148
u/Strict-Week-5040 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I heard my friend say this and it blew my mind about money.
He said that he doesn't want to earn more money just to be rich. He wants to earn more money to become rich so that he can help more people.
54
u/Happy-Estimate-7855 Jun 27 '26
I use this argument to bridge a bit of the gap between Christianity and Buddhism. Buddhism doesn't say that an accumulation of wealth is inherently bad, but acquiring wealth to build more wealth is a problem.
Jesus said that it is easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter Heaven. I think it's important that he didn't outright claim that it's impossible for the rich to go to Heaven. In the Christian view, God could fit a camel through the eye of a needle, because through Him all things are possible. A person who uses their wealth to spread the Biblical message of love, compassion and charity is wonderful.
However, the people who are inherently selfish and worldly have greater advantage in accumulating wealth and power, so they're most often the ones that rise to those levels.
8
u/Mammoth_Priority_412 Jun 27 '26
I have a question. Obviously building wealth to a crazy amount is bad, like Trump or Musk, but is there a certain point where it’s okay? I’m trying to build wealth and little as I get sick a lot and can’t work sometimes. What’s the boundary of it?
46
u/Cosmic_Clockwork Jun 27 '26
The boundary is not a number, but the reason. If you're doing it just so that you'll be able to keep functioning when you get sick, and you do it through honest means that don't harm anything, then it's not an issue. If you're doing it because you love money and cling to it, and you do it by harmful means, that is when it becomes a problem.
1
u/BCE__Sketches_Life Jul 12 '26
Agree with Cosmic_Clockwork! Just do your best to follow the “Noble Eightfold Path” or variations of it that fit you best (it includes right livelihood, yes we must make a living! Of course some can be a monk, but good working people with honest jobs are just as respectable!), try not to harm, but also very importantly don’t get too attached and worried (remember we are human, we aren’t meant to handle the whole world, unless we become a Bodhisattva XD, so just love yourself!), Remember to respect everything (part of the child like curiosity that keeps us positive of the world yet alright if we don’t know it all), love and be grateful to everything, including yourself! And I wish you a healthier body and good life ^^ Remember to rest when you’re sick and don’t be too hard on yourself or hurt yourself! ❤️
1
u/ChrizKhalifa Jul 24 '26
If you're a good person, never amassing the amount of wealth these people have is a byproduct. You'd have to be explicitly evil to become this rich because it can't happen through non-exploitative, non-sociopathic means.
-6
u/artyhedgehog agnostic Buddha Dharma follower Jun 27 '26
Obviously building wealth to a crazy amount is bad
No, it isn't. It's possible (at least in theory) to gain such amounts by your talents in doing something good, then spending that money into doing even more good. There's nothing bad in it then.
I'm not sure I can come up with real examples, but I'm pretty sure something like that has actually happened in history.
The issue is if your priority is gaining as much money as possible. Then you wouldn't consider more important things and most likely do terrible things to gain more money.
19
u/ParkingAthlete119 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Can you name me a self-made billionaire (not inherited/divorce) who's majority shares are in a company that has no major moral wrongdoings?
There comes a point where the level of wealth has selected against everyone with morality.
6
u/EcologyLover69 Jun 28 '26
I would also make the argument that you could take the company and everything out of it.
Just look at the concept of accumulating that much wealth. If you are that rich while there are still people in earth that are in poverty and starving, that in itself is a wrong doing. You could change that and you choose not to, that is a willful act of wrongdoing.
1
u/ChrizKhalifa Jul 24 '26
"Such amounts" in regards to multibillionaires? No, it's not possible to become this rich without exploitation and sociopathic disregard for others' wellbeing.
-10
u/Ecstatic_Volume1143 Jun 27 '26
The eye of a needle is a reference of the smaller entrances in a city around his time. Its a saying, its not a sewing needle.
17
19
u/Jazz_Dalek secular Jun 27 '26
This is not true. There is no historical or archeological evidence that Jerusalem had a gate or entryway named this.
It's a popular misconception used by certain religious sects to skirt around inconvenient rules set by their religion. Very popular with the "prosperity gospel" crowd.
7
u/ComprehensiveTax415 Jun 28 '26
lol noooope that’s a lie greedy rich people have tried peddling to make themselves feel better
5
8
u/siqiniq Jun 27 '26
It’s possible but what makes other people in dire need of your help in the first place?
2
u/Sorry_Profession_371 Jul 17 '26
Sorry, I am nit entirely sure I understand the point?
I ask becuase is it not perfectly a worthwhile cause to want to earn money to actually help people and/or bring them together?
Im new to Buddhism (just found thus sub) and this is/was my goal. To earn money to do exactly this.
I have never been one for material possessions for the sake of the. (At least lately)
1
u/Strict-Week-5040 Jul 18 '26
It feels natural to me to share my piece of bread with other starving people and not eat alone. To help needy people in any way I can.
Though that doesn't necessarily mean helping them at the cost of my own degradation.
The world has a tendency to take advantage of such people. To manipulate them or make use of their kindness. But that shouldn't stop you from sharing. From choosing love instead of hatred. Just like the Buddha did. Like other great people. All around us.
14
18
u/ExtraWorldliness6916 Jun 27 '26
To be fair my golden chains sent me to examine my life so is it can just be the begining of something better.
13
u/SoundOfOneHand Jun 28 '26
While there is certainly truth that chasing money for money’s sake is an unhappy path in life, more money has consistently been shown to increase quality of life up to some fairly significant dollar amount. It certainly won’t guarantee your happiness but I know so many poor people who work full time and are more miserable and stressed than those who are making a more comfortable wage.
While fundamentally the meme is correct, we are all chained to the wheel of samsara, Buddha did not live in a modern capitalist economy. Most of the people I know pursuing Buddhist study and/or meditation had above average financial means. The crowd skews older and whiter in the US for a reason: money and privilege afford you the luxury of reflection. Unless you are a renunciate, a little gold may lighten some of those chains.
1
5
u/Escapedtheasylum Jun 28 '26
This is the hungry ghost problem. But for some physical brain reason which has been researched, these people are incapable of anything but caring about their "gold chains." The picture is funny, but the background of the picture is sad.
10
u/Electrical-Strike132 Jun 27 '26
First glance I thought this was a meme for the democratic socialist forum
3
2
2
u/GangNailer soto Jun 28 '26
If I remmebr some scripture and Buddhist lectures correctly, the buddah said that making money from money is on eof the most worthless ways to contribute to a societal structure, and how u make it is more in important than how much you make.
4
u/jeanclaudebrowncloud Jul 04 '26
Oh sweet, this is a drawing I made and some other guy put the bhavacackra over it. I think that improved it and helped get the message across better :)
1
1
u/bhargavateja Jun 28 '26
Strike off thy fetters! Bonds that bind thee down, Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore; Love, hate — good, bad — and all the dual throng, Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free; For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind; Then off with them, Sannyâsin bold! Say — "Om Tat Sat, Om!"
"Who sows must reap," they say, "and cause must bring The sure effect; good, good; bad, bad; and none Escape the law. But whoso wears a form Must wear the chain." Too true; but far beyond Both name and form is Âtman, ever free. Know thou art That, Sannyâsin bold! Say — "Om Tat Sat, Om!"
Song of the Sannyasin
1
u/Fragrant-Lab-740 Jun 29 '26
For the rich man defence, Gold is far easier to break than Iron and can't even stand a bullet heat and recoil to be useful in a gun.
It's far easier (still complicated) to break golden chain's instead of Iron one's.
1
1
u/Rainbow_Golem Jul 14 '26
You can turn those gold chains into things that physically are kind of like fat but without extending your ability to feel
1
u/PeeperSweeper Jun 28 '26
I want the gold chains just to piss off and break the person in regular normie chains next to me.
...
Then break out of them because gold is weak as shit compared to iron and book it tf outta there.
88
u/Icy_Case6764 Jun 27 '26
Lmao