How to bring your wealth to future lives?

[yontenjamyang]

Nice answers. I like HP and BU's answers.

My next question is: Where do you think the wealth (however much or little) that you have came from? I want to narrow it down to MONEY!

Lets discuss! Cheers!

[bambi]

There are 2 answers to what I know. In this life, we can create good karma to support us in future live by giving/helping whomever that needs it. Donating to temples and people are some of the reasons to generate merits and good karma. We definitely can't bring our money to the grave but our karma can follow us in every lifetime. To me, wealth is not necessarily defined as material but spiritual is more important as they too follow us in every life.

[shugdentruth]

i think both spiritual and material wealth are equally important. material wealth can build dharma centers and spiritual wealth can run and grow the dharma centers.

[kurava]

Interesting thread indeed.

First of all, whether one feels wealthy or not is subjective. A person may have 2 dollars under his name but he feels rich enough to give away half his wealth away. While another person may have millions and yet still think he has not possessed enough to give even a dollar. So, the true sign of one is wealthy or otherwise is how generous that person is.

The practice of giving will be the source of wealth to future lives because -
(correct me if I'm wrong) if one is so used to giving in this life, the imprint or habituation will be carried forward to the next life and how wealth/generosity is brought to future lives.

[Amitabha]

You can contribute to needies, disaster rebuilding.
to this forum and other buddhism forum to improve the technical aspect.
to contribute to free medical clinic in buddhism and other free clinic.
to contribute to life liberation of liberating animals.
to contribute to monastery so that the ordained can concentrate on dharma and meditation.
contribute to your family, parents etc.
volunteer yourself in the routine chore in the monastery.
meditational practice
being vegetarianism
it is ok to spend for yourself as buddhism is liberation and bliss.
most importantly is learning dharma and meditational practice to develop and fruition one innate wisdom bliss.
 

[yontenjamyang]

Just would like to point out that many Tibetan will donate their wealth to the monasteries after the pass away. Why?

[Poonlarp]

There's a paragraph in Tara's prayer The Infallible saying "Common world riches, the meaning is like the name, arouse defilement, binding one in Samsara, what jewels, except the Arya, though wishes they grant, can let me take even a sesame seed when I die?"

We even can't bring a sesame seed when we die, how can we bring wealth to next life?

However, although physical wealth cannot bring to next life, we can bring the karma of wealth to next life by creating causes for more resources to come in our future life, by giving in any form.

I think wealth might not come in physical form like money, it could be in the form of resources that we need to live a good life.

[Positive Change]

Interesting thread indeed.

First of all, whether one feels wealthy or not is subjective. A person may have 2 dollars under his name but he feels rich enough to give away half his wealth away. While another person may have millions and yet still think he has not possessed enough to give even a dollar. So, the true sign of one is wealthy or otherwise is how generous that person is.

The practice of giving will be the source of wealth to future lives because -
(correct me if I'm wrong) if one is so used to giving in this life, the imprint or habituation will be carried forward to the next life and how wealth/generosity is brought to future lives.

I like what you said here very much Kurava. Giving is precisely reflective of the motivation and not defined to the actual sum and hence on that very basis one can deduce that wealth in itself is also rather subjective as each person's perception based on their own experiential journey is very different.

And wealth again in its definition, as explained before could also reflect spiritual wealth too. Hence not everything is cut and dry.

[yontenjamyang]

Then what to do with the wealth one generated in this life? Some choices are:

1) Give it all up and become a monk.
2) Manage it well and spread the Dharma. Support the Guru, the Dharma and the Sangha.
3) Do charity regardless of religion and alleviate sufferings somewhat.
4) Don't forget one's family and friend. Do not let wealth be the reason family and friends be adverse to the Dharma. Have a balance.
5) Give all of the balance from the above at death to the Dharma. Not because one wants to bring the wealth into the future life. Karma cannot be predicted. But do that because it give the most benefit to all sentient beings.

We cannot bring even a sesame seed to the next life. And it should not matter. Know that and practice practice practice transformation, Guru Devotion and Dharma work. Then in future lives, you will have the 8 ripened qualities which by the way includes wealth.

LISTEN ALL YOU RICH FOLKS!

[Positive Change]

Then what to do with the wealth one generated in this life? Some choices are:

1) Give it all up and become a monk.
2) Manage it well and spread the Dharma. Support the Guru, the Dharma and the Sangha.
3) Do charity regardless of religion and alleviate sufferings somewhat.
4) Don't forget one's family and friend. Do not let wealth be the reason family and friends be adverse to the Dharma. Have a balance.
5) Give all of the balance from the above at death to the Dharma. Not because one wants to bring the wealth into the future life. Karma cannot be predicted. But do that because it give the most benefit to all sentient beings.

We cannot bring even a sesame seed to the next life. And it should not matter. Know that and practice practice practice transformation, Guru Devotion and Dharma work. Then in future lives, you will have the 8 ripened qualities which by the way includes wealth.

LISTEN ALL YOU RICH FOLKS!

Hahaha... its funny how you directed it to rich folks! I do not think the rich are the main focus here. They are rich for a karmic reason. They must have done something right (or wrong). Why I say this is because depending on how the money "influences" us, depends on whether it is the fruition of good or bad karma.

Some wealthy people "use" their wealth to benefit others (result of good karma) and some wealthy people horde their money and the money itself is a huge attachment and dead weight (result of bad karma).

It is clear that in samsara two similar situation may not always be the result of the same karma.

[pgdharma]

Most people think that having wealth is having "MONEY". Having money can be good or bad, depending on motivation.

If a rich folk gives away his/her wealth for a bigger purpose like donating to dharma institutions, supporting Gurus and monks and doing all the virtuous actions to help the dharma to spread then he/she is collecting wealth in the form of "MERITS' which he/she can bring to future lives. Likewise, if he/she is doing the opposite than it is not possible to collect merits to bring to future lives.

[RedLantern]

People who really understands the fleeting nature of the world,practices detachment from worldly things. It's a well known fact that material wealth cannot be transfered to our future lives but people generally never give much thought towards past or future lives,hence much is focused on this present life.
People with Dharma knowledge have better awareness compared to those who don't.We should not concentrate solely on outer wealth but also to cultivate inner wealth which is important because it can be brought to our future lives to create conditions for  us to receive Dharma again.

[Aurore]

"After death my good and bad karma follows me like my shadow."

On the subject of purely attaining monetary wealth in our next lives, it definitely depend solely on karma. Having wealth doesn't necessary mean it's a positive karma. In fact, it can be the result of negative karma if having wealth means taking life for granted, indulge in samsaric pleasure which takes time away from learning the dharma.

The best thing to do to "secure" money (material wealth) in the next life is to always have the motivation to have money to benefit others. Hoping to have money for ourselves does not guarantee it.

By giving and being generous with money, one can create the causes to receive back. What you give, you get. Sponsoring a spiritual teacher or a centre is the best thing you can do if you have wealth because of its nature which is to benefit many many people. So what if you don't have wealth this lifetime? I guess you can make aspiration that you will come back again and again to be a sponsor to help spread the holy dharma.

[sonamdhargey]

We definitely cannot bring  money to our next life. What we bring to our next life is our karma. The results of next life depends on what we have done this life be it positive or negative. Karma follow us like our shadow.

If our motivation in this life is to benefits others sincerely, practice the dharma, spread the dharma, we collect merits for the future (future lifes). Creating causes for good rebirth, eg: well to do, born in a good family, meet the dharma and etc.

If we have bad motivation, self cherishing make a lot of money by harming others, further indulging in samsara, hurting, cheating we collect negative karma. Creating the causes for bad rebirth. However bad rebirth does not mean poor, a person can be very rich but suffers tremendously due to negative karma. Eg: They get robbed all the time, get cheated and etc.

Bring money to next life? Not directly. But we can create the causes to have a good rebirth.

[ratanasutra]

After death, we not even can bring our own body which we attached, then how we can bring material wealth with us..
but we still can have wealth again if we made a lot of wealth to temple, charity in previous life according to the law of cause and effect..  Hence if we want material wealth in our future life then we should make a lot of donation to sangha, temple, charity places.. 

we give then we get...