Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanzeon  These aren't guys who are going to give you a car, or a nice house. |
Truly that is your opinion. If you analyse it logically, you might see that it doesn't hold up so well.
If you go by the traditional Christian version of God, well, basically He is omnipotent, omnipresent, all-knowing, and pretty much nothing ever happens except according to His plan, and at least with his acquiesence.
So it doesn't matter whether it is a car, or a nice house, or a old bicycle, or a broken-down little hut, or one grain of rice, or a huge feast. If you have it, it was part of God's plan.
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The Buddhist view is even more generally misunderstood.
Surprise, surprise. Buddhism has
nothing against material possessions or luxuries. Here is the point that people regularly miss. Buddha has taught that
everything is impermanent.
Therefore in Buddhism, a new BMW convertible has the same status as an old, secondhand bicycle. A nice house has the same status as a broken-down little hut.
All these things are impermanent.
All these things are illusory.
What Buddhism warns us about is
attachment. And here is an important point - it is the nature of the untrained human mind to attach. The rich man may attach to his nice house; the poor man may attach just as much, or even more, to his old hut. The rich man may attach to his BMW convertible, the poor man may attach just as much, or even more, to his bicycle.
Thus a man can be very, very enlightened, or very, very unenlightened, and at the same time, he might have many, many material luxuries, or none at all. In the Buddhist framework, the real measure is the measure of your attachment to your material possessions, rather than the price tag or market value of your material possessions.