What did the buddha say about greed?
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The greed i refer to is the thirst for knowledge. All types of knowledge but with focus on scientific progression like how to conquer space or studying hard to pass exams or even the strife for a better life.
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I'm not sure what Buddha taught about this.Originally posted by NewAge:The greed i refer to is the thirst for knowledge. All types of knowledge but with focus on scientific progression like how to conquer space or studying hard to pass exams or even the strife for a better life.
But knowledge have a lot of type... if it's for good uses and benefit then I think of course by all means one can seek them... it's a good thing.
But there are also knowledge about things like how to kill people, how to make a nuclear bomb, etc, then I think these knowledge are not really good and are harmful.
So... my understanding is that knowledge is subjective.. Things like studying hard, we all must do our part as a student to study hard, for our own benefit and also as part of our filiality to our parents and their expectations. We can also strife for a better life of course, just as long as we do not become too attached. Like anything else, if we become too attached, then it's no good. We should practise dharma in daily living whatever we are doing, and not attached in the midst of whatever we are doing.
We live in the mundane world, and so we must gain knowledge of our mundane world to be able to benefit ourselves and others in many ways.
However, Buddhism teaches us not to only gain in knowledge but also in wisdom. Wisdom is not exactly the same as knowledge, and are quite different. -
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Whatever one wants to know and have known is knowledge. For instance, you want to drive a car, so you learned to drive, and you know how to drive, thus you have the knowledge to drive a car.
So... my understanding is that knowledge is subjective..
However, Buddhism teaches us not to only gain in knowledge but also in [b]wisdom. Wisdom is not exactly the same as knowledge, and are quite different.[/b]
On the other hand, knowledge can represent the the collective facts, observations (including experiments), explorations, discoveries and understanding of a topic or subject. This knowledge is recorded and stored, and in today's WWW, easily accessible.
From the beginning of time (if there is such a thing), good and bad are the characteristics of everything in this world! Rain is good and bad. Food is good and bad. Alcohol is good and bad. Angel is good and bad. Man is good and bad. Sex is good and bad. So is knowledge!
Simply stated, what is good is good. What is bad is bad. Your choice.
Greed is simply having more and more of the same - whether good or bad!!!! -
Yes, it can be good and bad, therefore it is subjective. Knowledge put into good use is of course good.Originally posted by TheGoodEarth:Whatever one wants to know and have known is knowledge. For instance, you want to drive a car, so you learned to drive, and you know how to drive, thus you have the knowledge to drive a car.
On the other hand, knowledge can represent the the collective facts, observations (including experiments), explorations, discoveries and understanding of a topic or subject. This knowledge is recorded and stored, and in today's WWW, easily accessible.
From the beginning of time (if there is such a thing), good and bad are the characteristics of everything in this world! Rain is good and bad. Food is good and bad. Alcohol is good and bad. Angel is good and bad. Man is good and bad. Sex is good and bad. So is knowledge!
Simply stated, what is good is good. What is bad is bad. Your choice.
Greed is simply having more and more of the same - whether good or bad!!!! -
Just my personal opinion
1)____ ---> thirst of knowledge---> to help ppl .Traces back to the root,its was compassion.
Compassion---->thirst of knowledge --->to help ppl
2)____--> thirst of knowledge---> to eradicate all evil.Traces back to root.It was Righteousness
Righteousness ---> thirst of knowledge ----> to eradicate all evil.
3)___--->thirst of knowledge--->to acquire wealth regardless of morals.Trace back to root.It was greed.
Greed___-->thirst of knowledge----> to acquire wealth regardless of morals.
thirst of knowledge does not equate to greed..greed is more like one of the roots .The root can be good or bad -
Greedy for knowledge seems illogical.
It is human curiosity after all.
Perhaps all is not what it seems. -
Would one say Buddha was greedy when he seek the knowledge of enlightenment?
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mm i couldn't consider it as greed as he is doing it for others too...
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that is still duality , you have not realise everything have a shades of greyOriginally posted by TheGoodEarth:Whatever one wants to know and have known is knowledge. For instance, you want to drive a car, so you learned to drive, and you know how to drive, thus you have the knowledge to drive a car.
On the other hand, knowledge can represent the the collective facts, observations (including experiments), explorations, discoveries and understanding of a topic or subject. This knowledge is recorded and stored, and in today's WWW, easily accessible.
From the beginning of time (if there is such a thing), good and bad are the characteristics of everything in this world! Rain is good and bad. Food is good and bad. Alcohol is good and bad. Angel is good and bad. Man is good and bad. Sex is good and bad. So is knowledge!
Simply stated, what is good is good. What is bad is bad. Your choice.
Greed is simply having more and more of the same - whether good or bad!!!!
then how about forummer here? they are good people or bad people.While they post on Buddhism , do you define them as totatlly good people ,and some do not donate generously to the charities
non-duality of nature is the highest level of Buddha teaching -
Originally posted by NewAge:
depend on what the greed is for self or for others.
The greed i refer to is the thirst for knowledge. All types of knowledge but with focus on scientific progression like how to conquer space or studying hard to pass exams or even the strife for a better life.
simple as that.
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Hi, but non-duality is not about everything having shades of grey.Originally posted by bohiruci:that is still duality , you have not realise everything have a shades of grey
then how about forummer here? they are good people or bad people.While they post on Buddhism , do you define them as totatlly good people ,and some do not donate generously to the charities
non-duality of nature is the highest level of Buddha teaching
For relative truths we have to talk about good and bad, etc. We just have to know that things like good and bad are in terms of relation and not reality (i.e they are not mutually exclusive). They are just two aspects of the same reality. The same goes to Nirvana and Samsara.False-imagination teaches that such things as light and shade, long and short, black and white are different and are to be discriminated; but they are not independent of each other; they are only different aspects of the same thing, they are terms of relation and not of reality. Conditions of existence are not of a mutually exclusive character; in essence things are not two but one. Even Nirvana and Samsára’s world of life and death are aspects of the same thing, for there is no Nirvana except where is Samsára, and no Samsára except where is Nirvana. All duality is falsely imagined.
The deepest essence of non-duality is the non-duality of Subject-Object and the non-duality of Samsara and Nirvana.
~ Lankavatara Sutra -
BTW, I think the word 'greed' implies attachment. Greed is already a form of self serving attachment. It is a form of 'excessive desire' that becomes an attachment, obsession...Originally posted by NewAge:The greed i refer to is the thirst for knowledge. All types of knowledge but with focus on scientific progression like how to conquer space or studying hard to pass exams or even the strife for a better life.
If it becomes an object of attachment then it will lead to suffering and one will always not be content. Then it is not healthy desires anymore. -
There must be attachment before greed can arise. Greed is the desire to have more of something. Of course, in absolute term 'more' is subjective. If a person take two bowls of rice, do we say that is greed? If a person has two homes, one in SG and one in MY, is that greed?Originally posted by An Eternal Now:BTW, I think the word 'greed' implies attachment. Greed is already a form of self serving attachment. It is a form of 'excessive desire' that becomes an attachment, obsession...
If it becomes an object of attachment then it will lead to suffering and one will always not be content. Then it is not healthy desires anymore.
The keyword is more but how to measure or interpret 'more' can be a little troublesome.
So, is eight hours of mediation greed? -
If he give rise to the thought of wanting more, but is not obsessed and not attached, then he is liberated.Originally posted by TheGoodEarth:There must be attachment before greed can arise. Greed is the desire to have more of something. Of course, in absolute term 'more' is subjective. If a person take two bowls of rice, do we say that is greed? If a person has two homes, one in SG and one in MY, is that greed?
The keyword is more but how to measure or interpret 'more' can be a little troublesome.
So, is eight hours of mediation greed?
That means, if he fails to get it, he still does not suffer out of the attachment.
He desires, but is content even if he did not get it, then it shows he has not given rise to the mind of increase and decrease, he does not give rise to the attachment of form, of 'gaining' (de2) and 'losing' (shi1).
On the other hand, a person who gives rise to the thought of wanting more, and keep grasping and pursuing the mental image of forms and appearance, is constantly affected by gain and loss, increase and decrease, birth and destruction. He is unable to perceive the Emptiness nature of all appearances, and suffers all the time in endless dualistic pursuit.
When this happens, useful and compassionate desires become dualistic greed.. greed being founded on ignorance and attachment.
....As stated earlier, a helpful concept here is compassion, a heart aspect of the practice and reality related to kindness. You see, wherever there is desire there is suffering, and wherever there is suffering there is compassion, the desire for the end of suffering. You can actually experience this. So obviously there is some really close relationship between suffering, desire and compassion. This is heavy but good stuff and worth investigating.
We might conceive of this as compassion having gotten caught in a loop, the loop of the illusion of duality. This is sort of like a dog’s tail chasing itself. Pain and pleasure, suffering and satisfaction always seem to be “over there.” Thus, when pleasant sensations arise, there is a constant, compassionate, deluded attempt to get over there to the other side of the imagined split. This is fundamental attraction. You would think that we would just stop imagining there is a split, but somehow that is not what happens. We keep perpetuating the sense of a split even as we try to bridge it, and so we suffer. When unpleasant sensations arise, there is an attempt to get away from over there, to widen the imagined split. This will never work, because it doesn’t actually exist, but the way we hold our minds as we try to get away from that side is painful. When boring or unpleasant sensations arise, there is the attempt to tune out all together and forget the whole thing, to try to pretend that the sensations on the other side of the split are not there. This is fundamental ignorance and it perpetuates the process, as it is by ignoring aspects of our sensate reality that the illusion of a split is created in the first place....
--- Dharma Dan.
Remember how it was stated above that suffering motivates everything we do? We could also say that everything we do is motivated by compassion, which is part of the fundamentally empty nature of reality. That doesnÂ’t mean that everything we do is skillful; that is a whole different issue.
Compassion is a very good thing, especially when it involves one's self and all beings. It is sort of the flip side of the Second Noble Truth. The whole problem is that “misdirected” compassion, compassion that is filtered through the process of ego and its related habits, can produce enormous suffering and often does. It is easy to think of many examples of people searching for happiness in the strangest of places and by doing the strangest of things. Just pick up any newspaper. The take-home message is to search for happiness where you are actually likely to find it.
We might say that compassion is the ultimate aspect of desire, or think of compassion and desire on a continuum. The more wisdom or understanding of interconnectedness there is behind our intentions and actions, the more they reflect compassion and the more the results will turn out well. The more greed, hatred and delusion or lack of understanding of interconnectedness there is behind our intentions and actions, the more they reflect desire and the more suffering there will likely be.
~ Dharma Dan
Just my 2 cents. Perhaps others can share their understanding on 'greed'... -
[double post error]
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Something just come across my mind just now while reciting the Heart Sutra and being observant/aware of my mind.
Suddenly, it become apparent to me that 99% of my incessant (and useless) thoughts are related to deeply rooted habit energy of incessantly wanting to 'know' things.
It is the deeply rooted karmic propensity that keeps wanting to know things in accordance to its dualistic mode of perceiving -- Who, What, Where, When, How, etc.
It is the deeply rooted karmic propensity... I have written about this based on my discussions with Thusness but it just become more apparent to me just now, perhaps because I was a little more mindful of my own thinking, or I was able to 'step out' of the momentum and become aware of its habitual patterns.
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/07/spell-of-karmic-propensities.html
Karmic Propensities is what blinded us from seeing the ultimate reality. Our entire mind is affected by karmic propensities such that our entire system of enquiry, even when we want to inquire on reality, we cannot know beyond "Who", "When", "What", "Where". Our mind is always thinking dualistically, in terms of subject and object (an I and a Not-I/an Observer apart from the Object of Observation, which cannot be found in reality). It is a momentum that cannot be located, yet it can be directly felt and experienced, and the momentum arises every moment and affect the entire way we see things. When we are affected by momentum the mind cannot know the ultimate reality (Emptiness).....
This does not mean we should stop seeking knowledge. The only thing is that we must be aware not to deepen our karmic propensity and habit energy, that's all. Lot's of practise is needed to be able to become aware of our karmic propensities and deconstruct them... in that way there will be clarity and we are not bonded by our propensities. -
Somehow I agree. But in my way of presenting it, I will say, "An object is neither good or bad. It depends on what is the motivation of using this object by the person putting it to use."Originally posted by TheGoodEarth:Whatever one wants to know and have known is knowledge. For instance, you want to drive a car, so you learned to drive, and you know how to drive, thus you have the knowledge to drive a car.
On the other hand, knowledge can represent the the collective facts, observations (including experiments), explorations, discoveries and understanding of a topic or subject. This knowledge is recorded and stored, and in today's WWW, easily accessible.
From the beginning of time (if there is such a thing), good and bad are the characteristics of everything in this world! Rain is good and bad. Food is good and bad. Alcohol is good and bad. Angel is good and bad. Man is good and bad. Sex is good and bad. So is knowledge!
Simply stated, what is good is good. What is bad is bad. Your choice.
Greed is simply having more and more of the same - whether good or bad!!!! -
The English semantic is very challenging. When I said something is good and bad - it means it has the characteristics of both goodness and badness but not necessarily occuring in conjunction or jointly. As a result, it can be bad, it can be good.Originally posted by oldkid:Somehow I agree. But in my way of presenting it, I will say, "An object is neither good or bad. It depends on what is the motivation of using this object by the person putting it to use."
If you say neither good nor bad, then to me it means it has no characteristics of goodness and badness at all. So, it cannot be good, it also cannot be bad. That is neither good nor bad, so somewhere between good and bad - what is it? -
Just for sharing:Originally posted by NewAge:The greed i refer to is the thirst for knowledge. All types of knowledge but with focus on scientific progression like how to conquer space or studying hard to pass exams or even the strife for a better life.
In my opinion, greed is not only characterized by the desire to want more but also the unwillingness to share what we already have and in abundance. It creates a perpetual inner deficy that can never be satisfied. An example will be a student's unwillingness to share certain knowledge for selfish reasons especially when examination is drawing near. This selfishness to me is driven by greed. With this poison in heart, the mind cannot rest. They are two sides of the same coin. Thus, innocent and open quest for knowledge must also be balanced by generosity (dana) and generosity must similarly be accompanied by wisdom (not prajna wisdom). As pointed out by AEN, openly sharing atomic knowledge can be catastrophic; it may be generous but unwise. Therefore, as long as the 'desire' for knowledge (or anything) can be balanced by generiosity and accompanied with wisdom, I do not see a problem. -
Oh bad me. I again missed out that greed also contain selfishness. I'm such a leaky cup!Originally posted by Thusness:Just for sharing:
In my opinion, greed is not only characterized by the desire to want more but also the unwillingness to give what you have and in abundance. It creates a perpetual inner deficy that can never be satisfied. An example will be a student unwillingness to share certain knowledge for selfish reasons especially when examination is drawing near. This selfishness to me is driven by greed. With this poison in heart, the mind cannot rest. They are two sides of the same coin. Thus, innocent and open quest for knowledge must also be balanced by generosity (dana) and generosity must similarly be accompanied by wisdom. (not prajna wisdom) As pointed by AEN, openly sharing atomic knowledge can be catastrophic; it may be generous but unwise.
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Of course a physical object such as "something" has characteristics (big, small, tall, short, smooth, rough... etc.) and functions (carry load, container for other objects). But it lack the distinctive quality of good or bad.Originally posted by TheGoodEarth:The English semantic is very challenging. When I said something is good and bad - it means it has the characteristics of both goodness and badness but not necessarily occuring in conjunction or jointly. As a result, it can be bad, it can be good.
If you say neither good nor bad, then to me it means it has no characteristics of goodness and badness at all. So, it cannot be good, it also cannot be bad. That is neither good nor bad, so somewhere between good and bad - what is it?
Just as pesticide is good for ridding pests for farmers and is bad for the consumers whom consumes the crops.
After more contemplation, I could only humbly guess that you mean objects that were made with specific functions, like weapons such as guns and bombs. Weapons are made with specific motivation by the designer to efficiently subdue the enemies (immobilised or dead). So I guess you can say that weapon is bad in a mundane way.
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I am as ignorance...came only to my awareness when I felt the pinch of parting something.Originally posted by oldkid:Oh bad me. I again missed out that greed also contain selfishness. I'm such a leaky cup! 
Next you may also want to look into how Buddhism understands phenomenon existence not as entities but as actions or events. Objects are defined in terms of their functions and properties, that is, what they do and what they possess. Presently this is how we understand and experience the world. But in Buddhism, such fundamentals are being thoroughly challenged and questioned; there is no entity but only events (actions, karma). How actions continues without the need for an entity and how possession is a wrong idea from start. -
thanks wise oneOriginally posted by Thusness:I am as ignorance...came only to my awareness when I felt the pinch of parting something.
Next you may also want to look into how Buddhism understands phenomenon existence not as entities but as actions or events. Objects are defined in terms of their functions and properties, that is, what they do and what they possess. Presently this is how we understand and experience the world. But in Buddhism, such fundamentals are being thoroughly challenged and questioned; there is no entity but only events (actions, karma). How actions continues without the need for an entity and how possession is a wrong idea from start. -
Wow fantastic explanationOriginally posted by Thusness:Just for sharing:
In my opinion, greed is not only characterized by the desire to want more but also the unwillingness to share what we already have and in abundance. It creates a perpetual inner deficy that can never be satisfied. An example will be a student's unwillingness to share certain knowledge for selfish reasons especially when examination is drawing near. This selfishness to me is driven by greed. With this poison in heart, the mind cannot rest. They are two sides of the same coin. Thus, innocent and open quest for knowledge must also be balanced by generosity (dana) and generosity must similarly be accompanied by wisdom (not prajna wisdom). As pointed out by AEN, openly sharing atomic knowledge can be catastrophic; it may be generous but unwise. Therefore, as long as the 'desire' for knowledge (or anything) can be balanced by generiosity and accompanied with wisdom, I do not see a problem.
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Unwillingness to share is selfishness. That is the desire to hold and not to part, not necessarily, what we already have and in abundance.Originally posted by Thusness:In my opinion, greed is not only characterized by the desire to want more but also the unwillingness to share what we already have and in abundance.
Greed is the desire to want more of the same, beyond need and even though already in abundant possession. It may actually sound like sefishness is the opposite of greed but have the same root - craving & clinging?