Freedom from greed

Not being greedy is an important part of morality.

Greed is wanting to have more for yourself. What we want first is material property, and what we crave first is money. Craving money is the basic craving. Money stands for every other kind of property, so craving money is craving possessions.

Greed is a natural instinct that the ego produces. Everyone naturally likes to own a lot, especially property, and everyone feels that having a lot is happiness. Often they do not need to buy or spend anything. Just having a lot of money and gold in the cabinet makes them happy. Some guard that feeling so fiercely that they would rather live in hardship than spend a single coin. For an extreme miser like this, a good meal brings less happiness than having plenty of money stored away.

Then, to fill the cabinet, people often do wicked, cruel things: cheat, rob, kill, exploit, set traps, torment, deceive, bully, flatter, grovel, all sorts of bad behavior. The money gets spent and runs out, but the wrongs do not run out. They wait for the law of cause and effect to bring a painful result, as fairness requires.

A greedy mind harms others outside and the person's own spirit within. A greedy person's spirit is anxious, tense and disturbed. While the merit from a past life lasts, whatever they crave they get. Getting and owning gives them a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure. But that satisfaction leaves the mind unsettled. Their morals decline and their merit wears away.

Anyone seeking morality has to get rid of this greed. While greed remains, there can be no morality.

To get rid of it, we practice living decently, sharing, helping and rescuing. At first we share only because we trust that the fair law of cause and effect will bring blessings later. That is itself a variant of greed, but a better one: to have for yourself you must first have for others. Later, as morality grows, we share out of love alone and no longer care about the result.

We should kneel before whichever saints we revere and ask them to help us get rid of greed. In fact, with the unseen help of holy beings, it does get easier, because the instinct of greed is so strong that we can hardly break it alone.

We should also admire and praise real examples of people who are not greedy. This is how the law works: whatever fine quality we praise in someone, we gradually come to have ourselves. A child who found a wallet and returned it. A man who gave his land for a road. A woman who gave most of her wealth to charity. Look for such real examples and praise them widely.

Finally, we should practice meditative concentration to uproot the greed that lies deep in the mind. Once the mind enters deep concentration, greed is gone.

Everyone has to work at removing their own greed so as not to create wrongdoing, above all those who have more opportunity than others: people who hold funds, people with power, people the public loves, people with talent, people who keep secret documents. All of them have the chance to make dishonest money. They need to cultivate themselves all the more so as not to be greedy.

Every possession is left behind in the end. Only our wrongdoing and merit go with us. Greed always leaves us uneasy. Only living by our conscience makes us happy.