Author Topic: Is money evil?  (Read 50728 times)

Jason Statham

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #30 on: August 21, 2015, 11:14:48 AM »
  It is kinda sad that they really think that having a big amount of money is true happiness and worse of all, they think doing Dharma is not worth it. Of course it is very important to have a good job in life so that you will be able to support your family and be financially free. But no matter what, doing Dharma work is still more important because our good and bad karma follows us like our shadow and it will never leave us until we gain enlightenment but money/wealth will. All the money we make in this lifetime can only be use during this lifetime, which means we won't be able to bring money to our next lives. They do not understand or don't really care what you say is not because they want to but it is mainly because of their Karma which is preventing them from practicing Dharma. Money is definitely not evil, money is just an object. But it is affecting most people's lives is because of their obsession, greed and attachment. So it is the human nature that is bad, not the money.

Midakpa

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #31 on: August 23, 2015, 10:29:58 AM »
Money in itself is not evil. But our attitude towards money is important. One must not be attached to money. Then it becomes "tanha" which can lead to evil actions. Wealth must be gained through right livelihood, and without deceit. The five harmful livelihoods are: dealing with firearms, living beings, flesh, intoxicants and poison. The Buddha had laid down rules for the lay practitioner regarding the use of his earnings which should be divided into four parts:
"One portion let him spend and taste the fruits,
His business to conduct let him take two.
And portion four let him reserve and hoard.
So there'll be wherewithal in time of need".

The good householder, therefore devotes one quarter of his earnings to meet his personal needs, two quarters for the conduct of his trade, the fourth quarter he reserves to meet emergencies in time of need. He would guard himself from unwholesome activities which may tend to dissipate his hard-earned wealth. In this connection, the Buddha advised the householder to abstain from activities that drains one's wealth. These are: addicting one-self to liquor, frequenting the streets at unseemly hours, haunting fairs, becoming addicted to gambling, associating with evil companions and having the habit of idleness.

eyesoftara

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #32 on: September 04, 2015, 03:21:19 AM »
Money is definitely not evil as in any object in the world. It is always the mind and the motivation that is evil, neutral or spiritual. Like a knife for example, money can be used to benefit or to do harm or to just sustain oneself.
Further one should not be attached to money for the sake of what it can bring; and with this kind of thinking it is usually negative things that generate negative karma. Money can be use to benefit the Dharma and practitioners. It is the highest way that money can be use.

I just like to quote the following:


"We can own money, as much as we money as we can, but never let the money own you".

Matibhadra

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #33 on: November 18, 2015, 10:57:04 PM »
Money, in principle, is just and asset such as gold or silver, or its paper representation, which is convenient for practical reasons. As such, money is not in itself good or evil, as gold and silver are not good or evil in themselves.

However, most people are not aware that the greatest part (90% or more) of what we call “money” in the West is not the representation of any asset, but rather just fictive numbers created and sold by bankers on the basis of deposits left under the bankers' care by their customers.

In other words, Western private bankers create an illusory, fictive wealth, which they call “money”, on the basis of an actual wealth which does not belong to them (at an approximate rate of 10 units of fictive wealth per unit of actual wealth), and sell to the public such fictive wealth, charging high interests for it.

Besides, countries such as the US enforce the use of the dollar by weaker countries in their international transactions, which allows the US to issue as many trillions of fake dollars, mere pieces of printed paper, as they want, without suffering the effects of inflation themselves, and actually exporting such inflation to their vassal-victim countries. Uncomplying countries are immediately subject to US-led sanctions, containments, reprisals, wars, invasions, terrorist attacks, and so forth. Examples are Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Nasser's Egypt, Saddam's Iraq, Allende's Chile, and so forth and so forth.

Through this trick, such Western bankers drain the wealth of the people, and control whole countries such as the US, let alone their vassal countries, through the enforced use dollar, forced loans, volatile interests, and debt. Other names for this is mass deception, lying, and stealing. This also explains why banker-related lobbies such as the AIPAC are the most powerful institutions in US, deciding who is going or not going to be the next president, and what he is allowed or not to do.

The banker Mayer Amschel Rotshild famously said: “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!” What most people also ignore is the the US Federal Reserve, which issues and control the money in US, is not a public, federal institution, as its deceptive name suggests, but rather a private institution, run by a small pool of private bankers, often referred to a “banksters”.

Thus understood, what Westerners know as “money” is definitely an evil in itself, because it is the unique tool of a great deception against countless people, and at the very root of wars, individual and mass poverty, terrorism, dictatorships, and almost every single evil of modern society.

Interestingly enough, old Tibet, the feudal theocracy, led by the likes of the evil dalie, was also run by moneylenders, landlords and monasteries, which kept about 95% of the population enslaved by debts. No wonder that such cruel moneylenders, once having been kicked away by Tibetans with the brotherly help of the Chinese, found refuge with Western financiers such as George Soros and the Rockefellers, the respective sponsors of the evil dalie and of the Sakya “royal” family -- both the latter by the way obsessive anti-Shugdenpa witch-hunters.

Andrea Keating

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #34 on: November 27, 2015, 07:25:54 AM »
Is money EVIL? Not at all.  It is what arises in our mind that leads to a virtuous or non-virtuous action.  I don’t think evil is a word commonly used in Buddhism as the teaching basically taught that the root to all sufferings are the three poisons :  Ignorance, Attachment and Aversion.  These unwholesome roots lead us to act in a way that draws us further into suffering.  For example, because of having money we experience comfort.  With comfort we get attached to the material things that provide us the comfort.  Once we are attached to them we wish to have more, to the extent that we grasp on them.  That’s when fear arises.  At this point, the thought of losing the comfort we see as happiness would scare the shit out of us that we would do anything to sustain the level of comfort experienced if not more.  The fear of losing it all and the greed of wanting more are what cause us to be evil.  Not the money at all.     

Klein

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #35 on: November 29, 2015, 05:11:36 PM »
As we know in samsara generally people are in the suffering cause by the 3 poisons. Everything that causes us dissatisfaction, pain or outright suffering stems from one of these three elements’. The three poisons are Greed, Hatred and Delusion.

The money itself is not evil and not the cause for any of our problem. It’s us when one of the poison "greed" triggered our motivation. If we are greedy to have it for more samsaric reasoning we will just continue in the trap and never get out because we set our objective of life is to have more and more money. Ended up we slave our whole life for chasing money and in order to have more we could even engage ourselves in more bad action. The money will never ask us to have them more is our greed gave us a fake promises of happiness.

The antidote of this is to develop generosity and equanimity.  Be content with what you have, not yearning after what you don’t have.  That is not to say that you become indolent or lazy with no will to progress.  Every Buddhists wants to move forward, to grow and gain insight but it is important not to mortgage your present happiness and contentment in the hope that you will achieve better things at some future time.  Learn to think more about the needs of others rather than yourself.

I agree with you to a certain extent. Wanting to earn more money depends on the motivation of wanting more money. If it is predominantly for selfish reasons, then it will create more unhappiness for the person. If it is for altruistic reasons, then it will not degenerate the person but enable the person to do more for others with the extra resources.

Money enables us to buy convenience and comfort. What's important is our motivation for pursuing more money and we need to be clear and honest with this question.

Tenzin K

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #36 on: December 01, 2015, 05:23:33 PM »
Money is not evil but how we perceive money that make it evil.

Money is a transaction medium for almost everything now in the world. So by right we are the one control the money but unfortunately as our greed getting more and we believe that by having more money is the true happiness of life and end up we are being control by money and become their slave.

The focus on just getting more money has covered the real meaning of life.
If we read up on those successful people how wealthy they are and at the end of their journey actually they regret for just spending their life chasing for money. Look at Bill Gates, Steve Jobs….. read up about them as they give you a very good example how much they spend their liver to be where they are now but they regret and what material wealth they have now is nothing important for them because they realize that when they leave this world nothing that they can bring along.

What important is to realize that what ever material wealth we gain now we can bring it after we die and if we believe in reincarnation then we need to learn what make one take rebirth and how it works and what needed for one to come back as a human.

For us to understand reincarnation we shall believe in karma and be at the good side of the karma is to develop compassion with wisdom through the right conduct. Buddhist teaching is a guide to lead us to the right conduct and true and eternal happiness.

Kim Hyun Jae

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #37 on: December 06, 2015, 04:17:00 AM »
Money is evil or no evil depends on perception. If money is used for a good cause to benefit, then money becomes a useful tool to have. If money is out to use in order to harm others or make use of others or use it to threaten others, then money becomes evil. It finally depends on the motivation of what "money" is used for.

Midakpa

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #38 on: December 06, 2015, 11:15:16 AM »
There are guidelines for the Buddhist layman on how to earn and use his wealth. The Buddha recognized the fact that the success of a layman depends greatly upon his wealth and finances. He pointed out that it is essential for the householder to increase his wealth and to use his wealth for the welfare of his wife and children, servants, workers and beasts of burden. The Buddha had also stressed that it is the duty of the lay follower to support the sangha and help them meet their temporal needs. In return, they receive spiritual guidance from the sangha. The Buddhist layman must acquire his wealth by right means and for this he follows a righteous form of livelihood, avoiding deceit, treachery, soothsaying, trickery, usury and the five harmful trades such as dealing in arms, living beings, flesh, intoxicants and poison. Whatever trade is pursued by him, is conducted so that it does not harm anyone.

gbds3jewels

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #39 on: January 06, 2016, 02:24:51 AM »
Money is a piece of printed paper and these days it's just a number on the computer screen. How evil can that be? What harm can a piece a printed paper do to you? What is evil and what destroys us is the perception and the illusion we gave that piece of printed paper. It's our mind, what we create in our mind, the false values we put into material objects that make them evil. Money is not evil, we are, our mind is.

Shugdener

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #40 on: January 16, 2016, 01:49:23 PM »
In my opinion, "Money" isn't evil, it's the particular person and his/her intention on how he/her would intend to use the money for that defines if money is evil or good.

Some people have a lot of money but they choose to spend it on materialistic goods for themselves, on the other end of the scale there are rich people like Bill gates, Mark Zuckerburg and a few others who choose to channel their wealth to those who are poor and in need.

So if we compare these two scenarios, Money can be described as something evil or a tool.

This is why I don't see money as evil because ultimately it is up to oneself to choose how they would spend the money on, whether to spend it on themselves or to help those in need.

grandmapele

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #41 on: January 28, 2016, 06:46:25 AM »
In my opinion, money by itself is not evil. It has no consciousness to plot evil. By itself, it cannot do anything. it is humans who with their expectations and wants put a motive behind it. It is this wanting and grasping that makes pursuit of money so insidious and all encompassing. It is this grasping that makes the need for money evil, so to speak.

Money can be good or bad depending on what and how you use it. So, it is the intention or motive of the wielder that creates the good or evil, not the money per se.

For example, a car is a car and by itself cannot kill. It is the driver whose lack of skill and love of speed that creates the situation where the car can kill.

dharmacrazy79

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #42 on: May 25, 2016, 10:51:54 AM »
I do not believe anything that is without a mind or consciousness has the capacity to be evil. The evil or holiness stems from the relationship a mind has with these objects and matters. This is because, in itself, all these phenomena does not have true meaning. For example, money has changed from from salt to gold to notes and coins. Is salt good or bad? Is gold good or bad? Is notes and coins good or bad? The answer is actually they are neither good nor bad. They are just...that. However, the attachment users of money has towards money is what causes destruction, suffering and the vicious cycle of existence in samsara.

Similarly, relationship, power and beauty are not bad. What is bad is our attachment towards them and out fear of losing them that is detrimental to the peace of our mind. It is this relationship we have with them the prevents our mind from progressing and reaching higher potentials.

This is why dharma focus on the mind and how it views the world. If we can change this view, we are able to change to world.

Matibhadra

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #43 on: May 25, 2016, 08:26:30 PM »
Quote
I do not believe anything that is without a mind or consciousness has the capacity to be evil.

The mara, or evil, of death is without a mind or consciousness, but is still an evil. Samsara is an evil, but it lacks a mind or consciousness. Ignorance is itself the very lack of consciousness, and is the very root of evil. Therefore, your newly invented argument lacks any Buddhist lineage.

Money, as mere tool of liquidity, is arguably neutral. However, money as it is known in US and its vassal countries, a worthless piece of paper issued by private moneylenders, as of late necessarily Jews such as Greenspan, Bernanke, or Yellen, in order to deceive, exploit, subjugate, and destroy peoples, families, cultures, and countries, is definitely an evil, and arguably the root economic and social evil afflicting our world.

Just like chemical weapons, or atomic bombs, or racist supremacist ideologies such as Judaism, such money lacks mind, but is definitely an evil.

dharmacrazy79

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Re: Is money evil?
« Reply #44 on: June 04, 2016, 02:06:44 AM »
Money is not evil. It is actually nothing if not for the value that man imputed into it. Money has changed form over the course of time from salt to gold to tin to the current notes and coins. Are any of these forms of money bad? Not really, what makes money evil is our attachment to it. Money can change people to become greedy, violent, unethical etc. because people cannot live without it. People develop this perception because of social conditioning...and again, the source of this is people. Hence, money is not evil. Our relationship with it is what makes it dangerously harmful. Similarly, relationships, beauty, power are all not evil, it is our non-virtouos reaction to it that is bad.