Money As Spiritual Practice

This talk was given at a meeting of the Triratna European Chair's Assembly, January 2000

I am no expert on money, having never had much personal contact with the stuff. But nevertheless I hope what I have to say will at least get us talking and thinking about money. I am going to talk about money under six headings – Insight, Attitudes, Energy, Perspective, Ethics and Generosity.

Insight

As you all know the Buddhist vision of existence is expressed in many different ways. The Awakened or Enlightened experience of Reality can be talked about in all kinds of ways. I'm going to start with Pratitya Samutpada. Everything arises in dependence upon conditions and ceases when those conditions cease, to put it succinctly. There are a number of implications that follow from this realisation. Firstly it implies that everything is impermanent, that change is the nature of reality. There is no non-change. Secondly it implies that all things are interrelated. The conditions that give rise to anything are limitless and inconceivable and everything is part of the conditions that gives rise to everything. The universe is characterised by the total interpenetration of all things. Thirdly, Pratitya Samutpada implies that we too are impermanent and interconnected. We have no immortal self or soul. Our ego-identity is a delusion. From the Awakened perspective, Reality is characterised by impermanence, interconnectedness, interpenetration and the absence of selfhood.

From the unawakened perspective, we attempt to achieve satisfaction and security through the pursuit of permanence, independence and ego-centred security. And money is one of the ways in which we attempt to manipulate reality. Money is a manifestation of human consciousness. It is a particularly intelligent and useful manifestation of mind. As a manifestation of consciousness it has the qualities of mind. When in contact with or being directed by the unawakened mind, money is unawakened, egotistic and out of tune with the way things Really are. When in contact with and being directed by the Awakened mind, money is awakened, expansive and aligned with the way things are. The way things are is changing and interrelated. This means that despite appearances to the contrary money of itself can never give the satisfaction and security we want and expect from it. It can give us the illusion of security, but really security in the sense of isolating the individual from unsatisfactoriness is not possible. Security for the individual is only possible in interconnection with others and money enables that security to happen to the extent that it is used to enhance spiritual community and spiritual growth without regard to self interest. What money can do and can become is almost unlimited, but money cannot subvert Reality. The nature of Reality is transcendental; transcending the duality of self and other and for money to operate at maximum effectiveness it needs to be channelled in such a way as to transcend the self/other separation. To try to use money to maintain our independence and to isolate us from suffering and to bring us happiness is to try to use money to shield us from the existential Reality, and Reality always breaks through.

Attitudes

Our attitudes to life in general, how we live our life is our answer to the problem of death. Death is only a problem from an ego-centred point of view. Fear of death is fear of ego annihilation, it is fear of the destruction of “me”. If we transcend the “I” sense, transcend ego, then there is nothing to fear. There is no longer any death in the ordinary sense. Death is a problem for us because we over-identify with the physical and because we over-focus on what is simply one point in the whole process of continuous change. There is only life, a constantly changing flow and flux. Death is not other than life. The death that we fear is a delusion, a product of the deluded mind.

If we change our attitudes to death and impermanence, we can change our attitude to money. Then, money is no longer a hedge against death, rather it becomes part of the flow of consciousness and can move freely. Security for any one of us is security for the whole of humanity. Money channelled to the service of humanity, especially to encouraging spiritual awakening, is money well used. Money used to protect the ego, is money wasted, in the service of delusion.

Do we know what our attitude to money is? Are we aware enough of our attitudes? One way we could investigate our attitudes is by looking at our relationship with money in terms of the five hindrances. The five hindrances are not just something that happens in meditation. They are ways in which the deluded mind functions and therefore they are likely to be relevant to our relationship with money. There is the hindrance of restlessness and anxiety. Restlessness in relation to money comes out in compulsive shopping; the latest gadgets, computer bits, mobile phones, fashion etc etc. There must be something I want to buy. Anxiety can lead to hoarding and a lack of generosity. The hindrance of sense desire leads to more shopping or simply the desire to have more money as an end in itself. Sloth and torpor can lead to irresponsibility with regard to our own money and the money of others; a couldn't care less attitude. Doubt and indecision just leaves us confused with regard to most things, including money. Ill-will can lead to the use of money to wield power and manipulate others.

However, most of us, all of us, are fairly well established on the Path of the Higher Evolution and it may be that our attitudes to money are predominantly influenced by our shraddha, our faith in the Buddha and his vision of Reality. If this is so, this would probably mean being content to live a simple life with few personal possession and generally being generous with whatever money we have. It would mean at best that our relationship to money was relatively unproblematic with neither too much attachment and grasping nor too much aversion or too much vagueness.

Whatever our attitude to money is, it can probably be improved. It can probably become less deluded and more in alignment with the true nature of Reality. Our attitude to money can be part of what gets transformed as we evolve. But as with every other aspect of our lives, awareness of the actual state of affairs is a first step. We need to investigate our attitude to money and become clear, before we can really transform them. This is an important area because our attitude to money will determine what we do with money and what we do with money has consequences for ourselves and others. As Glenn Saunders of Triodos Bank said here a few years ago, “time and again you find that money is the measure of our consciousness, how awake we are”.

Energy

Sometimes money is defined as energy and perhaps this is a good definition. Glenn Saunders of Triodos said “money is pure potential” and presumably what's needed to transform money from pure potential into action is energy. Bhante Sangharakshita speaks about our need to conserve energy, refine energy and unblock energy and we can apply this to money too.

Conserving means not wasting. We waste energy through distractions and we waste money by spending it on distractions. This can apply to our own money or the Buddhist Centre's money. Conserving doesn't necessarily mean saving, although it may mean that from time to time. However, the main point is to conserve our financial resources rather than waste them. Refining energy involves moving it away from the crude and coarse and channelling it towards the skilful, the beautiful and the spiritual. Perhaps this is a question we could ask ourselves when we are shopping. Is this a refined use of money or a crude use of money? Is this energy being refined? Is this a skilful, beautiful or even spiritual use of money?

Then we come to unblocking energy. It was the philosopher Sir Francis Bacon who said that “money is like muck, not good except it be spread.” (quoted in Sangharakshita, Complete Works, Vol.16, p.402) The reactive mind tends to turn inwards and go around in circles. The creative mind is expansive and outward moving. Money should be moving outwards in a flow of creativity. An argument against personal savings is that too often they are just a manifestation of the anxiety of the reactive mind. I do believe it's possible for personal savings to be creative, but I think it's useful for us to question ourselves on this, and determine whether our personal savings are creative or just blocked energy. The energy of money is blocked when money is held too tightly or when there is inertia around money.

We may think we are not too attached to money and that we are quite aware of our use of money. We may feel that we know ourselves in relation to money. But it's what we actually do that counts. The pure potential of money is activated by the energy of our will. To quote Glenn Saunders again, “money is nothing of itself, it is only what you do with it.”. The volitional energy, the will, of any individual or group of individuals, gives money its meaning and its power.

Money is a manifestation of human consciousness and it goes where consciousness goes. Money is one of the ways that our will comes into the world and has an effect. Money is the mind manipulating the material. Where there is inertia around money, where there is vagueness and unwillingness or inability to act, there you find the reactive mind, there you find blocked energy, there you find the ego congealing in habit.

One practical application of this is in the area of fundraising. When you are fundraising for any project, it is relatively easy to get people thinking it is a good idea. It is even relatively easy to get people emotionally involved but getting people to act by actually giving money is the hardest part. Any project only happens if enough people will it to happen and that means being behind it not just in thought and feeling but in action too. When fundraising, it is not just the project that needs to be highlighted and addressed, but the nature of money and our attitudes to it also need to be addressed. Perhaps especially those doing the fundraising need to look at their attitude, because fundraisers can communicate their anxiety or anger or inertia around money without noticing. A fundraiser, ideally, should be just as much concerned with the spiritual welfare of the donors as with the projects. In that way the will of the donors to make the project happen will be activated and everything else will flow from that.

In the Triratna Buddhist Community we are able and willing to act in the world to channel the energy of money in the direction of the good; we are not just “head in the clouds” idealists. Triodos Bank talks about money as “an awakener of the will”, that is, that money can be the way in which energy gets expressed creatively. They also speak of money as an “incarnator of an initiative”. In other words a project or initiative is incarnated, is given body, given substance through the channelling of energy in the form of money. What begins as an idea or a vision is incarnated as the bricks and mortar of a Buddhist Centre when the willpower, the energy, of enough people comes behind it. Money is the link between the vision and the finished project.

Perspective

I mentioned vision just now and that brings us to imagination. When dealing with money we need to use our imagination. We tend to think of money as something substantial, coins and notes in our wallet or purse. But money is not like that. When Glenn Saunders was here he posed the question - “where is the money?” He proceeded to tell us that banks don't keep money. They put it in other banks and those other banks put it in other banks and so on, it never rests. Money is a flow and what keeps it flowing is confidence. If people lose confidence in money it stops flowing and becomes so much worthless paper or metal. So when we we are dealing with money, we are dealing with confidence, a flow of confidence. A currency loses its value when people lose confidence in it. Money represents wealth but wealth is actually the activity of human beings, not the money.

Wealth depends on what people want. The way businesses apply their imagination to money is by creating products and services that people want and also by persuading people to want the products and services they create. This is the purpose of advertising; it creates wants and that creates wealth.

We too in our institutions have to show people that what we have to offer is what they want and indeed need. All of our Dharma teaching can be seen in this light. There is nothing cynical about this; if we genuinely believe that people need and and want the Dharma we should be letting as many people as possible know that and one of the results of that will be that money will also flow towards us. Money is a manifestation of consciousness and flows where the mind tends. The more minds that tend towards the Dharma, the more financial support there will be for Dharma activities.

Another perspective on money is that we can have a short term or long term vision of our financial situation. The long term vision is I believe the best and most imaginative, because a long term vision will concentrate on people and helping them to mature spiritually so that they become the backbone of any project. A short term vision will probably get caught up with buildings and borrowings too soon and lose sight of its purpose. Sometimes it's better not to have money because then the essentials can be taken care of, whereas having easy access to money can lead to a pursuit of superficial goals.

Another perspective. I think when dealing with money it is better to think big. What a large sum of money is, is very relative. Bill Gates earns something like 18 million dollars a day. I get £57.60 per week. Neither of us is particularly concerned about money in itself. Both of us are concerned with what it can do. I think his vision is too limited and I see part of our task is getting our message out into the world far enough and in such a strong way that some of those millions of dollars and pounds and deutschmarks that are currently flowing into all sorts of useless and even harmful projects, start to flow towards us. There are dangers in this because craving for sense pleasure and power is strong in the unenlightened. So as well as thinking big and attracting large quantities of money we need to think big and gain Insight so that we don't lose sight of the reality of money and the reality of ourselves.

Ethics.

An area I've mentioned which comes under the heading of ethics is leading a simple life with few possessions. Our craving for things is being encouraged all the time by advertisers. That is their job and they are very very good at it. We may think we are impervious to advertising but the advertisers know better. We need to be aware that our wants are not just our wants, they are the wants that we have been persuaded to have. Often what we want is what others want us to want. By living a simple life with deliberately few wants we remove ourselves from the sphere of influence of the advertisers to some extent and get to experience our craving as craving and our needs as needs. A simple life is also more ecologically sustainable and of course more in accord with the spirit of going forth.

Another ethical issue with regard to money is truthfulness. I have heard people say “I have no money” when it obviously isn't true. What they may have meant was that they had very little money, or they had no surplus or even that they had different priorities. So “I can't go on retreat because I have no money” really meant “I can't go on retreat because I'm spending my money on a computer or a holiday or whatever”. Accuracy with regard to money is an ethical issue. Also, sometimes it's too easy to be vague about what is my money and what belongs to the community, business or Buddhist Centre. It's too small to be bothered with. Vagueness can just be a cover up for deceit.

Perhaps the main thing to say about money under the heading of ethics is that purchasing has consequences. What we buy matters. The choices we make in the shops are not just a matter of taste, they are also ethical choices. Again I think we need to take into account more than price or taste when we go shopping, whether for food, clothing, gadgets or whatever. I'm not going to talk about Third World Trade or the coffee industry or any of those issues. I'll leave that to others more qualified then me. The point is that spending has consequences, lending has consequences, giving has consequences. In short, money has consequences and it is therefore an area for ethical scrutiny.

Generosity

One of the things Glenn Saunders said when he was here three years ago, “it's part of the sickness of the times in which we live that you have on one side unbelievable abundance, too much in fact, but on the other side an abiding and very pervasive experience of scarcity”. He was not talking about poverty but the poverty mentality and the fear of being poor. This is all related to what I was speaking about at the beginning of this talk, the egotistic delusion that money provides security, and can isolate us form suffering. From the point of view of living a spiritual life, this feeling of scarcity and fear of being poor can lead us into putting a lot of energy into obtaining and keeping money, and therefore not putting energy into the spiritual community. If we could put the energy into gaining Insight we would lose the fear.

Generosity is more in tune with reality. Generosity recognises our essential interconnection and acts upon it. It's a truism that generosity breeds generosity and it is this that we can depend upon more than money as a substance. Other people are our wealth. In the Triratna Community we have abundance, because we have an abundance of generosity and we should always be generating the spirit of generosity by giving and giving repeatedly. Because it makes sense, because it brings us closer to Reality and because it is where our real security lies.

If you want to engender an attitude and spirit of generosity at your Buddhist Centre, you need to exemplify that attitude. You need to be prepared to give and even give more than anyone else, in all sorts of ways including financially. I don't know about you but for me generosity is one of the most moving and beautiful things. An act of generosity always moves me and enhances my faith in humanity. For instance I was moved to read about the Greek volunteers who went to Turkey after the earthquake to help out. They were among the first to arrive and their generosity was heartening to the Turks because Greeks and Turks are age-old enemies. It was moving to hear some time later when there was a small earthquake in Athens, that the Turkish rescuers were there without hesitation. Generosity breeds generosity. And generosity removes the fear of scarcity. Money enables us to be generous and by giving it we add to the flow of generosity. Buddhist economics has to be an economics with love as its basis and therefore it is an economics of giving rather than receiving. We have to learn, both individually and collectively that money is for giving rather than receiving, because it is a manifestation of consciousness and therefore must flow freely to be in tune with the Reality of interconnectedness; the reality which we are all trying to wake up to. Much more could and probably will be said about money, but these are a few thoughts on money which I hope will get us all thinking and engaged with the topic.