(E04)-01-Why-People-Chase-After-Worldly-Wealth

Bhante Sangha, brothers and sisters in the Dhamma. Okay, tonight the topic is worldly currency versus spiritual currency, or worldly wealth versus spiritual wealth. Worldly currency or worldly wealth, as you all know, is principally money. And anything else that money can buy, in other words, worldly things. But spiritual currency, his blessings, that is merit earned from doing good karma. However, this cannot be seen, cannot be measured, unlike worldly wealth. Why do people chase after worldly wealth, or worldly currency? Because everybody wants to have a good life. Everybody wants to have good food, a big mansion to live in, luxury cars, traveling overseas. Entertainment, all kinds of entertainment, including nowadays you see in the papers, buying a wife. So that's why people, practically everybody in the world, chase after money so that they can enjoy life.

(E04)-02-Why-People-Don't-Go-for-Spiritual-Wealth

Now why don't people cultivate spiritual wealth or blessings? Because some people think it's so boring to study the Dharma, or to listen to Dharma talks, or meditating. They can't understand how you spend the whole day watching your breath. They think there's much better things to do than to sit still and watch your breath. And also it's very difficult to keep reception. to control your behavior, your conduct, et cetera. And mainly because people cannot see the benefits of this spiritual wealth in this life. People want to see things that only they believe, right? That's because the Buddha says so, they don't have the faith to believe. So everybody chases after money. As far as the Dhamma is concerned, this is okay, no problem. But when we think about it, when we chase after money, can we get what we want? Some people, they totally fail. You know now the economy is so bad. A lot of business goes bankrupt. So some people totally fail. Some people fail to the extent of not achieving their target. On the other hand, there are some people that achieve the target, what they hope to get, a certain amount of wealth in life. They get what they want. And then some get more than they hope for. Some even die trying to make money. And all of them work very hard. So when we see that in life, even though everybody struggles, yet we don't get the same in life. So if you don't understand Karma Vipaka, you think that's not fair. But according to the Buddha's teachings, what we get in life depends on our blessings, which is actually our spiritual wealth.

(E04)-03-Importance-of-Blessings

We are born here in the human world because of having some good karma from the past life. So we are reborn as a human being and as a human being our life is not too bad. Most things that we want most of the basic necessities in life we can get. And sometimes we can even enjoy life like in Malaysia. Life is not bad. But when we compare ourselves to the devas, we find that devas have much better blessings. They enjoy life much better than us. And the devas, there are three realms of devas. The lowest is the sensual desire realm, then the second is the form realm, and the third is the formless realm. In the sensual desire realm, beings are controlled by lust, by sensual desire. So you have male and female. But in the form realm, to be born there, you have got to attain jhana, one-pointedness of mind. And there, the beings are unisex. There's no male and female. And their bodies are so bright that they emit light like the sun, in fact, brighter than the sun. And then the formless realm beings, although they are called formless, they have a very fine form, so fine that all other beings cannot see them. That's why they are considered formless. So in the sensual desire realm, There are six levels of heavens. The fifth and the sixth level, the devas, they have so much blessings that whatever they wish for, they just think about it and it appears before them. So practically, the world, you could say, is at their feet. Whatever they want, just wish, just make a wish, and everything appears before them. But we, as human beings, our blessings are not so great. So, some things in life we want we can get, but some things in life we cannot get. But not too bad compared to the three woeful planes below us. The Buddha said that most beings, after we pass away, will fall into the ghost realm because of lack of merit, lack of blessings. After we have lived our life as human beings, we have used up a lot of our blessings. So most of us will go into the ghost realm, unless we create a lot of blessings in this lifetime. And those beings that harm others will be reborn in the animal and hell realms. So you see that blessings are quite important in spiritual wealth.

(E04)-04-Material-Wealth-only-One-of-Many-Blessings

But you come back to money. Money is in everybody's mind. Even if we achieve the wealth that we want and we become rich, are we totally happy? You find a lot of rich people are not happy. I'm sure many of you read the papers and see that Paris Hilton is one of those very rich Poor girls, very rich but not happy. What does it show? It shows that she has the wealth blessings, the blessings of wealth, but not the blessings of happiness. And then there are some people who are so rich but are not contacted. They are greedy for more and more and more, never satisfied. A lot of people are like that. Initially, you want to become a millionaire. After you become a millionaire, you want to become a billionaire. After you become a billionaire, you want to be listed in the Forbes magazine or something like that. So, this type of person, outside now, we see him as a very rich millionaire or billionaire. But, that greedy mind makes him Actually, there are hungry ghosts inside. So he has a mind of a hungry ghost, although he looks very wealthy on the outside. And that's very dangerous, because if you have the mind of a hungry ghost, you could be reborn as a hungry ghost. And then there are some people who are very rich, but then suddenly they pass away. So, what does it show? It shows they have the blessings of wealth, but not the blessings of life, long life. So that is another shortcoming. So you see, this wealth alone is not enough. And then there are some people who are very rich, but they are dogged by poor health, always sick. throughout their life, they are always sick. So they don't have the blessings of good health. And then there are some people, they strive hard to make money, and then they become rich, maybe a millionaire. And they become a millionaire for many years, but after a good many years, suddenly they become bankrupt. You also have such people. This shows that their blessings is not sufficient to last so long. After some time, the blessings is used up, so they become bankrupt or something like that. And then if you have wealth also, when you die, are you going to get a good rebirth? Probably not. Many years ago, we had the richest man in the world. He was called Howard Hughes. He was well known as a playboy because he was so wealthy. He was dating all the Hollywood film stars. And then it was reported in the papers that when he was old, just before he died, he became a recluse. He locked himself up in his condominium, refused to see people, refused to cut his hair. and kept his hair very long. In other words, he had the behavior of a ghost, which is not a very good sign. So, according to karma, having used up all his blessings, he didn't do enough merit, so he might be heading for the ghost realm. So you see here that wealth is only one of the many blessings we require in life. So many others are important. We want long life to enjoy our wealth. We want good health. We want our wealth to continue. We want to have good rebirth. And besides that, there are some people who wish they were born beautiful or handsome. and some people wish they were smarter. So brains, being intelligent, is another blessing people want. To be respected or loved is another blessing people want and sometimes cannot get. So to be happy, actually, you want to have as many blessings as possible, right? So that our happiness is complete.

(E04)-05-How-Laypeople-Can-Get-Blessing

And how to get it? Luckily, somebody like the Buddha has shown us the way. The Buddha taught the Dhamma, and the Dhamma is about skillful living, how to live our life skillfully. Nowadays, it's very important to be skillful in everything, even eating also. If you're not skillful, you have a lot of cholesterol. end up with stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and all that. So we have to eat smart. So living also we have to live smart. So the Buddha discoursed about 5,000 suttas over a period of 45 years, trying to show us the way to lead a skillful life. And many of these suttas are actually very enlightening, like the Chula-Kamma-Vibhanga-Sutta in the Majjhima-Nikaya 1.3.5, where it talks about kamma, why people are born different in the world, and how to get what you want. For example, if you want to be born beautiful, don't get angry. Every time you get angry, your face becomes very fierce. Every day you make your face become fierce, naturally you will be reborn ugly. If you want to be healthy, don't torture other beings. If you torture other beings, make their body painful, it's natural you will be reborn with a body that gives you a lot of pain. And then you have suttas like the Bhangala Sutta, Discourse on Blessings, how to achieve the highest blessings. Inside there we have all this formula, I think 38 things. So it is very important for us to study the suttas. The suttas are extremely important. That's why the Buddha wanted all his disciples to listen to his suttas. That's why he called his disciples Savakas. So if you consider yourself a disciple of the Buddha, a follower of the Buddha, you should study his words. And his words, his real words, are in the earliest suttas, earliest nikayas, the four nikayas. So if we study his words, then we will slowly change our lifestyle to accord with the Dharma, and slowly we become more and more happy people. Now, the Buddha taught in the suttas how to be happy by getting their blessings. So the Buddha gave this formula, dāna-sīla-bhāvanā, to attain puññā, blessings. Dāna is charity or generosity. Generally, people associate dāna with giving money. But it's not only money. Like in Hokkien, we say, u-lui chud-lui, u-lat chud-lat. If you have money, you give money. Have energy, you give energy. So many other things you can give. You can give kind words. When somebody is grieving, you give that person kind words. When somebody is sick with cancer, you can see that person, console that person. That is also giving, giving kindness. Printing books is the giving of Dharma. So in other words, when we do Dharma, we give happiness to others. And when you give happiness to others, the law of karma vipaka says that happiness comes looking for you. Every now and then, happiness will come and knock on your door. You'll be surprised. How come you get this or you get that? Because you have good karma. So that is the first thing. We give happiness to others and happiness comes back to us. The second thing is Sila. Sila is moral conduct. And moral conduct means keeping the precepts which help us to refrain from harming others. For example, the five precepts that Buddha taught that lay people should keep. First one is not to kill. If you don't kill, then you give long life to others and naturally you get back long life. Second one is not to take what is not given. If you don't steal, then when you employ people to work for you, then they will steal your things. Third is not to commit adultery. If you don't commit adultery, then you don't break up. families, then the fourth is not to lie or cheat people. If you lie or cheat people, then people will lie and cheat you. And this precept includes three others, not to speak, cause words, not to carry tales, to cause people to quarrel, and not to engage in idle gossip. And the fifth precept is not to take liquor, drugs, and other intoxicants to spoil your brain. So basically, these are the five precepts. Also, the Buddha said, lay people, when you earn your livelihood, you should engage in right livelihood, not to harm others. Just as you like to cari makan, other people also have to cari makan. So live and let live. Don't be so selfish as to only think of yourself. Be considerate to others. So these precepts, when we keep the seal, we keep the precepts so we don't give suffering to others. We don't kill, we don't steal, etc. And if you don't give suffering to others, suffering does not come knocking on your door. And then the third thing is bhavana. Bhavana is development of the mind. And development of the mind consists of two things, two parts. One is to study the Dhamma. When we study the Dhamma, we get wisdom. A lot of things that we should know, we don't know. Then when we study the Buddha's words, then we say, ah, yeah, so logical. Why didn't I think of it before? So you see, common sense is not so common. Nowadays, ringgit more common. So, it is a study of the Dhamma. Then another part of Bhavana is meditation. Meditation is to train the mind to focus. Our mind is not focused. Most of us, we are chasing after a lot of things in this world, so our mind gets to be very scattered. So when we meditate, we train the mind to become one-pointed. And this is very important. A lot of people don't understand why this Samatha meditation is important. There is in one sutta an incident where one very rich slave man, he was so rich that every day he would be entertained by slaves who would sing and dance for him. and he would drink himself until he gets drunk. And every day he would drink and enjoy the slaves singing and dancing for him. So one day when he was drunk, the Buddha walked in front of his house. So when he saw the Buddha, he was surprised. And then he fixed his eye on the Buddha and he concentrated, because in his previous life he probably was an ascetic, a monk or something. So the sight of Samana, a monk, aroused his interest. So when he focused his eyes on the Buddha, he looked at the Buddha, then he was able to shake off his drunkenness. Can we do that? Unless you have trained your mind to be one-pointed, when you are drunk, you cannot shake off your drunkenness. When you are sleepy, you cannot shake off your sleepiness. But if a person like that can train his mind to be one-pointed, then when he listens to the Dharma, his mind becomes one-pointed, and then he understands the Dharma. And that was the way many of the Buddha's earliest disciples became arahants, just by listening to his Dharma talk. That's why this meditation, Samatha meditation, is so important. So when we practice bhavana, we study the dhamma and the dhamma shows us the way to lead our life, path to walk the Noble Eightfold Path, etc. And then we meditate so that our mind becomes clearer and we can understand the dhamma better. And this gives us more blessings. In fact, this blessings of bhavana is so great that it can bring us out of samsara. It can make you become an Arya. If you listen to the Dhamma enough, and your mind is clear enough, you understand the Four Noble Truths, then you have Right View. And once you have Right View, you are already at Arya. You have attained the First Path, Stream Entry. So, you can see that once you have attained Stream Entry, it means you are in an Arya. And once you are in an Arya, it means that three woeful planes are totally shut off for you. You will never be reborn as a ghost. You will be never reborn as an animal. You will be never reborn in the hell realm. So it is so important, you see. to attain stream entry. Once you attain stream entry, you have attained the most precious thing in the world that money cannot buy. So this is the formula for lay people to attain this happiness, the blessings that will give you happiness.

(E04)-06-How-Monks-and-Nuns-Cultivate-Blessings

But for monks, it is a little bit more. In the suttas, the Buddha listed out charana, conduct for monks, or practice for monks. And one of the things is contentment. A monk, when a monk renounces, he renounces worldly things. All his property, all his wealth, he gives up because he's looking for a higher happiness than worldly happiness. So after that, a monk practices the precepts. And the monk's precepts, we have 227 precepts, so many precepts. They are not easy to keep. So the Buddha realized that it is impossible and almost impossible to keep all the precepts. Then when the Buddha was about to pass away, he did say that the minor precepts could be abolished if the Sangha felt it necessary. Now, there is an Indian belief, and I also believe, that every precept you keep, there is this deva that protects you, or can say, who wants in. So the more precepts you keep, the more devas protect you. That's why you see those virtuous monks, those meditation monks, they go deep into the forest alone. And when they go alone into the deep forest or in dark caves, you have strange beings, powerful beings, fierce devas, fierce ghosts. But these beings, they are psychic. So if a monk is virtuous, straight away they know it's a virtuous monk. And instead of harming that monk, they will protect the monk. So it is very good. The more biceps we keep, the more protected we become. So the next time you sit on the bus on the highway and it falls down the ravine, you won't be one of those who pass away. And then a monk also gives happiness to others by his conduct. A monk is supposed to be a gentle, harmless being. A monk is not supposed to get angry and all that. And by becoming a monk, a monk gives lay people the chance to do dhāna. The Buddha did not allow his monk disciples to live alone in the deep forest and feed himself on the fruits and on the roots and on the leaves. The Buddha wanted his monk disciples to live among lay people. Even if he lives in a cave or in the forest, to come on Armstrong to give lay people the chance to do merit. So also a monk teaches the Dhamma to lay people. And the giving of the Dhamma is the highest gift, the Buddha says. The highest gift is the gift of the Dhamma. So the monk not only accepts, the monk also gives. Now, You know, a lot of our unhappiness, a lot of our suffering comes from the mind. And it comes from the five hindrances. There are five hindrances that give us a lot of suffering. Sensual desire, ill will or anger, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt. You see sometimes in the newspaper, an old man rapes the granddaughter or a daughter. Why? Because of sensual desire. So that gives him so much suffering. So these five hindrances, if we meditate, we practice Samatha meditation, we can even eliminate these five hindrances. The Buddha said in the suttas that if a person has attained jhāna, he becomes passionless. He has eliminated the five hindrances. Although the roots are not dug out. but they do not obstruct him anymore. He does not become a problem anymore. And if we can attain one-pointedness of mind, the mind becomes a source of great happiness, great bliss. Buddha said in the Suttas that an undisciplined mind is a source of great suffering. A disciplined mind is a source of great happiness or bliss. An uncontrolled mind is a source of great suffering. A controlled mind is a source of great happiness. So you find the devas, the higher heavens you go, the higher the happiness. And the higher devas, who are those? The higher devas are those with jhāna, those who have attained jhāna, where they can abide in bliss for world cycles. So long, like in the second jhāna plane, the Buddha said, those devas there, every day they exclaimed, sukha, sukha, sukha, blissed out like on ecstasy field. But not for one hour or two hours. For world cycles, imagine, millions and millions and millions of years, blissed out. And in the third jhāna plane, the Buddha said, they're so happy, bhechu-sya. So that's saying, cannot utter a word, blissed out totally. So that's how we get the higher happiness, by creating our mind. And the highest happiness we can get is Nibbāna. Buddha said, Nibbāna paramaṁ sukhaṁ. Nibbāna is the highest bliss. And so if we want to attain Nibbana, we become monks and nuns to aim for the highest happiness. So that is the formula for monks and nuns, contentment, keeping precepts, giving happiness to others, meditating to eliminate the five hindrances, and practicing the Noble Eightfold Path for the highest happiness.

(E04)-07-Conclusion

So in conclusion, I'd like to say that in the Buddha's teachings, the Buddha did not say that money is wrong. The Buddha said, for lay people, enjoy life. Make as much money as you can. Own as much property as you can, but use it wisely. Make yourselves happy. Make your family happy. Make your relatives and friends happy. But the Buddha also said, don't eat stale food. What is stale food? Stale food is food left over from yesterday or the day before yesterday. And that refers to the riches you have now. The riches you have now is a result of the good karma you created in the past life or two past lives or three past lives ago. So that is stale food. So the Buddha says you have to get new food by creating the merit now. Create more blessings now so that to ensure that you get good food again in the next life or even this life. So remember don't just rest on your blessings from the past life. You have to create more blessings from dana, sila, bhavana. The other thing you have to remember is wealth is only one ingredient of the happiness cake. There's a lot of ingredients in the happiness cake, right? You want to have long life. You want to have a good, strong, healthy body like David Beckham. You want to be intelligent. You want to be beautiful or handsome, et cetera. So, not only wealth is important, all the other things are important. That's why the Buddha said you have to practice this dana, sila, and bhavana. The other thing we have to remember is that worldly currency is like banana notes. You know what's banana notes? Only old people like me will know. When the Japanese left after the Second World War, They left a lot of Japanese money. When they came to Malaysia, I think 1942, and they left in 1945, they thought they were going to stay here forever. So they started to print a lot of Japanese money. They don't call it ringgit. So when they surrendered in 1945 and the British came back, all that money was worthless. So when I was a small boy, we had plenty of Japanese notes to play with. And those were called banana notes because the banana tree was on them. Money. Now, banana notes are no more of any use. So all the wealth that we have now, when we pass away, becomes banana notes. We cannot bring it along to the next world. A lot of people don't know, when their relative passes away, they go and burn people's money. Of course, even if you burn the real ringgit note or so, it becomes banana note, the other side. So, only spiritual currency is valid. Spiritual currency, if you develop it in this lifetime, you can bring it along to the next life. You can use it. It is more than international. It is inter-life. Life after life, you can use it. And the last thing I'd like to say is in the Sankhyuta Nikaya, I think Sankha Devaraja Sankhyuta, there was an episode, a story about a poor beggar. He listened to the Dhamma and he had faith, so he used to come to the monastery and listen to the Dhamma and he started to practice to keep his sila and practice to be generous, etc. Then when he died, he was reborn in the heaven of the 33 with Sakka Devaraja and he became so handsome and bright. His body, his light outshone a lot of devas. So they were very surprised, who is this person looking so grim here? So when they started to investigate, they found that he was a poor beggar. So they were very annoyed. This fellow only a poor beggar now, he's outshining all of us. Ah, don't look down on a poor beggar. Outside only he's poor, but inside he's not poor. So same with the monk. The monk is called a bhikkhu. Bhikkhu comes from the word bhikkhu, actually became the English bagman. So the bhikkhu means a beggar. And this word Buddha purposely used for his monks. The Buddha called his monks bhikkhu, beggar. But lay people cannot call a monk bhikkhu. It's impolite to call a monk beggar, right? So you should always call a monk bante. But the Buddha called his monks beggars. So just because the Be cool. Begs for his food. Don't look down on him. Outside he doesn't have a cent to his name. Doesn't have a ringgit to his name. But very wealthy inside. So I'll end here.