Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Where do you live, @Lady_Alison? Heerdt does, indeed, make yummy for, and would be great for spending an afternoon over tea with. I plan to drive up to Denver sometime, just for that.
tonight is plain, spaghetti, I am transitioning since the kids decided to be vegetarian again. Have been used to meat based for many years now. I may cook up some lentils to add to the spaghettti sauce (and touch of cayenne) for a better vegie spaghetti.
dakini, if I run away from home I am coming south and visiting you. I will still cook however, feeling this would be a good time to cut ties and run away!
@Lady_Alison I'm definitely not interested in the Super Bowl. Everyone glued to their television screens gives me time for some much needed quiet reflection.
I've been comfortable, I've been poor, and now I'm comfortable(ish) again. Guess which I prefer?
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it buys peace of mind. I have no insurance, so even though my trips to doctors are covered (yay Canada!) I still have to cover my meds. Without meds I would be too ill to work, and without work, no way to have a place to live or a way to buy food. (Maybe meds bring happiness??)
My point is, I have no drive inside me to be a millionaire. However, not worrying about paying bills and not stressing about meds vs groceries is a nice life.
Mr Raven and I hope to start a family in the next couple of years. We don't want them to be spoiled, but we want them to be comfortable. I don't think that's a bad thing.
I like to write messages in thai on nearly every banknote I get which either say hello and wish the person who reads them to gain some good luck, or tells a short story. I feel that these will get passed around many many times and it will actually put some happiness into money. Call me crazy :screwy:
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
lol, maybe a am a little uncanny but I find it fun to write things on banknotes as they get passed around so much, people do not want to discard them and they are often looked at closely. Sometimes I will simply draw a nice picture of a smiley face with a caption 'smile and be happy' or something along those lines.
I had to think about this one for quite a time and I'm not sure I'm still decided.
My traditional answer to this is "No but it certainly helps".
Having considered this in more depth, I'm led to the conclusion that money is the capitalisation of human endevour - you may not perceive your net financial worth over your lifetime but the system certainly does - it goes so far as to capture it even after your death - your life therefore is reduced to a finite set of numbers - which then churn around an abstract model... your net worth to society is therefore measured by your ability to contribute to this model.
This in turn drives human activity - so it is not happiness that drives human activity but rather the attainment of this arbitrary number... given that one part of this equation is you having money to spend and that can be done in a mindful or not mindful way, at the outset, I considered that money in itself cannot make you happy but having it allows you more freedom to express yourself and thus can lead to happiness.
This however now seems very selfish to me - in reaching this conclusion, I have ignored the entire effect of my life's endevour as capitalised in the current system - just one example, some part of my taxes pay for missiles - I am therefore in part responsible for where that missile is deployed etc etc...
I fear that the net effect of money (beyond my experience of it) will always be misery and thus how can money ever stand hand in hand with happiness - or better how can I be happy when money makes even one other person suffer?
Really really tough one as life as I know it revolves around money and people depend on me to make it - tough tough tough.... I have to rest for now on: human endevour as currently manifesting is a form of slavery that ultimately causes suffering... what I can do about it? I'm not too sure... its a work in progress...
You better check...with Thailand's strict rules against insulting the monarchy...by writing on the bills, which all feature the king's portrait, are you committing lese majeste? I remember one of the Thai friends once going berzerk when I stuffed a Thai banknote into my sock while on a trip.
@vinlyn I am aware of how strict the law is here about the king, I always right on the opposite side. If I pay using the note I simply fold it in half and hand it over. Bankers write numbers on the notes, a message of joy or happiness cannot be much worse.. I will continue to do it because I feel a sense of spreading a message by the means of something which IMO is not virtuous and wholesome. I have come to a similar conclusion to zero a while ago about money.
Then Anathapindika the householder went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there the Blessed One said to him: "There are these four kinds of bliss that can be attained in the proper season, on the proper occasions, by a householder partaking of sensuality. Which four? The bliss of having, the bliss of [making use of] wealth, the bliss of debtlessness, the bliss of blamelessness.
"And what is the bliss of having? There is the case where the son of a good family has wealth earned through his efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of his arm, and piled up through the sweat of his brow, righteous wealth righteously gained. When he thinks, 'I have wealth earned through my efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of my arm, and piled up through the sweat of my brow, righteous wealth righteously gained,' he experiences bliss, he experiences joy. This is called the bliss of having.
"And what is the bliss of [making use of] wealth? There is the case where the son of a good family, using the wealth earned through his efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of his arm, and piled up through the sweat of his brow, righteous wealth righteously gained, partakes of his wealth and makes merit. When he thinks, 'Using the wealth earned through my efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of my arm, and piled up through the sweat of my brow, righteous wealth righteously gained, I partake of wealth and make merit,' he experiences bliss, he experiences joy. This is called the bliss of [making use of] wealth.
"And what is the bliss of debtlessness? There is the case where the son of a good family owes no debt, great or small, to anyone at all. When he thinks, 'I owe no debt, great or small, to anyone at all,' he experiences bliss, he experiences joy. This is called the bliss of debtlessness.
I would prefer it if we could go back to the olden times when currency was in turnips and carrots, but hey, this is the society we choose to live in. Like it has been said within this thread, money is a tool. If you come into a large sum of money, that money will not change you as such, it will enhance your personality, magnify it if you will. On the whole, money breeds greed, breeds power and all kinds of negative aspects, I would not mind if it was banished from the face of the earth.
Well the things I find happiness in life: my hobbies, my fiancee, my books, gun collecting...all require some input of money. So it's not money that gives happiness per se, but it can create the conditions for happiness for sure.
My friend, define happiness to me please? What is pure happiness?
Pure happiness. I won't even take a guess. But regular happiness? It's contentment, and a feeling that what I have is a hell of a lot better than what most people now or in history have had. Gratitude. Those things I mentioned bring me contentment and gratitude.
'regular happiness' is said to be by the dalai Lama a break from suffering, from dhukha. It is only a mere break from the ignorance and suffering that that comes with it because it is non lasting and has it's own attachments. Gratitude, taken in a certain sense will fuel an ego, an ego consists of many posions that will afflict the mind.
Money makes you wealthy not happy, The more money you have the more problems that come with it...if your attachment to it is strong, Having no money can be just as problamatic but if you have no money and no attachment you havent got a problem either. Resources are best used to create virtue, Benefiting others for example. We can buy mansions with our money but they will be of little use when we die and move to our next rebirth, Feeding the hungry and benefiting others are very virtuous activities because it creates the causes for us to experience the same kindness in the future, However the most virtuous thing we could do with it is support Dharma centres, It is only by the practice of training the mind that sentient beings can be released from their problems and suffering in this and future lives.
'regular happiness' is said to be by the dalai Lama a break from suffering, from dhukha. It is only a mere break from the ignorance and suffering that that comes with it because it is non lasting and has it's own attachments. Gratitude, taken in a certain sense will fuel an ego, an ego consists of many posions that will afflict the mind.
Well way to rain on the parade! ; ) People find happiness in different ways no? Whatever floats your boat. You make the joy of life sound so clinical and ghastly even to a pessimist like me. Life's pretty horrid for most people, so "fueling the ego" is the price I pay for getting by I guess.
@knightofbuddha...who is your avatar on your pic? Just curious, I love American history specifically wwii.
Thanks. A little earlier than that though. William Sherman. I grew up about an hour or so from where he did. I'm a great admirer of his. His singular genius freed hundreds of thousands of slaves from the South in 1864-5.
'regular happiness' is said to be by the dalai Lama a break from suffering, from dhukha. It is only a mere break from the ignorance and suffering that that comes with it because it is non lasting and has it's own attachments. Gratitude, taken in a certain sense will fuel an ego, an ego consists of many posions that will afflict the mind.
Well way to rain on the parade! ; ) People find happiness in different ways no? Whatever floats your boat. You make the joy of life sound so clinical and ghastly even to a pessimist like me. Life's pretty horrid for most people, so "fueling the ego" is the price I pay for getting by I guess.
Of course we all indulge in these things that make us 'happy', but they are not true states of happiness. If they were true states of happiness then they would continue to last until we were dead. But everything that give you this happiness soon brings suffering, I am not being so clinical but I am simply speaking from the dharma, we are on a buddhist forum after all.
Comments
Long drive from your place to hers, though.
Everyone is mia
dakini, if I run away from home I am coming south and visiting you. I will still cook however, feeling this would be a good time to cut ties and run away!
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it buys peace of mind. I have no insurance, so even though my trips to doctors are covered (yay Canada!) I still have to cover my meds. Without meds I would be too ill to work, and without work, no way to have a place to live or a way to buy food. (Maybe meds bring happiness??)
My point is, I have no drive inside me to be a millionaire. However, not worrying about paying bills and not stressing about meds vs groceries is a nice life.
Mr Raven and I hope to start a family in the next couple of years. We don't want them to be spoiled, but we want them to be comfortable. I don't think that's a bad thing.
It's what you do with it that counts, I think.
- but that's a really nice concept!
My traditional answer to this is "No but it certainly helps".
Having considered this in more depth, I'm led to the conclusion that money is the capitalisation of human endevour - you may not perceive your net financial worth over your lifetime but the system certainly does - it goes so far as to capture it even after your death - your life therefore is reduced to a finite set of numbers - which then churn around an abstract model... your net worth to society is therefore measured by your ability to contribute to this model.
This in turn drives human activity - so it is not happiness that drives human activity but rather the attainment of this arbitrary number... given that one part of this equation is you having money to spend and that can be done in a mindful or not mindful way, at the outset, I considered that money in itself cannot make you happy but having it allows you more freedom to express yourself and thus can lead to happiness.
This however now seems very selfish to me - in reaching this conclusion, I have ignored the entire effect of my life's endevour as capitalised in the current system - just one example, some part of my taxes pay for missiles - I am therefore in part responsible for where that missile is deployed etc etc...
I fear that the net effect of money (beyond my experience of it) will always be misery and thus how can money ever stand hand in hand with happiness - or better how can I be happy when money makes even one other person suffer?
Really really tough one as life as I know it revolves around money and people depend on me to make it - tough tough tough.... I have to rest for now on: human endevour as currently manifesting is a form of slavery that ultimately causes suffering... what I can do about it? I'm not too sure... its a work in progress...
"And what is the bliss of having? There is the case where the son of a good family has wealth earned through his efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of his arm, and piled up through the sweat of his brow, righteous wealth righteously gained. When he thinks, 'I have wealth earned through my efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of my arm, and piled up through the sweat of my brow, righteous wealth righteously gained,' he experiences bliss, he experiences joy. This is called the bliss of having.
"And what is the bliss of [making use of] wealth? There is the case where the son of a good family, using the wealth earned through his efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of his arm, and piled up through the sweat of his brow, righteous wealth righteously gained, partakes of his wealth and makes merit. When he thinks, 'Using the wealth earned through my efforts & enterprise, amassed through the strength of my arm, and piled up through the sweat of my brow, righteous wealth righteously gained, I partake of wealth and make merit,' he experiences bliss, he experiences joy. This is called the bliss of [making use of] wealth.
"And what is the bliss of debtlessness? There is the case where the son of a good family owes no debt, great or small, to anyone at all. When he thinks, 'I owe no debt, great or small, to anyone at all,' he experiences bliss, he experiences joy. This is called the bliss of debtlessness.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.062.than.html
Sorry off topic.