Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. The old study of instant gratification versus delayed reward got me thinking...
When presented with the option to either have one cookie right away or wait 15 minutes and get two cookies for being patient, the group of people who immediately ate the first cookie because they couldn't control themselves, and the group who waited a few minutes in order to double their reward, were both driven by greed.
When it comes to Buddhism, it is said enlightenment is readily available to all of us at any moment, but we must overcome certain obstacles that are in our path, with greed being one of the three poisons, just as it is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christianity. According to the Dalai Lama, the irony of greed is that even though the motive is to seek satisfaction, we are still not satisfied after obtaining the object we desire.
That's why the antidote to greed is contentment. There are two methods to
one method that works, and one that doesn't. The first method is to try to obtain everything we desire: all the money, houses, cars, perfect mate, and perfect body. But the disadvantage of this approach is that sooner or later we will come up against something we want but cannot have. That's why the second method is more reliable: to not necessarily have what we want but rather want and appreciate what we have.
The Earth has enough to satisfy every man's need, not every man's greed. The Buddhist concept of affliction by greed includes sensuality, lust, desire, craving, or any attachment to a sensory object, like a cookie in the study of gratification.
The Buddha taught that greed, hatred, and ignorance are three hindrances on our path to Nirvana, but the 3 cannot be separated: greed is simply the desire of what we don't have, hatred is the aversion to what we don't desire, and ignorance is the illusion that we can ever get what we desire without also getting what we don't. Colloquially, we call it, "Wanting to have the cake and eat it too."
When we put ourselves in the middle of an impossible separation of reality like that, we create our own suffering, making enlightenment impossible to achieve. Wanting is rooted in the feeling that we are somehow less of a person without certain things. We wrongfully believe that we need to have what someone else has in order to be the person we wish to be. The key is to not be so driven and affected by likes and dislikes, or as I call it, "The World-According-To-Me Syndrome."
The truly rich are not the ones who have everything that they are constantly afraid to lose, but those who don't want anything and therefore, have nothing to fear. Be that as it may, it is not possible to not want anything. When we're hungry, we want food, for example. And I think the determining factor in what is considered Reasonable or Greedy is how MUCH food, for one, and at what expense to others are we willing to get what we want?
The Buddha separated desires into two categories: wholesome and unwholesome. Meeting our basic needs is wholesome and reasonable, while unwholsome desires are born from harmful attachments that are SO appealing to us, we might reach or strive for what we want even if it causes pain to another Ultimately, I don't believe anyone truly wants to cause pain to others, we just overlook doing it when we are blinded by greed.
This doesn't mean we need to deprive ourselves of cookies, for example, we must simply question whether anyone has to suffer for us to have them, or better yet, can others benefit from our choices? The key is to base our actions on wholesome desires rather than harmful greed. This is why Buddhism is a practice of discernment, if nothing else. It's easy to spot greed out in the world, but if we are mindful, we can spot it in our own thoughts and actions as well.
Once we are aware of it, we can start to turn the volume down. Simply put, when you want less, you suffer less. When you want more than enough, your greed causes suffering to yourself and to others. And the reason we have these discussions is to minimize our self-inflicted anguish. In Zen Buddhist monasteries, we chant
"Greed, Hatred, and Ignorance arise endlessly; I vow to abandon them." This means greed will ALWAYS present itself as an option. The practice is to recognize it
seductive but destructive. So, here is to abandoning greed more often than not. Good luck! Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp. For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions.
Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏🏼