As the book “Money, Sex, War, Karma” by David R. Loy starts it begins with a chapter of The Suffering of Self which leads into the chapter I will be focusing on, Lack of Money. In this chapter the author is questioning the meaning of money and how to understand how money has changed our world. Lack of Money can tie into The Suffering of Self, because Buddhist have this idea that we are all filled with emptiness, which means having lack of money makes people feel that they are suffering. In The Lack of Money chapter by Loy says, “Yet money is also the most valuable thing in the world, simply because we have collectively made it so” (Loy 25). In order to survive in this world we need a decent amount of money and need jobs to give us that money.
…show more content…
Even though Midas was a very wealthy king he still wasn’t satisfied with the riches he had, so he asked to have a golden touch, turning everything into gold, literally food and everything he touched, which he soon realized he couldn’t even eat anything without it turning to gold. Loy states, “today this simple yet profound story is even more relevant than it was an ancient Greece”(Loy 26). To bring his point across, I agree with Loy, because today no matter how much money some people have and no matter how many cars and houses they have they are never satisfied because those materialistic things do not fill the emptiness within them. Loy also make a good point of how there are “magical numbers” (Loy 26). This goes back to my statement of people working so hard for money and working for their needs, but the magical numbers meaning how all they do is appear and disappear in our bank accounts. It is a never-ending pattern of being concerned with how much is in our bank accounts and making sure we always have the right amount. Then our concerns go to how much everything costs and making sure we are able to meet those costs with the amount of money we have. If we do not have enough money this is where the suffering chapter ties in, being starved and not having everything we need to survive in today’s world makes people believe they are suffering. Buddhists believe that our biggest concern is money and making more money, and buying things that will make us happy, but the thing that should make us the happiest is life
Even though Midas was a very wealthy king he still wasn’t satisfied with the riches he had, so he asked to have a golden touch, turning everything into gold, literally food and everything he touched, which he soon realized he couldn’t even eat anything without it turning to gold. Loy states, “today this simple yet profound story is even more relevant than it was an ancient Greece”(Loy 26). To bring his point across, I agree with Loy, because today no matter how much money some people have and no matter how many cars and houses they have they are never satisfied because those materialistic things do not fill the emptiness within them. Loy also make a good point of how there are “magical numbers” (Loy 26). This goes back to my statement of people working so hard for money and working for their needs, but the magical numbers meaning how all they do is appear and disappear in our bank accounts. It is a never-ending pattern of being concerned with how much is in our bank accounts and making sure we always have the right amount. Then our concerns go to how much everything costs and making sure we are able to meet those costs with the amount of money we have. If we do not have enough money this is where the suffering chapter ties in, being starved and not having everything we need to survive in today’s world makes people believe they are suffering. Buddhists believe that our biggest concern is money and making more money, and buying things that will make us happy, but the thing that should make us the happiest is life