Is money evil?

[sonamdhargey]

Recently i've encountered some people that are all about money money money. All they want is money and will go through anything to obtain it. The purpose of them obtaining money is obviously for aquisition. material gain. They live in constant fear and always alert and being suspicious that other will cheat them or conned them all their money. They always go get a goof job high paying job and don't waste time volunteering and working for the dharma. They said we should use our precious time to obtain money. It is the only way to happiness. Ironically the root cause of happiness is their garsping for material, greed and desire. No matter how much i try to explain to them that they are suffering from very much, yet they still want to go on and on about it. The more they obtain the more they need to guard it, maintain it and so no and so forth.

Any of you guys encounter these type of situation? Is money evil or the demons is within us? What would you do to help these type of situation?

[sonamdhargey]

To me money is a tool. We can us it for good use or we can use it for bad use. Money can be obtained for personal reasons or can to be obtained to benefit many people. Just like Buddhist centres requires a lot of money to build and maintain and the money use is to retain the dharma and spread the dharma. Some philanthropist use the money for good use like Bill Gates and many others.

[Tenzin K]

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.

[Ensapa]

money itself is not evil, but what people do to get it and what people use it for makes it evil. In some societies where money becomes more important than human life, that is where things go very wrong. Money by itself is just another tool for humans to survive and to exchange goods and to get things going, so there is nothing wrong with that. It is the people behind the money that makes it good or evil.

[Jessie Fong]

My ex-boss told me that he does not love money but the power that comes with money. But he used his money in a negative way, forcing suppliers to go against policies and procedures by withholding payments, not keeping to his side of the deal. 

Well, karma worked its way and suppliers ended up not wanting his business deals and one creditor took him to court for non-payment.

Money in itself is not evil ... it is the ways how we use it that creates the evil that it is associated with.

[RedLantern]

Money is in itself not evil but the obsession with material things can lead to a lot of personal problem,there's no doubt about that.Money makes life easier,but after we die,it doesn't do us much good.It pays the bills,and impresses the greedy,but,it can't buy true happiness.
The Buddha said, "Monks,if you want to be free from suffering,you should contemplate knowing how much is enough.By knowing it,you are in the place of enjoyment and peacefulness.If you know how much is enough,you are contented even when you sleep on the ground.If you don't know it,you are discontented even when you are in heaven.You can feel poor even if you have much wealth. You will be constantly be pulled by the five sense desires and pitied by those who know how much is enough.This is those who know how much is enough.This is called "to know how much is enough".

[DS Star]

To me money is a tool. We can us it for good use or we can use it for bad use. Money can be obtained for personal reasons or can to be obtained to benefit many people. Just like Buddhist centres requires a lot of money to build and maintain and the money use is to retain the dharma and spread the dharma. Some philanthropist use the money for good use like Bill Gates and many others.

Exactly, money is just a tool for us to do good or bad...

Money itself has no evil energy. It is us, the human, with our wrong view and attachment, that use it for "evil" things... so how can we blame 'money', a thing without any fixed and permanent value?

As a matter of fact, with lots of money we can a lots of good things like charity works and spreading dharma to help other sentient beings.

[angelsherfield]

Money money money....

Money can fullfill a person's need and desire to own something. Money can help someone to own branded items and got the chance to show off in public. However, money also do change someone personalities such as become more greedy, increase inner and outer ego, and etc. it can change a person to a stage "No money no talk". The person may even think money can buy own happiness. That is selfish happiness.

However, There is something that cannot use money to buy is our health and true happiness. Nowadays people work hard to earn more money without taking care of own health. Some people even thought that they find true happiness when they are having money to  buy or own something.

But what it's so important for having a healthy life and true happiness. When we are healthy, we can live longer. With this healthy life, we can help others to pass through their difficulties as long as we still alive in his world.. When others' difficulty is resolved and the person being helped feel happy, you will find yourselves are happier compared to last time.

[fruven]

To me money is a tool. We can us it for good use or we can use it for bad use. Money can be obtained for personal reasons or can to be obtained to benefit many people. Just like Buddhist centres requires a lot of money to build and maintain and the money use is to retain the dharma and spread the dharma. Some philanthropist use the money for good use like Bill Gates and many others.

Exactly, money is just a tool for us to do good or bad...

Money itself has no evil energy. It is us, the human, with our wrong view and attachment, that use it for "evil" things... so how can we blame 'money', a thing without any fixed and permanent value?

As a matter of fact, with lots of money we can a lots of good things like charity works and spreading dharma to help other sentient beings.

Money money money....

Money can fullfill a person's need and desire to own something. Money can help someone to own branded items and got the chance to show off in public. However, money also do change someone personalities such as become more greedy, increase inner and outer ego, and etc. it can change a person to a stage "No money no talk". The person may even think money can buy own happiness. That is selfish happiness.

However, There is something that cannot use money to buy is our health and true happiness. Nowadays people work hard to earn more money without taking care of own health. Some people even thought that they find true happiness when they are having money to  buy or own something.

But what it's so important for having a healthy life and true happiness. When we are healthy, we can live longer. With this healthy life, we can help others to pass through their difficulties as long as we still alive in his world.. When others' difficulty is resolved and the person being helped feel happy, you will find yourselves are happier compared to last time.

People like to blame things, putting the responsibilities to others. Money is a non-living thing, people also blame it on their own greediness. If we are greedy and desire to begin with it can be money or non-monetary stuff we grab it all. It happens that money is the common denominator for exchange of goods and luxury goods and you whatever material comforts money can buy, a buyer and a willing seller. Everywhere you can see advertisement encouraging you to buy, it is legal some more.

If money can change someone personalities it is the personality of the person and not the money. Using the money as a tool to exert control on others, it is a power issue. Instead of using weapons or guns, which are illegal in many parts of the world, money is used to control others. By hoarding the money thru whatever means and using the large amount of money to exert control on others.

[dondrup]

Money is not evil.  Having more money is also not evil! What is the motivation of us having money and more money?  If the motivation is to benefit others, then it is alright to have more money.

Many worldly people do not realize the true meaning of happiness.  Instead of developing their inner wealth, they focus solely on developing outer wealth.  Furthermore, due to their ignorance, attachment and aversion, they have created a lot of negative karma in relation to money!

[Midakpa]

Many people think that they can solve all their problems just by having money. I used to think like that too. But they do not realise that money cannot solve all problems. This is because they do not contemplate and think things through properly. All their lives they chase after money. They think that the objects of their desire can be obtained through money - houses, cars, yachts, airplanes, even islands. When one chase ends, the excitement disappears and new desires arise. Getting the object appears not quite satisfying.

Money is not something for us to accumulate out of desire. It is intended for our welfare, as well as the welfare of others. We must use our wealth wisely to make this world a better place, for example, to reduce the suffering of the poor, the sick and the aged. Fulfill our duties to our community, our country and our religion. When the time comes for us to leave the world, we will have immense peace when we recall the selfless deeds that we have done. We cannot take our property with us when we die. Our friends and relatives cannot follow us. Only our good and bad actions (karma) will follow us beyond the grave.

Thus, for our happiness, we should acquire wealth righteously and use it well. The Buddha said, " Blessed are  they who earn their living without harming others." With an abundance of ill-used wealth, it becomes impossible to obtain simple things in life like friendship, trust and confidence. Thus if we want happiness, we must practice the paramita of generosity.

[dsiluvu]

Well here' an interesting article.......... what do you think???

Money: A Buddhist Perspective
Published on Sunday, 12 September 2010 15:03 | Written by Edward |  |

 
Money. A popular subject. And more so now than ever, when so much of it seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Eddy Canfor-Dumas investigates from a Buddhist angle
In 2008 the world experienced the greatest financial crisis since the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and in this country we’re currently inching out of the worst recession for more than sixty years. We have a record public debt and no one quite knows how paying it off is going to affect their taxes, their jobs or the services on which they might rely, now or in the future. A lot of people are worried. Some are scared. Nearly everyone is concerned, even if the effects haven’t yet reached them.
 
Most people think about money in a pretty straightforward way: How can I get some? How can I keep it? How should I spend it? And how can I get some more? But I'd like to encourage you to delve deeper. Because I think Buddhism has some very interesting things to say about money, and which touch directly on the current state of the world’s finances.
 
I’ll start with some comments on the recent crash by Daisaku Ikeda, the president of  Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the international Buddhist lay organisation to which I  and others involved with This Way Up belong. The comments come from his 2009 Peace Proposal – he publishes one each year on 26 January, and this year was his twenty-eighth. He says:
 
When looking at the present financial crisis, we have to ask if we as a society have not … fallen prey to the Medusa-like spell of the abstract and anonymous world of currency, losing our essential human capacity to see through to the underlying fact that – however necessary it may be to the functioning of human society – currency is nothing other than an agreement, a kind of virtual reality.
 
If, for example, a company loses sight of its public aspect of contributing to the larger society, and serves only the private interests of its stockholders – their insistence on short-term profit – it will relegate to secondary or even tertiary importance its concrete connections with the real world of real people, whether these be management, employees, customers or consumers.
 
…The time has now come for a new way of thinking, for a paradigm shift that will reach to the very foundation of human civilization.
 
So I hope this article will offer a new way of thinking, based on Buddhist teachings, that could help us make the paradigm shift that Daisaku Ikeda urges in the passage above.
 

In doing this I’m aware, of course, that religion and money have never made comfortable bedfellows. In fact most people think of them as being diametrically opposed. ‘The love of money is the root of all evil,’ warns Timothy in the Bible, with Matthew adding that, ‘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’.  The painting on the left of Christ driving the money-lenders from the temple, attributed to the 17th century French painter Le Valentin, is typical of the traditional Christian attitude. 
 
The tension between the spiritual and the material side of life can be seen in Buddhist teachings, too. Shakyamuni, the historical founder of Buddhism, felt he had to renounce his life of luxury as a crown prince if he was to find the answer to what he saw as the four inescapable sufferings of human life: birth (into this world of anguish), ageing, sickness and death. And in many parts of the world, notably the countries of Southeast Asia, his example is still followed today by Buddhist monks. They, too, have largely renounced the material world – by tradition they are allowed to own just three robes, a girdle, an alms-bowl, a razor, a needle and a water strainer; and they live by begging food each day from lay believers.
 
One reason why people tend to think of religion and money as incompatible is that when they mix the result is so often flagrant corruption. And it seems that the basic pattern is the same for all ages and all religions. From the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages to some modern day American TV evangelists, the unscrupulous religious practitioner convinces a gullible congregation that they can gain spiritual or material benefit, in this world or the next, through financial donation. And then he or she uses the money to fund a lavish lifestyle.
 
Buddhism has not been immune to this corruption. So wealthy did some monasteries grow in Japan between the 10th and 16th centuries, for example, that they formed private militias of armed Buddhist monks – the sohei –  to defend their property, attack rival sects and even threaten the government.
 
In fact, Shakyamuni taught that spiritual decline is inevitable in any successful religion, including Buddhism.
 
Initially, a religion’s growth is fuelled by the purity of its pioneers, men and women who clearly recognise its benefits and share it enthusiastically with their friends and families.  But as the religion gradually becomes established in society, as the congregation grows and the money pours in and magnificent buildings are erected, little by little it loses its original purity of purpose. A priestly class grows up that increasingly becomes more intent on protecting the material wealth it has accumulated than the spiritual well-being of its followers; and so inevitably a divide grows and widens between clergy and laity.  Eventually, says Shakyamuni, the religion falls into conflict with itself – ‘reformists’ clash with ‘conservatives’; ‘fundamentalists’ with ‘progressives’; ‘idealists’ with ‘realists’.  And the conflict is as much about material style as spiritual doctrine.
 
I’m sure, as I describe this, some of you will be thinking of the history of the Christian Church; for example, of how the excesses of the Medici pope Leo X helped trigger the Reformation. But an equally decisive split occurred in Buddhism in the centuries that followed Shakyamuni’s death.
 
Broadly speaking, this split also centred on the relationship of the material to the spiritual. But while the Reformation arose as a reaction to the material corruption of the Catholic Church, the Buddhist Mahayana movement grew from the opposite pole – as a reaction to the extreme spiritual conservatism of monastic Buddhism.
 

Mahayana Buddhists objected to the view that one could become enlightened only by renouncing ordinary daily life, entering a monastery and devoting oneself entirely to spiritual practice. This was not what the Buddha had intended, they argued – he had preached a path to enlightenment for all, not merely an elite few. And besides, these monks were only able to devote themselves to their spiritual path thanks to the material support of the lay community, who could benefit only indirectly.
 
Mahayana means ‘Greater Vehicle’ and indicates the desire of this movement to promote a teaching that could carry all people to enlightenment; monastic Buddhism they labelled Hinayana, the ‘Lesser Vehicle’, that could carry only a few to the same goal (though this negative term is now generally avoided, Theravada – ‘school of the elders’ – being preferred).
 
Not surprisingly, Mahayana Buddhism attempts to reconcile the material and spiritual aspects of life. For example, the Vimalakirti Sutra relates how Shakyamuni hears that one of his lay followers, the wealthy citizen Vimalakirti, has fallen ill, and how he asks ten of his major disciples to visit and encourage him. But each disciple in turn declines, explaining that Vimalakirti has at one time or another bested him in understanding the Buddha’s doctrines. Eventually, one disciple visits the sick man and asks what is wrong with him. ‘Because the beings are ill, the bodhisattva is ill,’ Vimalakirti replies, adding, ‘The sickness of the bodhisattva arises from his great compassion.’ He is demonstrating that the ideal Mahayana bodhisattva makes no distinction between himself and others, and takes on their suffering so that both he and they will be able to attain enlightenment together.
 
But significantly, Vimalakirti is not only wise and compassionate – he is also filthy, stinking rich! (Interesting how these adjectives have become attached to the word ‘rich’ – evidence of the view, perhaps, that too much wealth is inevitably corrupting.)
 
Moreover, Vimalakirti is also a lay believer. In other words, Mahayana Buddhism sees no fundamental contradiction between spiritual and material wealth, and a rich man may be equally – even more – enlightened than the Buddha’s closest priest-disciples. No camels and eyes of needles here.
 
In fact, recent scholarship by the American academic Gregory Schopen entirely debunks the image of the Buddha as a world-renouncing sage. He argues that, as the leader of a community of followers, he was more likely to have been a combination of astute businessman, economist and lawyer – in other words, acutely aware of the ways of the world, but spiritually disciplined enough not to be corrupted by them.

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http://www.thiswayupezine.com/index.php/buddhist/938-editors-picks/926-money-a-buddhist-perspective

[Big Uncle]

If money is evil, why is there Dzambala as a yidam and why is there an emanation of Tara called Norgyurma that bestows wealth and why does Dorje Shugden have an increase emanation of Dorje Shugden as well. Well, wealth is really empty of inherent existence. It is through our habituation and motivation that defines what it is to us.

It could a means to destroy ourselves or it could a means to bring tremendous benefit towards others. A person could be greedy and its all for him/herself or one could be greedy and benefit others by working very hard to develop a spiritual or charitable organisation. So, we can see with both scenarios, its all about money but the end-result is very different.

[Dorje Pakmo]

Money is a medium of exchange. Without money, many things becomes impossible. Then there will be no production, services and new researches. Yes it is a tool, but it is also an important tool and a very significant discovery by the human kind to live together harmoniously by "exchanging / trading" with money. Money itself is not evil. But the illusion of happiness equals to having lots of money is what makes many do unscrupulous, selfish and many other bad things and wrong decisions which will eventually lead to much suffering.

If one only thinks about making and chasing after money because it allows one to satisfy his/her personal wants, craving and desire, then it will only continue to make one more and more unhappy, because it is going to be a never ending pursuit. This is due to he/she is actually feeding the mind with illusions, always thinking about what is the next thing to get with the money he/she has made or gotten to make him/herself happy. Not realizing that the happiness is very short lived, that once the goal is achieved, then the feeling of happiness will slowly die off and then in order to be "happy" again, one will have to make or find more money to get the next thing  that one "think" will make him/herself happy. Constantly feeding the illusion and without knowing becomes a slave for money.

I think, it is by differentiating our needs and wants that makes a difference. Using the money wisely for our needs and to help us go through our everyday life is different than splurging  money to satisfy our wants. If we use money for what is needed then the money is a tool put into good use and it won't corrupt our mind and make us focus all of our energy just to find more money and forget to live the moment. One must feel fortunate and contented and not always try to compete with others and buy everything that the advertisements tells us to buy. Instead, when one have extra or make more money, one should think about the less fortunate or how to help those that are really in need. Money put into good use will make one feel  at peace and genuinely happy. When we die, we may have a hell lot of money, but how will it help us then? Might as well use it now for some good while we still can.

[ilikeshugden]

The way money works is like a drug. When you get money, you will crave more. Your desire will continually rise and one day, you will snap. Like a twig. From desire, you get jealousy and from jealousy comes hatred. All this comes from ignorance of this happening. So, in reality, money IS the 3 poisons.