More and More of Less and Less

This talk was given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, Dharma Day, July 2018

In the introduction to the Ten Pillars of Buddhism Bhante Sangharakshita mentions the principle of ‘more and more of less and less’ in relation to reading about and studying the Dharma. He talks about it in terms of going more deeply into the seemingly basic teachings of Buddhism. He mentions it as a principle of the Triratna Community and suggests that it’s a principle we should take to heart. A principle is defined as “a fundamental truth or a settled rule of action, an attitude which exercises a directing influence in life and behaviour.” The attitude and action that is being recommended is to return again and again to the same teachings and mine them for deeper meanings. This leads to depth of reflection and depth of understanding. In a way what is being suggested is that when we think we have fully grasped a point of Dharma, then that is when we need to look deeper. We can even ask ourselves ‘what have I not understood?’

There are two aspects to this principle; this action and attitude which directs our life and behaviour. The two aspects are the ‘more and more’ aspect and the ‘less and less’ aspect. Let’s look into the less and less aspect first. What does it mean? I think there are two aspects to this as well. It is less and less in terms of the quantity of books we read and talks we listen to and videos we watch and it is less and less in terms of the number of topics we focus on.

To go deeper into any topic we have to, for a time at least, focus on it fairly exclusively and leave other topics to one side. If we are focussed in this way then that will influence our reading and the talks we listen to and so on. For instance if you wanted to go into the topic of Buddhist ethics quite thoroughly, you might read the Ten Pillars of Buddhism, Living Ethically, Bhante’s article Aspects of Buddhist Morality and Abhaya’s booklet, Living The Skilful Life, which is about the Five Precepts.Then you might look at the Pali Canon suttas that deal with ethics. Then you might look at what some other Buddhist writers have to say about ethics and perhaps even see what Western philosophers have said; Schopenhauer for instance and maybe look at William Blake’s take on morality. This is just an example, but you get the idea. By focusing on one topic, that gives direction to your explorations and gradually your understanding will deepen and your knowledge will broaden and of course as you go into any one aspect of Buddhism thoroughly you will discover the connections to other aspects of the Buddha’s teaching and will be led on to further investigations.

The other aspect of this idea of ‘less and less’ is to do with the amount of stuff that is available to us. Just fifty years ago there were very few books on Buddhism and few translations of Buddhist scriptures. Now we are awash with books and with the advent of the internet we can find all sorts of talks and teachings and teachers at a click of the mouse. There are literally hundreds of new Dharma books being published every year. Windhorse Publications, which is a very small publisher probably averages about four or five books a year and then there are publishers like Wisdom, Shambhala, Dharma Publishing and Buddhist writers like the Dalai Lama, Pema Chodren, Joseph Goldstein. would guess there are at least a hundred new Buddhist books coming out every year and probably more. Then we can add to that all the new translations and all the stuff on the internet; thousands of articles, audio talks and video talks. Even Free Buddhist Audio is hard to keep up with. There is just so much available and a lot of it is of very high quality. There is all the Triratna output. The London Buddhist Centre alone produces a mountain of video teachings every year, then there is Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, Theravadin and each of those have their sub-divisions. You could be happily lost in a world of Buddhist teachings for a long time. But lost is probably the right word, because we need guidance to navigate all that mass of material. We need to have some idea of what it is best to engage with, otherwise we could be in danger of having a completely random Buddhist training.

As Triratna Buddhists we have that guidance. Other Sanghas have their own teachers. But of course having guidance available and following the guidance are two different things. We can easily ignore guidance. Indeed it is a tendency in our society to feel that we don’t need guidance and that we can find out what we need to know without much assistance. In effect that means that some people decide to be their own Dharma teacher. There is an inherent contradiction in that, but nevertheless it is much more common than we may realise. Even people who attend Buddhism courses to learn about Buddhism can come with the view that they already know. This may seem perverse, but it happens and there are subtle versions of it that we are probably all guilty of. It is very easy for a little knowledge to go to our heads and with the support of our basic egotism we can assume that we know and understand a lot more than we do. This then gets in the way of being receptive to guidance and therefore gets in the way of deepening our understanding.

Triratna Community and Order was born from and built on the teachings of Bhante Sangharakshita and it is obvious that our best guidance as to how to engage with the mass of Buddhist teachings now sloshing around the internet and beyond is to ground ourselves thoroughly in Bhante’s teaching. It is unfortunate that many people don’t do this. But really we need to become Sangharakshita experts by reading and re-reading his work, listening to his talks and delving into the seminars, which most of us only see in edited form. By undertaking deeper and more thorough exploration we not only ingest the content of the teaching but also the spirit and the method, which are also very much part of the unique offering of Bhante and Triratna. The talks given by Order members and their books and articles are mainly commentaries on Bhante’s teaching and therefore very helpful in allowing us to see the same topics from different angles and giving us a glimpse of how different people reflect on the Dharma.

I have been talking about the ‘less and less’ side of the issue of ;more and more of less and less’. And I am recommending less of a spread of teachers and a focus on particular teachings to enable deeper exploration. What about the more and more side of the phrase? What does that refer too? In a word it is all about repetition. In order to learn we need to repeat, in order to remember we need to repeat.

If the ‘less and less’ side of this phrase is concerned with less quantity of books, talks and videos and less quantity of topics at any one time, the ‘more and more’ aspect of the principle of ‘more and more of less and less’ is concerned with more quality of attention to what we are engaging with, more quality reflection, more quality time spent with particular teachings and topics. Less quantity and more quality could sum up this principle of ‘more and more of less and less’. How do we give quality time and attention to a teaching how do we improve the quality of our reflections?

The first thing is to notice what you are interested in. You will only be able to give sufficient time and attention to something you are interested in. No interest no attention. It might even be informative to think about what you don’t give attention to and ask yourself – is it because I am not interested? Sometimes, of course, we don’t know what we are interested in. If you have never heard or read anything about some topic then you are in no position to know whether it interests you or not. Sometimes we don’t look at something because we feel a bit daunted by it. If you find yourself shying away from going into some aspect of the Dharma it may be because you’re not interested or it might be because you feel it is too difficult for you. You can stimulate your interest by hearing what others have to say about something. Another person’s enthusiasm can spark off our interest and engagement. For instance I, heard a talk recently in which someone quoted a verse from a Mahayana text called the Ratnagunasamcayagatha and the way they unfolded what the verse meant to them made me really interested to find out more. If you find a text or idea too difficult you can get a different perspective on it by listening to how other people think about it.

The next step after interest is reflection. There are many ways to reflect. Ratnaguna has written a book on the topic which many of you will have read.(The Art of Reflection) Padmavajra has given a very fine talk on reflection too. I will refer to some of their ideas later. First I just want to share a method I have found useful myself. I happen to like writing and I use writing to reflect. When I write things down I can come back to them and I can see how a train of thought develops. One method is to take a topic, perhaps a short verse and ask a series of questions to help you to go deeper into it.One set of questions you might find useful are as follows:

1. What is being said – put it in your own words

2. What do I think about it – do I agree or disagree

3. What is my emotional response? Comfortable, uncomfortable, nothing and why?

4. Does it have any relevance to my life now?

5. Consider the opposite- sometimes not easy at all – but gets you to think about something in a fresh way which may open up new insights.

The important thing with asking questions of yourself as way of reflecting is to not settle for superficial answers. Every answer can give rise to another question. Just like a child, who asks question after question, you can take yourself deeper into a topic by not settling for a one word answer.

In his book The Art of Reflection, Ratnaguna talks about other ways of reflecting on a topic. For instance he mentions talking to yourself This is similar to the writing exercise I have outlined above but without the writing. It is basically having a kind of inner question and answer dialogue with each answer giving rise to a new question. He also suggests the possibility of having an argument with yourself; take both sides and argue it out. He gives an example of an ethical dilemma: you have a friend in another country; does the value of friendship mean that you take flights to visit them or do the ecological concerns mean that you don’t visit them. As well as inner dialogue, he mentions reflective writing, reflection while walking and reflecting with another person. I will leave you to read his book or even better re-read it.

Another point Ratnaguna makes is about the importance of giving time and space to reflection. He talks about having periods of doing nothing. This is the kind of reflection where you are not concerned with a particular topic but allowing something to come to the surface from the depths – like a fish coming to the surface of the water. In this kind of reflecting what you are really doing is getting to know yourself and by noticing where your mind goes you get to see what you are really interested in. If you are nourishing your mind with wholesome input then you may experience some of that emerging to be digested more fully. If you are nourishing your mind on rubbish that is quite likely to emerge. Either way you will be discovering or even uncovering something about yourself and that is very helpful and can be a good foundation for more directed reflections on a particular topic.

In Padmavajras talk and booklet on Listening, Reflecting and Meditating he talks about six different ways of reflecting . Some of them have nice poetic titles. He explores how to reflect under the headings:

1. Circling like a pigeon

2. Dropping pebbles in a pool

3. Significant landscape

4. How to live, what to do

5. Cutting like a sword

6. The ever flowing river of contemplation.

I will just say a few words about each of these. If you are interested you can follow it up by getting the booklet from Padmaloka. (www.padmaloka.org.uk/shop/booklets)

Circling like a pigeon means bringing to mind all the associations you can with a particular topic. When I’m preparing a talk I often start with a mind map. I write the topic in the centre of a page and around it I arrange all the thoughts that come to mind, all the associations I have with that particular topic. That’s the starting point for reflections.

The second way of reflecting – dropping pebbles in a pool – is about reflecting when you are concentrated in meditation or after a puja. You just drop into your mind a word or phrase and just repeat the word or phrase slowly letting it sink deeper into your concentrated mind. That will bring it’s own results.

The third way of reflecting, significant landscape, is to do with being aware of the world around us and using it as a source for reflections. A classic example of this is the way the autumn leaves speak to us of change and impermanence.

The fourth kind of reflection is called ‘how to live, what to do’ and this is basically about relating our reflections to our own experience, our own life. This guards against the Dharma becoming an abstraction or a hobby that you add on to the rest of your life. This involves asking yourself questions, as I mentioned already.

The fifth way of reflecting, cutting like a sword, refers to a reflection that analyses and searches into the heart of a subject, cutting away anything that is not essential. For instance in reflecting on impermanence you look into your own experience and keep looking to see whether there is anything that is permanent. You investigate thoroughly the experience of impermanence in your own life and mind. You would do the same with the notion of ‘self’ or ‘I’ or ‘mine’.

The final recommendation of Padmavajra is to develop the ever flowing river of contemplation. He encourages us to develop a reflection practice, perhaps beginning with short periods of five minutes or less and then taking a rest and so on. If you keep this up then eventually reflecting becomes mare natural and develops a life of it’s own. This then would be the flowing river of contemplation.

These are some ways of reflecting and reflecting is a way of developing the more and more side of the principle of more and more of less and less. Quality of engagement over quantity of things engaged with. As well as interest and reflection, in order to go deeper, we also need encouragement. You can give yourself encouragement by being aware of how much you have learned and how much you have understood. One way of discovering what you know is trying to explain it to others. It’s important to find and take opportunities that demand that you explain things to others. It could be supporting a newcomers class, where you might be asked why you are a Buddhist or what Enlightenment means to you. Often we don’t know what we know until we have to explain it and often we can be surprised by just how much we have learned and how much we understand. It could be a study group or some situation in which you have to give a little talk. All these kinds of situation can draw something out of you and help you to reflect. They can also be encouraging. Just talking with a friend and sharing your understandings can be encouraging and fruitful. By being interested, or discovering what interests you, by reflecting and by finding ways to encourage yourself you will go deeper. You will deepen your understanding of yourself and your understanding of the Dharma. This is what is meant by more and more of less and less.

In the Triratna Community we have a very large body of teachings from Bhante Sangharakshita and there are probably only a handful of people who have engaged with all of those teachings. Perhaps it is too much for any of us to read every book and every seminar and listen to every talk. Fortunately we can get a very good, in depth, understanding of the whole scope of Bhante’s teachings by reading one or two books again and again. For example Subhuti’s book, Sangharakshita: A New Voice in the Buddhist Tradition is an excellent overview. Or there is The Essential Sangharakshita published by Wisdom. Or there is the series Living with Kindness, Living with Awareness, Living Ethically and Living Wisely – those four together are a very comprehensive entrance into Bhante’s teachings too. And now over half of the Complete Works have been published and the whole set of twenty seven volumes should be ready by 2023. That will be a constant source inspiration for those who wish to practise within the Triratna tradition. Don't forget to subscribe and create your own library.

What ever way you approach it or whatever books you read I think it is really crucially important that anyone who wishes to practice within the Triratna tradition is thoroughly and continually deepening their understanding of Bhante’s teachings and his whole approach to the Dharma, as systematically as possible. The Mitra Study course (https://thebuddhistcentre.com/mitra/) is very good in this respect but is not sufficient in itself. It needs to be reinforced by further study and reflection and retreats.

I have been in our Order for over thirty years now and was involved with Triratna for four years before that and in all those years I have read and studied much of Bhante Sangharakshita's teachings but not all. And I have returned again and again to some of his books and in returning I have always found something to give me food for thought. Indeed it is often when you think you know something thoroughly that a return visit highlights what you’ve forgotten or what you never noticed in the first place.

I am recommending as strongly as I can that you become an expert on Bhante’s teachings as part of your Dharma life within Triratna and I am also recommending that you take up the principle of ‘more and more of less and less’ or in other words more quality of reflection and less quantity of teachers and teachings. I hope you find this a fruitful way forward with deepening your understanding of the Dharma and increasing your self-knowledge.

The Importance of the Ten Precepts

This talk was given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre in May 2018

To understand the importance of the Ten Precepts (listed at the end of this talk) or of any precepts it is first of all important to understand the law of karma. It is important to understand that the law of karma is what makes spiritual life, Dharma life, possible. In this sense the law of karma, karma niyama, is the key Buddhist teaching. The law of karma is, of course, an aspect of a much greater teaching, a much bigger perspective. That greater teaching, that bigger perspective is pratitya samutpada, the doctrine of conditioned co-production.

The teaching of conditioned co-production (pratitya samutpada) tells us that everything arises in dependence on conditions, not in a linear cause and effect kind of way, but in a much more complex pattern. Things and thoughts, events and ideas all arise in dependence on a multiplicity of conditions, a vast web of conditions and include in their brief existence all of those conditions. This is not easy to understand. The understanding which is trying to grasp the complexity of the web of conditions giving rise to conditions, is also the product of conditions and a condition in turn. A part of the web is trying to comprehend and embrace the whole.

This tornado of conditions rolls on relentlessly. There is little any individual can do to alter the vast web of conditions operating in the world and on our lives. Except, and it’s a big exception, when it comes to conscious actions, words and thoughts. What are often called volitional actions, that is things we do, say and think under our own steam, so to speak, by conscious choice. A non-volitional action is one you have no choice about. Like a sneeze or cough or an utterance when you’re surprised or frightened or the survival instincts of fight or flight. Volitional, conscious, chosen actions of body, speech and mind are in the realm of the law of karma.

Broadly speaking actions of this kind can be either skilful or unskilful. There may be neutral action too, e.g. scratching your back. The key distinction that any Buddhist has to learn to make is this distinction between skilful and unskilful. Maitreyabandhu was saying in a recent talk that he thought the terms skilful and unskilful sounded quite technical and may not touch our hearts sufficiently. We may need to think in terms of good and bad or even of virtue and vice. Not that we want to think of ourselves as a good or bad person or as virtuous or vicious, but that we can think of our behaviour or speech or thoughts as good or bad, to bring home to our hearts the need to change.

Because of this distinction between skilful and unskilful and because we can learn to act more and more skilfully, spiritual life is possible. In the Dvedhavitthaka Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya (Sutta19) the Buddha talks about his practice before he was Enlightened and he says what he did was he tried to be aware of whether his mental states were skilful or unskilful. This is much more difficult than it sounds. We all have an inbuilt tendency to justify ourselves to ourselves. That is what having an ego identity is like. And we justify ourselves to ourselves by seeing what we think, say and do as justified or as inevitable or reasonable and therefore in no way blameworthy.

Perhaps we have been offended by something someone said to us or about us. We feel hurt, upset, angry, as sense of injustice. In that state it is very difficult for us to remember our Buddhist practice and to ask ourselves whether the mental state we are experiencing is skilful or unskilful, conducive to well-being or otherwise. We are much more likely to pursue an inner narrative justifying ourselves and blaming the other. There are various factors involved here. There is the overriding factor of self clinging, ego identity. There is conditioning, from family, school and society. There are the conventions current in the world at present.

We are very influenced by the world around us. The views and attitudes of the time and place in which we live pervade our lives and it is extremely difficult to step back and see things from a higher or bigger perspective. We have been influenced since childhood by various views, attitudes, beliefs and conventions. Sometimes we are more under the sway of past conditioning sometimes we are more under the sway of present conditioning.

Monogamous marriage based on personal emotion is an example of a recent historical convention that has a huge impact on us on what we conceive of as normal. The Internet and social media are examples of current conditioning factors that have a huge impact on us and our sense of identity. Credit cards, advertising, nationalism are all relatively new phenomena which have had and continue to have huge a impact on us. Often we are unconscious of this and we are also often unconscious of the more personal conditioning and conventions of our upbringing which continue to influence our behaviour, attitudes and ideas; the impact of our relationship with our father and mother, the impact of any religious conditioning and so on.

All of these things are influencing us all the time and these influences will sometimes be at variance with the Buddha's teachings about skilfulness and unskilfulness. We have to train ourselves to recognise skilful and unskilful mental states. We have to train ourselves to be honest with ourselves about our greed, our lack of generosity, our ill will, hatred and anger and our deep-seated egotism. We have to train ourselves to be honest with ourselves about our generosity, kindness and love, our wisdom and unselfishness.

The Ten Precepts are the training principles; the tools provided by the Buddha to help us recognise and acknowledge what is really going on. As well as training ourselves to recognise and acknowledge our states of mind, rather than simply justifying them, the precepts also provide us with a template, a guide for action and speech. Even if our mental states are not very positive we can learn to act and speak in such a way that we are likely to bring about more positive states of mind. But we have to make an effort. The ethical precepts may seem basic and easy but they require careful thought and application and they are relevant to every Dharma practitioner and every level of development.

As well as all the social, historical and personal kinds of conditioning we experience there is also our non-Enlightened state to contend with, our self clinging, our ego identity. The ten positive precepts describe a state of no self clinging, where actions are characterised by loving kindness, generosity and contentment, where communication is true, kindly, helpful and harmonising and mental states are calm, non-grasping, compassionate and wise.

At the other end of the spectrum is the grossly unskilful which is a description of unadulterated self clinging. Actions are violent, harmful, greedy, manipulative, coercive. Communication is lying, exaggerating, harsh, unhelpful, crude, slanderous and divisive. And states of mind are envious, grasping, hating, full of ill will and aversion and deluded and selfish. We are probably somewhere between these two poles, these two ends of the spectrum, and our task is to become more and more the embodiment of the ten kusala Dharmas, the ten positive precepts.

By making the effort, of reflection, of thought, of honesty, of action, to be more and more skilful we become more and more skilful. The law of karma states that skilful actions of body speech and mind have beneficial consequences for self and others and unskilfulness has bad consequences. The law of karma is a guarantee that spiritual development is possible. The law of karma is not a matter of belief, it is something that can be tested and proven in your own life.

Precepts are important because they are a guide to what is skilful and unskilful. They are important because they are the tools we can use to train ourselves to be more and more skilful. The Ten Precepts are important because they describe the behaviour and states of mind of one who is free from self clinging. The Ten Precepts are also the most comprehensive list of precepts. They apply to body, speech and mind in a complete way. In this regard it is sometimes asked why the Ten Precepts do not include the fifth of the five precepts; the precept about refraining from intoxicants that cloud the mind and developing mindfulness. To me the answer seems obvious; keeping your mind clear and aware is implicit in the Ten Precepts. They could not be practised by someone who is unaware, unmindful or drunk.

The Ten Precepts are especially important in the Triratna Community and Order because they are part of the vows taken at ordination. Ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Order represents an effective going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. It represents an effective commitment to placing the Three Jewels at the centre of your life and at the heart of everything you do. This effective commitment, effective going for refuge, is given expression through observing the Ten Precepts. The Ten Precepts represent the practical, daily, outcome of making a commitment to live by the light of the Three Jewels. Observing the Ten Precepts is the unifying practice for Order members. Whatever studies, meditations on retreats Order members may engage with, all should be observing the Ten Precepts. And whatever living situation or lifestyle Order members have, all should be observing the Ten Precepts. Those who are not yet ordained, especially those who have requested ordination, should also be familiar with and practising the Ten Precepts.

The Ten Precepts are formulated positively based on the Buddha’s teaching to Chanda in the Anguttara Nikaya (10.176). This positive formulation allows us to see that there is no limit to the practice of the Ten Precepts and therefore that the same precepts are relevant at all levels of development. It is possible to embody to an ever greater degree the qualities and virtues encouraged by the Ten Precepts. We can move from the level of the precepts as a discipline, which we have to make an effort to observe, to the level of the precepts as a spontaneous practice, requiring little effort, to the level of the precepts embodied, requiring no effort, being the natural flow of our thoughts, communication and deeds.

It is said, in the Pali Canon, that there are forty meritorious qualities associated with the Ten Precepts. The first ten meritorious qualities are equivalent to observing the Ten Precepts. The second ten meritorious qualities consist in encouraging at least one other person to observe the Ten Precepts. The third ten meritorious qualities consist in giving approval to, rejoicing in, those who observe the Ten Precepts. And the last ten meritorious qualities consist in speaking in praise of the Ten Precepts. These are the forty meritorious qualities associated with the Ten Precepts and I hope we all partake of them tonight and for the rest of our lives.

The Ten Precepts

Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Adinnadana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Kamesu micchachara veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Musavada veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Pharusavachaya veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Samphappalapa veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Pisunavachaya veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Abhijjaya veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Byapada veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

Michaditthiya veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

sadhu sadhu sadhu

translation

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from killing living beings.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from taking the not-given.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from sexual misconduct.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from false speech.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from harsh speech.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from frivolous speech.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from slanderous speech.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from covetousness.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from hatred.

I undertake the item of training which consists in abstention from false views.

As used in the Triratna Buddhist Order

The Positive Precepts

With deeds of lovingkindness, I purify my body.

With open-handed generosity, I purify my body.

With stillness, simplicity and contentment, I purify my body.

With truthful communication, I purify my speech.

With kindly communication, I purify my speech.,

With helpful communication, I purify my speech.

With harmonious communication, I purify my speech.

Abandoning covetousness for tranquillity, I purify my mind.

Changing hatred into compassion, I purify my mind.

Transforming ignorance into wisdom, I purify my mind.

The Ethics of Money

A talk given in Bury St. Edmunds in May and in Nottingham in June 2018

The first question that comes to mind is what is money? There are many conventional answers to this question. Money is a medium of exchange, is the most common and obvious answer. But since we’re Buddhists we want to go a bit deeper than that. In the 1990’s I had quite a bit of contact with Triodos Bank for a while. They are an ethical bank whose ethos is based on the philosphy of Rudolf Steiner, known as anthroposophy. A big part of their practice was to make banking as transparent as possible. Triodos Bank had an interesting way of seeing money and talking about money. Their answer to the question? Money is energy.

When you put money into a bank account it doesn’t just sit there labelled with your name. The bank uses it. They invest it by lending it to institutions or individuals and those institutions and individuals use it to do something; build a house, buy a car, fund a war, manufacture teddy bears, a myriad of uses. Your money is working away doing something somewhere and for most part you have no idea what or where.

You generate an income by expending your energy. You sell your time, skills and abilities and in return some individual or institution pays you. The money you receive represents an expenditure of energy by you and is then spent by you to buy the goods and services that represent the energy expended by other people. Whatever you don’t spend, your savings, is lent to other people and buys the energy and skills of others to do something. Money never stops, it is always moving like a flow of energy around the world.

If you try to stop it, if you put your money in a box and bury it in the garden, then it gradually loses value. The energy drains out of it. The value of money rests on it’s constant converting of time, energy and skills into goods and services and it also rests on the confidence of all the people using it. Their confidence that it can be converted into goods and services. When people lose confidence in money or any particular currency, then it quite quickly becomes valueless. This happened in the Weimar Republic after the first world war, it happened in Zimbabwe more recently and it is happening in Venezuela now.

Money is energy. Money is also a symbol. It symbolises security. If we have adequate savings, an adequate nest egg, then we feel secure. Without that we may feel anxious and insecure. However it is a symbol of security and so even if we have savings and an income we may still feel anxious and insecure, because in the end it is not what security is or the sort of security we seek may be impossible to achieve. For instance, no amount of savings or possessions protects us against old age, sickness and death.

For the purposes of this talk I am going to reflect on money under five headings:

Non-violence

Generosity

Contentment

Honesty

Awareness

Most of you will notice that these are the principles behind the five ethical precepts of Buddhism. In terms of the first principle – nonviolence – the main point is that our money should not cause harm and where possible money should do some good. That means we need to give some consideration to things like: how we earn our money, how we spend our money, where we spend our money and how and where we save money. In the eightfold path there is the stage of Samyak Ajiva, which is usually translated as right livelihood. But Ajiva is a word that also has a wider meaning. It means livelihood, but it also means way of life. We could think of this stage of the eightfold path as right way of life. That means it encompasses how we gain a livelihood and also how we use our resources.

Most people gain a livelihood by expending their energy in one way or other. That energy is then converted into money, which we then proceeded to spend, converting it into goods and services that we use. Those goods and services are produced by the expenditure of energy by other people. What we need to consider as Buddhists is whether the way we gain a livelihood causes any harm and also whether the way we spend what we have gained causes any harm.

This is not a simple matter because as I’ve hinted, our economic life is intimately and intricately bound up with, intertwined with, the economic lives of others. And of course our economic life affects every aspect of our lives. But insofar as it is possible we can ask ourselves whether any harm is caused by our work. Traditionally the Buddha said trade in living beings, entertainment that lowers people’s mental states, divination, gambling, armaments, meat, intoxicants and poisons were all forms of wrong livelihood. Bhante Sangharakshita has suggested that these days there may be other careers that are harmful such as, for example, the advertising industry when it’s in the business of promoting craving.

Similarly when it comes to spending our money we could reflect whether our money is flowing in the direction of our values of whether it may be causing harm. Is causing actual harm to living beings? Or indirect harm via the environment. Are we supporting or promoting something that harms others; alcohol or gambling, for instance. And likewise with our savings and pensions; are they in an ethical bank or an ethical fund. The choice is usually available. We could say that this principle of non-violence or non-harm is about using energy appropriately and in this case using the energy of our money appropriately and skilfully.

The second principle of the precepts to apply to our economic life is the principle of generosity or open-handed generosity as the precept says. In his memoirs Bhante Sangharakshita talks about the Kham people of eastern Tibet who each year took stock of the wealth they had generated, their surplus for the year, and then put one third aside for business, spent one third on themselves and gave one third to the local monastery. In some Christian churches there is a system of tithing where a certain percentage of their income goes to the support of the church. In traditional Theravadin Buddhist countries the monks are completely supported by the laypeople. This is a practice that has its disadvantages. The laypeople may assume that that is all they need to do. That is their Buddhist practice . And for the monks it can mean an unhealthy lifestyle without any exertion. Also since the monks depend on the laypeople they often have to do what the laypeople want. He who pays the piper calls the tune. It can also lead to the hypocrisy of keeping up appearances.

We don’t have any system like that in the Triratna Community. Money is freely given, usually when requested by a centre or other Triratna charity. There are a few people who give spontaneously, but most often people give when requested to. Of course, many people involved with Triratna will be donating to other charities like Oxfam, Amnesty, Greenpeace and so on. The principle of generosity is supported by the mental state of non-attachment or you might even say abundance.

What holds us back from giving often is that we somehow feel that we are going to lose something or be diminished in some way when we give. Contemplating giving away money brings up fears and anxieties. Will I have enough? Is it a worthwhile cause? Am I being stupid?Basically it touches a deep sense of insecurity in us. Why do we feel insecure? After all from a historical perspective we live very well indeed. We don’t live like kings. We live far better lives that the Kings of old! We are healthier, wealthier and in many ways wiser. But we still suffer from insecurity. At bottom it’s existential; we fear death. But why do we fear death? After all it’s inevitable.

From the Buddhist perspective it is because we have the notion of a fixed self that seems to continue through time and be separated in space from all other selves. This according to the Buddha is a delusion; the fundamental delusion that causes our suffering. Having a notion of a fixed self, we have to protect and enhance it, promote it, shore it up. That leads to craving and the flip-side of the coin of craving, which is aversion. This is the second of the four noble truths. Craving is the opposite of contentment. It is unsatisfactoriness. Craving is wanting what adds to and protects our sense of identity as a fixed and separate self and wanting to avoid or destroy anything that seems to threaten or diminish our sense of self.

That is why we become attached to people and possessions. We are attached to the extent that they are included in and support and add to our self-identity. Our money, which we expend our energy to gain and which has the quality of being convertible into all sorts of products and services is therefore something that has the potential to really protect and defend our self-identity. That is why we can so easily get attached to it and be so reluctant to give it away. And often it will be those who have the most money who are most scared of parting company with it, whereas poorer people can often be quite easy-going about giving. I guess the more of anything you possess, the bigger a part of your identity it becomes. If for instance you have very little power you are less likely to be bothered about losing power, whereas if you have a lot of power you may live in constant fear of losing it.

That may be at the bottom of why it is sometimes difficult to be generous. That is also why it is good to act on a generous impulse when you have it and don’t wait for second thoughts. We want to train ourselves to be generous and second thoughts will often be less generous. It is good to be generous because it is an orientation of our energy towards being more selfless and that is the whole point of spiritual practice. Not being generous orientates our energy into a protective shield around our self-identity and that leads us in the opposite direction to where we are trying to go with spiritual practice. Being generous, as we make it more habitual, unblocks energy and can lead to us having a greater sense of abundance and expansiveness and joy.

The third principle is contentment. The precepts talks about stillness, simplicity and contentment. How do we apply that to our relationship with money? Contentment is the opposite end of the spectrum from craving and greed. When we are content we don’t want anything. Everything is okay and as it should be. We’ve all experience contentment I’m sure, even if only for a few moments; a walk in the hills, on holiday, on retreat, reading a book on a wet afternoon. Whatever the situation, we probably all have had at least a glimpse of that state of contentment when we are not yearning for anything and everything is fine as it is. The situation is sufficient. How do we move from our more ordinary state of restlessness and wanting something or other to this state of contentment? There are many answers to this question and different things will work for different people but broadly speaking it is via the path of simplicity. By gradually learning to live a simple life, by gradually learning to get enjoyment from simple things, by gradually learning to be content with less, we move from restless wanting towards contentment.

Simple enjoyment is about learning to enjoy what is already around you in the world, the ordinary beauty of the clouds and the trees and children playing. The key to this kind of pleasure is mindfulness. The more mindful or aware we are of the world around us and the people around, the more we notice and the more we notice the more enjoyment and pleasure we can find. As the old poem says: “what is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” (Leisure, WH Davies)

These days we are more likely to be engaged with our technology than our surroundings. I was in Rome last year and noticed one man going around the Vatican looking at all the artworks through the screen of his phone. This is just a parody of what is going on for a lot of people a lot of the time. And when we are not engaged with our technology, we are likely to be fully caught up in the tumble dryer of our own minds; thoughts, fantasies, little stories tumbling around and we can walk through life seeing and hearing very little. We have to make an effort to notice. We have to take time to stop and stare, to see the beauty of light reflected on a wet Street or hear the sound of frying onions.

If we can begin to enjoy the simple things through awareness that can enable us to simplify our lives. We need less things around us. In fact too many things can start to feel like a weight pressing down on us. If we can happily simplify our lives, we will be less concerned about money and more engaged with the quality of our lives. This means we become more contented and there are less worries about money and what money we have we use in a more considered way. We will be refining our energy including the energy of our money. Basically this is all about moving from a life that is based around what we want for ourselves to a deeper reflection on what we really need to have a fulfilling life.

The fourth principle is honesty. As with all of these principles we need to apply this principle of honesty to our relationship with ourselves as well as to our relationship with others. In this case we need to be honest with ourselves about money. We need to be honest about our conditioning around money, we need to be honest about our attitudes around money. This has nothing to do with condemning yourself or giving yourself a hard time. There is no point in that. This is about knowing yourself more deeply and more thoroughly, so that you can have more choice in your life.

We were all exposed to some kind of conditioning around money and that can be affecting our attitudes very strongly, even if it no longer makes any rational sense. We may have grown up in a family where there was a sense of abundance or in a family where there was a sense of scarcity. We may have been given the lesson that saving is a good thing or that saving was laughable. We may have been conditioned to take risks with money or to avoid risk at all cost. There will be all sorts of conditioning around money that we have been exposed to. It’s worth taking the time, perhaps with some close friends in the Sangha, to explore this conditioning and by doing that to become a bit more free, and able to develop our own attitude based on our current circumstances, current values and life experience.

It is very easy to rationalise about our relationship to money and to never delve deeper into what it really means to us, what it represents for us, what it symbolises for us. Money is almost a taboo subject and people rarely discuss with friends how much they earn, how much they have in the bank, what their hopes and fears are around money. Other countries may have very different attitudes, I think it’s in Norway where everyone’s income is public knowledge. I have been in various groups in the Sangha where we have told our money life story and discussed our money in detail; what we have, what legacies we expect, our attitudes and so on. It’s very liberating. But as I said we need to be honest with ourselves first.

Then obviously we need to be honest in our dealings with others and with institutions, scrupulously honest. It is easy to think that cutting a corner here or there, a little massaging of the truth won’t hurt anyone, especially if it’s bringing us some financial advantage. Evading a little bit of tax, getting a bit extra from an insurance claim, dodging a fair, paying a concession rate when we’re not entitled to it. There are probably lots of little temptations that come our way. But of course these things affect other people. Our financial lives are completely interdependent. Perhaps worse than that though is that compromising our values tends to blunt our own ethical sensitivity; a little bit of dishonesty leads to some untruthfulness, some untruthfulness may require a little more untruthfulness and all the time we may be concealing from ourselves a sense of uneasiness, which leads to worry and stress etc. Honesty is indeed the best policy and especially when it comes to money. It’s a way of keeping our energy clean and clear.

The fifth principle is awareness and mindfulness. Awareness is the beginnings of wisdom. The first precept of non-harming is definitely about Metta, loving-kindness, which is the beginnings of compassion and the other precepts are about bringing that kindness into relationship with others. Awareness is the wisdom aspect. How do we apply wisdom to money. But in a way a lot of what I have already been talking about is about applying awareness to money:

knowing about the skilfulness of how you obtain money

knowing about the skilfulness of how you spend money

knowing what you really need

knowing what you can give away

knowing about your own conditioning around money

knowing about your own attitudes to money.

This is all about awareness and even wisdom. Perhaps a way of going deeper into our relationship with money could be to look at it in terms of the five hindrances. You will all be aware of the hindrances to meditation that prevent us from concentrating. You could think of these hindrances as states of mind that block energy from flowing freely. It may be that the energy of our money could flow more freely if some of these mental states were not getting in the way.

Restlessness and anxiety in relation to money will prevent us from being clear and objective about what we have and what we need. The antidote here would be to take the time to become clear and get more objective – perhaps with help from someone else.

Sense desire in relation to money will mean that we feel we never have enough and definitely none to spare for anyone else or for any charitable cause. The antidote here is a refining of our pleasures and simplifying so that our happiness is not too tied up with how much money we have.

Sloth and torpor in relation to money could lead us into debt or confused financial problems, because we don’t put the energy into sorting things out when they need to be sorted. We let things slide and end up with a big credit card balance or paying for some service we no longer use or being fined by the Revenue and Customs for a late tax return. The antidote here is planning. Some people are just not good at organising and planning but it’s a skill that can be learned.

Doubt and indecision in relation to money seems to me to be very like anxiety. Anxiety could lead to impulsive behaviour. But the sort of fear behind doubt and indecision just leaves us stuck, frozen, unable to act, unable to commit to any course of action. The antidote to this will be clarity. We need to find a way to become clear about what we really want. This probably needs the help of someone with no interest in the outcome. It may involve learning to take risks and even learning to act impulsively. What seems like a risk to someone prone to doubt and indecision probably isn’t a risk.

Ill will in relation to money probably indicates what might be called a curmudgeonly attitude. A miserly attitude. Mr Scrooge in Charles Dickens story a Christmas Carol is probably the prime example in literature. In some ways this is like the attitude of a small child that doesn’t want to share its toys with the other children. Usually at the bottom of illwill or miserliness will be some fear or anxiety or insecurity. This is a psychological issue rather than something specifically to do with money and the antidote if it’s a serious case would be therapy of one kind or other. Interestingly, Scrooge is cured by a more spiritual process, he gets to have a vision of the consequences of his actions, if he doesn’t change. If it’s a more mild case of grumpiness in relation to money then the Metta Bhavana meditation practice would probably help. If you are a Buddhist and you find yourself with this grumpiness, then you could decide to practice generosity as a discipline. That would mean giving generously whether you feel like it or not. The practice, the action, can change the attitude.

I’ve talked about money under the headings of the five principles of the five precepts and explored awareness under the headings the five hindrances. I began by talking about money as energy and I hope that these reflections on money will help you to use the energy of money appropriately, unblock the energy of money where it’s blocked, refine the energy where it’s coarse and keep the energy clear and clean and not waste the energy of money. I talked about our conditioning around money and our current attitudes to money; money past and money present. I hope that your future in relation to money is characterised by loving kindness and awareness.