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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 4 | Previous Next | |
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desires are basically unfulfillable. Desires create complexity. They create complexity because they can never be fulfilled. You go on and on working hard for them, and they remain unfulfilled, and you remain empty.
The first thing about livelihood is: it should be based on needs, not on desires. Then a very small quantity of things is enough.
Secondly: it should not be violent. You should not do something just because you can get some money out of it. You can kill somebody and get some money, you can be a butcher and you can make your livelihood, but that is inhuman... and very unconscious. Better ways are possible. One should be creative in one's livelihood, one should not be destructive.
The businessmen were discussing a compatriot.
"He used to work for me," said the first one. "I would not trust him with my money. He would lie, steal, cheat; anything for a buck."
"How do you know him so well?"
"How?" said the first. "I taught him everything he knows."
One should be a little more alert. Money is not all, and one should not destroy one's own life just in accumulating money. Poverty can be tremendously beautiful. If you are just living by your needs, poverty can be a tremendous contentment. In fact, you will never find rich people contented. Sometimes you can come across a beggar with a contented face, but never a millionaire.
The more you chase, the more you feel the horizon is far away. The faster you run, the closer you come to your death, but never to any fulfillment. The shadow of death, the fear of death, the fear that you are going to miss again, destroys all contentment.
The sixth is: right effort.
Buddha says: Never strain and never be lazy. One has to balance between the two. Then there is right effort; effort which is basically effortless.
Have you seen children playing? They play, but there is no effort, there is no strain. They enjoy it. Have you seen a painter painting, a poet writing his poetry, a musician playing on his instrument? or a dancer? There is no effort. If there is effort then the dancer is not a real dancer. Then the dancer is just trying to earn something out
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