Poverty is a concept

[skydog]

Poverty is a concept of the mind.

 

If a man has a mansion and five expensive cars but is unhappy and usually in chronic stress is he rich or poor? One could say actually that is poor.

 

Really you can sleep in nature, and actually get more energised and fresh air so there is little need for a bed.

 

Also it is possible to live without food/very little food or beg for bits of food occasionally/grow/find your own somehow. and this can be extremely healthy/more healty than someone with lots of food.

 

I could have a laptop in my room when I would travel and then decide to spend all day reading/watching/facebooking/stimulation or I could not have one and spend time in the park or doin whatever and actually be happier, I could know this intellectually but decide im addicted to stimulation so I wouldnt do it.

 

Someone could couchsurf for free and have a great time in a foreign country or they could spend £100 a day in a room and be relatively boring.

 

Someone could be with 10 friends and feel lonely, someone could have a partner that they hate but scared of losing/cant be themselves with.. or someone could be by themselves and be happier.

 

Someone could travel the whole world and yet lack happiness internally. As the tao teh ching says when people are in the tao they have little desire to travel.

 

Someone could be famous, yet have no real friends/no privacy/ no sense of being themself or intimacy whereas someone could be unknown relatively..

 

In this moment what are you lacking? Nothing. But if you were to say something then you would be poor, because lacking is an idea that actually makes you feel your lacking. And feeling like you are lacking is poverty.

 

Is there such a thing as permanent wealth or does it fluctuate for example one minute your here doing this another your doing something else. An amount of numbers in a bank account doesnt mean anything at this moment.

 

Wealth is not money. Money is a symbol (lines/numbers) that can be used to buy things (not even always the case though)Thoughts, ideas, energy that correspond with other thoughts, ideas or energy which can produce emotions..Even in Taoism they dont like this idea of excessive happiness or joy more equanimity.

 

Zen monks and sufi mystics take a vow of poverty if im not mistaken and value poverty.

 

Fear of poverty, feeling of poverty and lack due to lack of money is an issue that effects people who have money and people who dont have money, as well as fear of poverty being an issue that reduces the chance of you making much money. This is a middle way argument yes you can argue every concept but I am arguing the conventional view of being rich.

[Marblehead]

I can't allow this thread to go without any replies to it. The concepts are too important.

 

IMO, wealth does not mean an accumulation of money and poverty does not mean a lack of.

 

Sure, in most societies nowadays one needs some money in order to buy the things that are needed for a comfortable life. But when we die someone else will be getting any money that is left over. We can't take it with us, ya' know.

 

More important, I think, is that we are at peace with our Self. This is wealth.

[zerostao]

yeah it is a good post and topic. a rich life is living the life one chooses to. imo

follow your own dreams. and live this life for yourself, kinda like the free will thing.

some get it and some dont.

i have said before you couldnt pay me to be rich

a rich life cannot be bought it has to be lived

[eye_of_the_storm]

Good points...

 

though I would say we would be doing those who are actually living in poverty a disrespect to say ... it is just a concept.

 

rich in material poor in mind...

 

maybe both rich in material and in mind

 

maybe some poor materially are rich in mind.... or poor materially and poor in mind...

 

to reject the idea of abundance altogether is dangerous ...

 

I am the king of nothing, I am the king of the world

 

the Earth is a treasure indeed...

 

Why can't we all be rich in material and mind though?

 

why must we constantly compromise?

 

ah well if you want to be spiritual and loving... you have to be poor

 

if you are rich you have to be poor in spirit.... all these rudimentary and vastly limiting stereotypes.

 

^ I think this is a poor mind set... that leads to perpetual poverty.

 

I want to see a world in accordance with the nature... where everyone is rich both in material and in mind...

 

... perhaps I am a Utopian... haha

 

perhaps another 300 odd years and we will see such ... I will see the day.

 

The more wealth I acquire the more wealth I can share + help others to become wealthy (again at both levels)

 

if one lacks in either there is going to be an imbalance I think... or at the least... a missed opportunity to excel / to go beyond / evolve... materially + mentally + spiritual etc.

 

I am not talking ridiculous wealth materially either (million dollar watches...nonsense)... modest... comfortable, secure, access to good food, pure water,air and a decent education ... for all //// which I think we totally have the ability to achieve...yesterday.

 

others may go beyond that etc to help humanity forward

Edited September 21, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Guest RBSA]

So is infinity .

[zanshin]

 

Really you can sleep in nature, and actually get more energised and fresh air so there is little need for a bed.

 

Also it is possible to live without food/very little food or beg for bits of food occasionally/grow/find your own somehow. and this can be extremely healthy/more healty than someone with lots of food.

 

 

I don't completely disagree with you and a few do live very simply, by choice, and are content. But what do you think if the people living the lifestyle above are a family with young children or if they are frail, elderly or mentally ill?. Usually the very poor do not choose this lifestyle, although it certainly can be a result of other bad choices. I have a lot of compassion for people in this situation and think it is a little dangerous to utopianize poverty and simplicity and think the poor could change their concepts and feel fine.. But why is everything in life a competition? Who is richer, more superior, more spiritual and happier? Maybe me if i could get rid of those stereotypes. At least money i can give away or spend, yet somehow i'm still stuck with stuff i can't seem to unload.

[skydog]

Well Zanshin I know where you are coming from but this post wasnt meant for everyone sometimes different energies require opposite energies to induce harmony.

[skydog]

Also there is no rejection of the idea of abundance.

 

If you feel you are rich, you are rich, then you attract richness.

 

If you fear poverty you attract poverty

[Apech]

I feel that poverty is good for you spiritually ... so in order to help everyone I am willing to accept your money if you send it to my paypal a/c.

 

Thank you and blessings.

[zerostao]

I don't completely disagree with you and a few do live very simply, by choice, and are content. But what do you think if the people living the lifestyle above are a family with young children or if they are frail, elderly or mentally ill?. Usually the very poor do not choose this lifestyle, although it certainly can be a result of other bad choices. I have a lot of compassion for people in this situation and think it is a little dangerous to utopianize poverty and simplicity and think the poor could change their concepts and feel fine.. But why is everything in life a competition? Who is richer, more superior, more spiritual and happier? Maybe me if i could get rid of those stereotypes. At least money i can give away or spend, yet somehow i'm still stuck with stuff i can't seem to unload.

folks need to stick together. and in many smaller simpler communities they are very tight knit and folks do look out for each other. those that were strong and lent a helping hand to others in their moments of stress, illness, bad luck, and other challenges that were difficult to face alone,,,,well it is hard to forget those folks that helped when they come up against their own special challenges. i do kinda use the concepts thing myself and it does help me. i dont have the concept that i am in any competition tho, with the exception of against myself.

@edit> apech , good luck with that

Edited September 21, 2012 by zerostao

[thelerner]

I feel that poverty is good for you spiritually ... so in order to help everyone I am willing to accept your money if you send it to my paypal a/c.

 

Thank you and blessings.

ditto, poverty might be a mindset, but hunger isn't. Neither is living in fear of losing your job and not being able to provide food, shelter and stability for yourself and family. A monks life might be a very painful one for the majority of people.

[Practitioner]

Sometimes I think the only people who here are first world people who have not experienced anything even close to poverty, starvation, or extreme conditions. Most people in first world countries who have not seen how third word people live, have absolutely no idea how extreme things can get. You can not "philosophize" about poverty, or say that there is "no poverty" when you make one and a half dollars for a day's worth of back breaking work, live in a cardboard and scrap metal shack, and have four kids and a wife to feed. I can't say anyone has a right to say that poverty doesn't exist when you are starving, it is an insult to the people who have to bear the burden of this reality daily.

 

Absolutely frivolous. for some reason i am reminded of some of those people around here who claim to be "taoist" or "buddhist" but charge thousands upon thousands of dollars to have "retreats" and "seminars".. things like these seem so cruel and unreal when you live in a place so darn poor as the place where I live in.

[et-thoughts]

ah well if you want to be spiritual and loving... you have to be poor

if you are rich you have to be poor in spirit....

^ I think this is a poor mind set... that leads to perpetual poverty.

 

Interesting lure to get the goods from the spiritual and loving...

 

I agree... individuals requires a rich mind set... that leads to perpetual enrichment... of themselves and others... the fundamental problem at this time involves the opportunistic exploitative hunter mentality of force that can takes away the fruits of agrarian individuals... and perpetuate the exploitative cycle of having not and just taking rather than cultivating. Ideally everyone would benefit from everything and everyone... unfortunately at this time thugs run wild...

[Marblehead]

I want to see a world in accordance with the nature... where everyone is rich both in material and in mind...

 

... perhaps I am a Utopian... haha

Please excuse my thoughts at reading this: But don't try to grow Daylilies in Death Valley.

[skydog]

Sometimes I think the only people who here are first world people who have not experienced anything even close to poverty, starvation, or extreme conditions. Most people in first world countries who have not seen how third word people live, have absolutely no idea how extreme things can get. You can not "philosophize" about poverty, or say that there is "no poverty" when you make one and a half dollars for a day's worth of back breaking work, live in a cardboard and scrap metal shack, and have four kids and a wife to feed. I can't say anyone has a right to say that poverty doesn't exist when you are starving, it is an insult to the people who have to bear the burden of this reality daily.

 

Absolutely frivolous. for some reason i am reminded of some of those people around here who claim to be "taoist" or "buddhist" but charge thousands upon thousands of dollars to have "retreats" and "seminars".. things like these seem so cruel and unreal when you live in a place so darn poor as the place where I live in.

 

hmm you misunderstand the point of the thread, and I am not one who endorses slavery/poverty either.

[zanshin]

Also there is no rejection of the idea of abundance.

 

If you feel you are rich, you are rich, then you attract richness.

 

If you fear poverty you attract poverty

 

But it's still to get something. Feel rich to attract richness. Work hard and make good choices to get richness. Richness for everyone. A+?=Profit! So many ways to chase the wind.

[skydog]

Ok let me ask you this would an enlightened individual consider themselves poor or rich?

[skydog]

Ok let me ask you this would an enlightened individual consider themselves poor or rich? they may have little money but perhaps they have enough food to eat, perhaps they have certain "problems" but does that mean they think of themselves as poor because other people have called them poor.

[skydog]

I am not chasing anything I am talking about the feeling of being rich/having something versus the feeling of lack

[zanshin]

I have no idea what an enlightened individual would think I would guess they might not notice or at least not care about those labels.

 

 

I've been poor (not third world, on the streets poor). It pretty much sucks when you're a kid, but I've lived the simple idealized farm country life. I appreciate some things about that life more now, but I also appreciate my present comfortable suburban life. When the kids are grown, I'll probably go back to the country and become simpler again. Every couple years, I go out and live in the woods real simple for about a week or so. It's good to go and it's good to come back.

 

I think zerostao genuinely has the simple contented life groove just about right- and that is way cool.

[et-thoughts]

But it's still to get something. Feel rich to attract richness. Work hard and make good choices to get richness. Richness for everyone. A+?=Profit! So many ways to chase the wind.

 

Oh one can work hard and make good choices and still not get richer for others ensure that they get rewarded for your work ... or that your work does not get rewarded by anyone... because if you and others like you where rewarded they would lose their rewards... The idea that Work hard and make good choices leads to richness... requires close observation... because sometimes brute force only expends energy and that proper technique wouldn't require... think of opening a door... with the key you can turn the knob quite easily and open the door... of course some may attempt the brute force approach because they don't have the key... and leader realize that all they had to do was turn the know for the door was unlocked...

 

Yes poverty is a concept just as WEALTH is a concept... and for everyone here think about this... YOU ATTRACT what you feel, think, consider, wand for... the fact this thread focuses on a particular topic ATTRACTS IT! Look at the words to know what is it you value and want...

[et-thoughts]

Ok let me ask you this would an enlightened individual consider themselves poor or rich?

 

they would consider themselves enlightened... and whatever they happened to be

[zanshin]

But I don't really want to ATTRACT anything, I have enough. If that worked, shouldn't horny guys get lucky a lot more often anyway?

[Taomeow]

Sometimes I think the only people who here are first world people who have not experienced anything even close to poverty, starvation, or extreme conditions. Most people in first world countries who have not seen how third word people live, have absolutely no idea how extreme things can get. You can not "philosophize" about poverty, or say that there is "no poverty" when you make one and a half dollars for a day's worth of back breaking work, live in a cardboard and scrap metal shack, and have four kids and a wife to feed. I can't say anyone has a right to say that poverty doesn't exist when you are starving, it is an insult to the people who have to bear the burden of this reality daily.

 

Absolutely frivolous. for some reason i am reminded of some of those people around here who claim to be "taoist" or "buddhist" but charge thousands upon thousands of dollars to have "retreats" and "seminars".. things like these seem so cruel and unreal when you live in a place so darn poor as the place where I live in.

 

Completely agree with your first paragraph and disagree with the second.

 

To understand the dynamics of money changing hands between taoists and buddhists, you have to look at history.

 

The only periods in Chinese history when taoism flourished were the periods when the emperor aimed to curb the power of the buddhist monasteries. The latter were exempt from taxation and acquired vast agricultural lands which, importantly, were claimed as the extension of monastic property and as such, also exempt from taxation. Buddhism in China spread as a financial scam. Pointless to hold it against the heirs of this system that they don't practice what they preach -- they never did, the scam is built into the premise (suffering is unavoidable, but while this is the case, I'll see to it that the one who suffers is you and the one who prospers is me). Taoist monasteries didn't participate in this scam, and traditionally taoists made a living by serving the community in various capacities that required many years of vast studies of specialized as well as general areas such as medicine, cosmology, geography, astrology, spiritual matters, feng shui, divination, military strategy and training, politics, traditional and innovative sciences and empirical research (taoists invented things like gunpowder and paper and immunization and chemistry, to name a few), and on and on. All these have always been offered to lay folks for a fee, taoists had no other means to make a living than charging for services rendered. Spiritual pursuits and personal cultivation became a commodity when a market formed that viewed them as such; taoists will sell it to this market just as they sold everything they had to sell throughout history -- the price being determined by the interplay of demand and supply. There's never been a conflict between what taoists practice and what they preach, since they don't preach suffering, poverty, or freebies for anyone slightly interested in taoist pursuits. Long as they deliver the goods, they charge what the buyer is willing and able to pay. If what they sell is not something "everyone" can afford, it closely resembles the natural process where a mouse can't eat a tiger, a man can't get pregnant, a 90-year-old can't have the vigor of a 9-year-old, a leaf fallen from the tree can't climb back. I.e. they are not on a quest for equality because there's no such thing in the natural world. Balance, yes, each thing in its place and moving from there to another place, yes, but a static artificial imposition of should's and shouldn't's regarding where this place is and how much it costs, no.

[et-thoughts]

But I don't really want to ATTRACT anything, I have enough. If that worked, shouldn't horny guys get lucky a lot more often anyway?

 

Right ... stuff just happens... and one decides what to do with it... what to keep and what to allow to pass by...

Some guys get lucky whenever they want to get lucky... in fact all they need to get lucky is to decide to go out ...