation, any enterprise that ignores our radical interdependence is satanic. To use a Christian time period. Those “millionaires,” these “rich,” the individuals who worship cash over every little thing else, who ignore the calls of the poor, the wants of the world, are to be opposed. They convey no good the world.
And. The most necessary level. Finding our center means is the invitation. Living full in this world with out changing into ensnared. Living full. And when the time comes, let go. In reality residing, hugging, holding, and letting go. Not one. Not a number of.
As my outdated buddy the Zen instructor Grace Schierson mentioned, “I keep all my vows.”
The koan revealed.
Anything else is lacking some massive factors.
Two cents on a Monday…
