How Does a Buddhist Manage Money?

In most cultures today, the goal is to make money. Managing money, like anything else in Buddhism, is a skill. Whatever we engage in Buddhism becomes a discipline, something that we learn to manage and a skill that needs to be developed. This is often called a skill-in-means or skillful means. Money is not about being rich, but rather how to manage it, like you would if you were planting a tree and taking care of it, watching it grow and become something wonderful. In this same way, money can help to support your mission. In Buddhism, then, rather than thinking of just going out and making money, we want to think about what our mission is. We want to be careful not to allow money to own and control us. When you have a higher level of consciousness and influence, then you can use that to build a base to grow community, and to help others. To do this you need means and resources: wealth and materials. Growing a community is the most spiritual thing in our Buddhist practice. How you grow your wealth to help others, and bring about goodness is based on empathy, selflessness, and knowing what your mission is. How do we make ourselves ready for wealth? We must have a mission and be ready to serve. In this way, you become a conduit for the money to flow through you. Every mission is about building goodness. In Buddhism, wealth is to serve a higher mission and the higher mission is always empty of selfishness. Meditation is one way to help overcome selfishness and can help us to grow our consciousness. Then we can build wealth for a good purpose. We may wonder how we can do such a thing. It’s quite simple: Focus squarely on the mission, on building a strong consciousness, and on what you want to be. If you grow your business around that mission, then wealth will come. In the same way that we build a culture and community that is not based on comparison, we can build our consciousness to be ready to be a conduit for wealth. ---- For classes or more information on Thay Heng Chang (Thay Hang Truong): www.compassheart.com Contact us: [email protected] Soundtrack: A New Beginning from Bensounds.com