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Greed, Desire, and the Universal Need for Master Hsing Yun's Humanistic Buddhism: A View from the United States
Greed. We all know greed is a problem. U.S. citizen Bernie Madoff’s successful investment fund attracted wealthy investors. Every year his returns on investment were much larger than those of other funds. In the end it turned out that he was not investing his customers’ money at all. Instead, he was running a Ponzi or “pyramid” scheme, paying off the investors who withdrew their money with the money he was taking in from new investors. While the Ponzi scheme was going strong, he was the toast of New York City and highly admired by others in the finance world. When thousands of his customers lost large sums of money, he became the poster boy of greed. Yet of course his customers were greedy too.
Greed, Desire, and the Universal Need for Master Hsing Yun's Humanistic Buddhism: A View from the United States
Greed. We all know greed is a problem. U.S. citizen Bernie Madoff’s successful investment fund attracted wealthy investors. Every year his returns on investment were much larger than those of other funds. In the end it turned out that he was not investing his customers’ money at all. Instead, he was running a Ponzi or “pyramid” scheme, paying off the investors who withdrew their money with the money he was taking in from new investors. While the Ponzi scheme was going strong, he was the toast of New York City and highly admired by others in the finance world. When thousands of his customers lost large sums of money, he became the poster boy of greed. Yet of course his customers were greedy too.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Environmental Thoughts: A Beautiful Mind for a more Sustainable World
The world is on fire. 2020 saw global temperatures rise 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels. The rising temperatures have triggered violent weather events such as recent heatwaves in Canada, floods in Germany, and wildfires in Australia. Adversely, impacting our food supply, health, economic livelihood, and living conditions. From the famous Fire Sermon in Ādittapariyāya Sutta of the Pāli canon, the Buddha depicts a seemingly similar burning world where “everything is burning…burning with the fires of greed, hate, and delusion.” Our degrading environment can thus be seen as a man-made crisis driven by the three fires of “greedy consumer cultures (i.e. greed), dissatisfaction (i.e. hatred), and other attitudes that can be looked upon as vices (i.e. delusion).” Traditional Buddhist texts indicate this plausible connection between our degrading environment and our deteriorating human nature. As world leaders gather at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) for a way out of our environmental mess, we also look to one of the world’s renowned Buddhist leaders for how Buddhist teachings may offer guidance to address our looming environmental problems.
貪欲無厭 永不知足
貪欲無厭 永不知足 Endless Greed and Craving; Insatiable discontent.
