“There is nothing so relaxed as the shoulders of a very wealthy person when the talk turns to money.” Jon Carroll, columnist for the San Francisco chronicle, once said this, and he is probably mostly right. For the rest of us—and even for the wealthy, actually–money is an issue and cause for anxiety. For those of us who are older, and whose future ability to make money is declining, it may be even more so. “Fear of loss of livelihood” is one of the Five Great Fears in Buddhist teaching, which means that it was a concern even for the monastic renunciates of the ancient world, who were after all dependent on alms for their very survival.
So pretty much everyone worries about money, but what is spiritual about it? The Buddhist teaching of Right Livelihood is part of the eight-fold path, so clearly the issue has spiritual resonance. Right Livelihood is usually interpreted as meaning occupations that do not involve harm or killing, such as tanners or butchers. But more deeply right livelihood signifies a relationship to money and sustenance that is balanced, that is relatively free from grasping, that does not needlessly disturb the mind.
One of the losses of aging is the reduced capacity to make money, whether through retirement, job loss, career change, or other circumstance. Obviously this whole issue has been greatly exacerbated by our current economic climate, which has substantially reduced their retirement savings for many older people.
It is helpful to know that the ancient Buddhists—even the monastics—included this kind of circumstance as part of the spiritual path. In other words, they are universal experiences that all practitioners face.
But how do we face them? What should be the spiritual attitude toward fear of loss of livelihood—of worries about money? First of all, these worries can be transformed into a positive examination of the dividing line between basic needs and ego desires. As Suzuki Roshi said, when we have lots of food around it makes us more hungry, not less. When we have lots of money, our desire for things—and perhaps our anxiety about money—tends to increase.
So there can be something positive in the seemingly pedestrian task of cutting costs, living more frugally, and doing without certain things that we like. It can also make us more sensitive and generous with people who are struggling even more than we—who may be losing their jobs or even homes. Times of scarcity can be an opportunity for compassion and kindness; cutting back can sometimes make us appreciate all that we do have.
Buddhist practice is not just meditation. The original map of the path had eight leaves, eight spokes. Right livelihood—perhaps better translated as appropriate livelihood—is one of them. We can all practice it, every day.
This may seem an odd comment, but seems to me that all the well known modern spiritual writers have money and few seem to ever worry about money.
Why is it that so many true wise people never become known or have money?
And it always puzzles me how whites here in the United States seem to make money off the wisdom of those who have been truly wise.
Have yet to read any new wisdom that wasn’t from someone decades or centuries before me.
After reading “Money!”, I happened to open the Summer issueof Tricycle, and found on pages 58-9 the results of the journal’s “What Does Being Buddhist Mean to You” survey re: the economic meltdown. None of the respondents was “working class” in the traditional sense. One had lost his job. And then I thought of my own worries about money, and realized that they were all of my own making. I’m retired, have social security and a pension, medicare, a retirement plan, own my home. I can make myself worry – I use those words deliberately – only by imagining scenarios that are probably far less likely than the risk of being struck by a car while crossing the street. And yet, periodically, I allow myself to follow one of these scenarios and work myself into a fine panic! I suspect that I’m not really worried about money, but rather about control – that I’m rebelling in a c ircuitous manner to the fact that I am aging, I will become ill, I will die and that I ultimately have no control over that process.
As in divorce, money is so often a surrogate for dashed hopes, the death of love, I suspect that money is playing a similar role here.
There are indeed people who have genuine and realistic worries about money: those who must, for example, choose between buying medicine or food, paying rent or medical bills …. Neither I nor, apparently, the respondents to the Tricycle survey fall into that category. For that I’m glad – but also a bit guilty, for I live in and benefit from a society that allows those real worries to exist. As in the civil rights days, I’m glad I never got thrown into a southern jail, but I always felt a bit guilty that some of my brethren were jailed.
I am mostly content. That is an abundant experience. I wish for others, in their own way, to be content.
This year I have earned a lot of money, two years back I had none. Either way, contentment is the same, sometimes apparent, sometimes obscured, but never absent. This year a lover is absent, two years back she was not. The contentment was there either way. Next year health and money may decline but the lover may be there instead. Abundance! Grateful in becoming whatever arises!
Fear is not contentment. Hope is not contentment. Presence is contentment. Becoming relaxed with the way that things are, presence implying awareness, knowledge that things are just so, perfectly so, is contentment. Take a breath in the face of hope and fear. Presence and contentment are partners within opening to our experience.
There is a line in a poem from the great 12th century. Tibetan teacher Khyungpo Naljor:
Know that the source of wealth [abundance] is contentment.
What is this experience of contentment? How is it obscured? How is it cultivated?
Big pile of money, little pile of money, either can be abundance. What makes the difference?
P
It has puzzled me all week that no one is interested in this topic. Maybe a coincidence, a holiday weekend.
I was at a meeting of women this week, a sort of art/support group, very friendly and pleasant. The members tend to be outsiders like me, most of them single and living without much money. One woman who works in a minimum-pay job without benefits chatted early on about almost buying a certain $60 skirt at Coldwater Creek. Later she talked about being very fatigued and not able to afford a doctor, knowing her blood pressure is high, not able to have the prescription refilled because she doesn’t have a doctor.
Of course a couple of us wondered if she could have low thyroid, and told her how easily that is checked with a blood draw – but you have to go to a doctor.
It was later that I put the two things together, the money for luxury clothes, not for medical care. Then I thought there may be more to not going to the doctor than she knows, hidden fears. . . Somehow this is a dharma issue, clarity.
It is really easy to be so afraid of money you don’t really know how you spend. Years ago I was. I remember being struck by the truth of our own economic condition when our income was reduced. I saw that everything (then) cost $20, and all those $20 a month added up to all our income. This coincided with my discovery of meditation and the dharma.
I often feel lucky that we live in a nice house, one that is worth six times our annual income from pensions. I read that the average is a house worth three times your income. We just do live here. It’s not really about frugality, but about tracking our expenditure and making conscious choices. No vacations (except an annual retreat), no expensive concerts or shows or restaurants, no high-end new clothes or hair salon. No flat-screen TV yet, though I do love Netflix. We don’t miss these big things as much as more able-bodied people might.
We do give to causes, and spend about 25% of our income on medical. We have to pay for lawn care and almost anything done around the house. Yet we can maintain two vehicles and pay our bills and have some left over for personal luxuries. I think our friends would be surprised at how low our income is. We are kind of amazed that we manage all right, as if it shouldn’t be possible. I think it has everything to do with confronting our finances – talk about fearless! and being clear about how we use our resources.
If this were a conversation I would now definitely say, I don’t mean to brag. . .
Am sure to many I am poor. Our lives change drastically when my late husband was hit and left disable by an uninsured drunk driver just before Christmas in ’89. Until he died in ’04 I was with him 24/7. And yes, in the beginning it was a tad lonely, since I resigned from an arts commission and a couple boards I was on. But I tend to see challenges as learning experiences. Would I love to own my own 500 sq foot zen simple home? Yes. But I also believe that it will happen when its time.
Am doing all I can to make sure PG&E is paid, and I eat simple and am grateful I do not have issues like drinking, smoking, drugs etc that would complicate my life. And I have a roof over my head, clean water to drink and bathe in. A car that is newer and paid for thanks to a gift from my in laws before Ron died. Sure I only own four dresses, four T shirts, six pair of shoes, and four pair of pants. Which to some isn’t enough. But they are clean and get worn.
And I am healthy. Now that’s something to say Thank you Lord for!! So I feel rich. Content. Lacking in nothing I need today. And as a Christian I am reminded I am to take no concern for tomorrow, but be thankful for that which I have today. And add to this I have enough each day to share with someone else.
As a widow I admit I notice money issues more when meeting men who then want to see me, as in dating. Find that I am the least attracted to men who have ‘stuff’, or want to go to places that are show off places. Much prefer men who don’t see money as the end all, and who like vegetable gardens, inexpensive fun things like kayaking, fly fishing, camping, etc.
~Beth~
Thank you, Lewis for this excellent topic, your commentary is appreciated.
I also have modest means. My husband is in his final working years, and due to a long list of reasons, we have a very small net worth. Within five years or so, we’ll be living on social security and a small pension. We don’t own our home, tho our rent is very low so we’re lucky there. We have no debt at all.
Six years ago we had the presence of mind to move to France, where we have no worries about health care, and we know we will be looked after if we should ever become unable to look after ourselves.
We live in a beautiful rural setting, with clean air and lovely scenery all around. We heat in winter with wood burned in an insert in our fireplace. We’re members of a CSA group and get a bag of local organic veggies every week, all grown within a couple miles of our home — even the wheat for our bread and the canola for our oil is grown just down the road! Our eggs, our milk, our cheese, it’s all local.
Many of my more affluent friends in the US are smarting from the current economic situation, and I am very sorry for anyone who is unexpectedly in a painful financial jam. I am happy to live on a shoestring. The simple life for me!