Money

[Mig]

In previous posting, I mentioned about if Daoist is practiced by the well off, financially speaking. And now, I am looking for a job and started thinking, we need money to live in society and to pay whatever we need. Saying that we don't need money is being delusional or not being realistic. You have money, you have more to live better, nice in most of everything, you don't have money then you have to either survive or live a miserable life. Sure, I can hear people saying, I live to pay rent and then I don't need anything material. I don't believe in that as people when they talk they are not honest with themselves for the most part. So for those who are Daoists, what's the importance of money and how can you live comfortably when we know today the basics it has its price and good things usually are expensive to buy. Not to forget to rent a nice place in a nice area, it is common to see that renting is not affordable. So, do I need to live in the hood or the favelas just because that's all I can afford? And the cycle starts, should I sweat to work to pay bills or should I stay and become an hermit as the ones we see in YouTube?

[Lost in Translation]

What's the importance of health?

What's the importance of happiness?

What's the importance of food?

What's the importance of shelter?

What's the importance of freedom?

 

Money is a means to an end, nothing more. It is a symbolic representation of value society places on your work. To say you don't need money is to say you don't need health, happiness, food, shelter or freedom. To say you don't need money is to say you don't need society to place value upon your work.

 

People confuse greed and covetousness for means and value. You may not need excessive amounts of money (a subjective term) but you absolutely need money, and there is nothing wrong with pursuing and gaining wealth.

[Mig]

1 hour ago, Lost in Translation said:

What's the importance of health?

What's the importance of happiness?

What's the importance of food?

What's the importance of shelter?

What's the importance of freedom?

 

Money is a means to an end, nothing more. It is a symbolic representation of value society places on your work. To say you don't need money is to say you don't need health, happiness, food, shelter or freedom. To say you don't need money is to say you don't need society to place value upon your work.

 

People confuse greed and covetousness for means and value. You may not need excessive amounts of money (a subjective term) but you absolutely need money, and there is nothing wrong with pursuing and gaining wealth.

 

And how that relates to Daoism? Whichever lineage or way of Dao?

[Lost in Translation]

4 minutes ago, Mig said:

 

And how that relates to Daoism? Whichever lineage or way of Dao?

 

A Taoist is like water - he flows naturally and does not resist even the lowest of places. To live in the world without money takes a lot of effort. The path of least resistance is to develop a skill of value and use that skill to provide for yourself.

[rene]

I like what LiEhr said - Whoever knows he has enough is already rich.

For me, 'enough' is food & shelter - and that I have. (-:

[Mig]

8 hours ago, Lost in Translation said:

 

A Taoist is like water - he flows naturally and does not resist even the lowest of places. To live in the world without money takes a lot of effort. The path of least resistance is to develop a skill of value and use that skill to provide for yourself.

 

I guess you are referring to DDJ Chapter 8, right? The reference of water had made me to think, water can be also devastating as river floods or sea tsunamis (granted the water is pushed by jolts underground, for what I know). Living without a money to me is a bad marketing idea, it doesn't work, unless you live under the help or patronage of someone. And you are right about to develop a skill of value, some may make go by some make you rich. And still money is needed. You see, in the hood where I live there are nice houses and not affordable to everyone and still you see people living in those huge houses or nice houses. Then on the other side of the freeway there are the real homies and people don't want to live there but they can afford it and they live the American dream. So money still needed. And the question I asked how can you live in frugality when money is needed for the nice things in life.

[Mig]

8 hours ago, rene said:

I like what LiEhr said - Whoever knows he has enough is already rich.

For me, 'enough' is food & shelter - and that I have. (-:

Is that from Laozi? Which chapter says that? and to have enough I guess we need money, so when is enough for you not be enough for somebody else, right?

[Lost in Translation]

45 minutes ago, Mig said:

And the question I asked how can you live in frugality when money is needed for the nice things in life.

 

You live according to your means. If you have little money then you adjust your lifestyle. Maybe this means you have roommates. Maybe this means you move to a less expensive area. When I was just starting out in life I had no skills to earn money, at least not enough money to become independent. I chose to join the military. I indentured myself to the government for four years. During that time my liberty was severely curtailed, but in return I learned a skill, was provided with housing and food, and was able to travel the world.

 

Being a Taoist means being able to recognize change and adapt to it instead of fighting it. Sometimes you need to make difficult choices.

[rene]

8 hours ago, Mig said:

Is that from Laozi? Which chapter says that? and to have enough I guess we need money, so when is enough for you not be enough for somebody else, right?

 

Hi Mig -

 

Yes, that's from The Laozi - Chapter 33 - here is the Feng/English version:

 

Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self needs strength.

He who knows he has enough is rich.
Perseverance is a sign of willpower.
He who stays where he is endures.
To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

************

 

Everybody gets to decide what their own 'enough' is.

Others might think they need fancy clothes, expensive toys, big houses, etc - my needs are small.

 

A friend a long time ago said she felt guilty about owning a stereo    (yes, it was a looong time ago lolol) - but my thinking is, it's not so much what someone owns but rather their relationship to it. Is it so important to have a stereo that you'd work extra hours away from your kids to pay for it?

So yes, we need money, to meet our needs. Having small needs means needing less money.

Extra money can be for fun things! Things that can be let go of, if the extra money goes away.

 

Everything you own - also owns you.

One of my favorite sayings is: The more roof you own, the more headache you have.

 

 

[rideforever]

A great change has come over me recently particularly with A Course in Miracles, that people are innocent, they are fragments of the light in a learning experience of society and although many are fully coated in sewage, they are like butterflies trying to chew through the chrysalis to free themselves.  Any sense that they are not innocent comes from seeing the outside only and forgetting the light within our us and within the other.

The change has produced a great overhaul in how I view society.  Now I have the feeling of seeing clearly what people are doing that they are trying to free themselves, and in so doing then I know finally what my job is and why I am in society and what to do.  
 

The entanglements and darkness that people are entwined in is continuously reinforced by the feeling of guilt, of your own self or of others, then blame distrust and anger, until finally your whole approach to society is attack and it attacks you back and that is the state of consciousness that people live in and experience.

 

To understand money, our real work and purpose and to engage with society in the real way ... was not possible for me until this change overcame me.

Well it is not yet permanent but wow has it changed everything.

Anyone interested in A Course in Miracles should get the 1972 version sold as "The Original Version" or "The Sparkly Version", as unfortunately some donkeys re-edited it in 1976 corrupting some of the material.  And so it goes.

[Lost in Translation]

I'd also ask "What is money?" Don't answer superficially. We know it's paper (technically cloth), issued by the government. But go deeper.

 

What does this paper represent? Originally it represented gold or silver. Way back in the day you could exchange paper money for precious coins. That's been abolished and now money floats freely (fiat currency), but we'll set that aside.

 

So money represents precious metals. Why so? Because precious metals are limited in quantity. And they are shiny. Why were precious metals used for money? Well, they are easier to carry than barter goods.

 

Back in the days of barter (or modern day Venezuela) people had to trade stuff for stuff. It was tedious. If you had chickens and you wanted oil you needed to bring your chickens to a market and find the someone with oil. If that someone wanted beef then you had to first trade for beef before you could trade for oil. It was a mess.

 

Why did people trade stuff for stuff? Because they had stuff and they needed stuff! Why did one person have chickens, another person beef, and yet another oil? Because each person worked in their own profession. Some raised chickens, others raised cattle, and others made oil.

 

What am I getting at? Money is a symbolic medium. It is representative of work. The more valuable (i.e. needed by others) the work, the more money.

 

Would it ever occur to anyone to ask whether a Taoist needed a chicken farm? No! But people ask whether a Taoist needs money. Ironically the two questions are fundamentally the same! There is no conflict between being a Taoist and raising chickens. Similarly there is no conflict between being a Taoist and being a lawyer, or between being a Taoist and running a business.

[Mig]

5 hours ago, rene said:

 

Hi Mig -

 

Yes, that's from The Laozi - Chapter 33 - here is the Feng/English version:

 

Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self needs strength.

He who knows he has enough is rich.
Perseverance is a sign of willpower.
He who stays where he is endures.
To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

************

 

Everybody gets to decide what their own 'enough' is.

Others might think they need fancy clothes, expensive toys, big houses, etc - my needs are small.

 

A friend a long time ago said she felt guilty about owning a stereo    (yes, it was a looong time ago lolol) - but my thinking is, it's not so much what someone owns but rather their relationship to it. Is it so important to have a stereo that you'd work extra hours away from your kids to pay for it?

So yes, we need money, to meet our needs. Having small needs means needing less money.

Extra money can be for fun things! Things that can be let go of, if the extra money goes away.

 

Everything you own - also owns you.

One of my favorite sayings is: The more roof you own, the more headache you have.

 

 

 

I understand my enough or what I need is not the same for other people. But the reality is that money it is a necessity. The difference of today and yesterday is that goods you couldn't get because it was reserved to the minority who could afford it, it was difficult to get and today, there are more choices to choose. And my comment was general in the beginning and more specific at the end. General as money prevails living in society and specifically we need money and usually it is expensive to get the most basics even our needs. Let's talk more about real examples as medication. True, I should have taken care of myself, but body cannot tell us tomorrow you will get sick because of disharmony or whatever and medication has become helpful. Oh well for many medication is too expensive so we have to deal with the illness or die. I haven't had that problem but have seen many cases either in USA or in poor countries. Thank you for your input, I think I am getting there trying to understand the Daoist perspective.

[rene]

4 minutes ago, Mig said:

 

   ... I think I am getting there trying to understand the Daoist perspective.

 

 

Ohhhh...my apologies, Mig. I am not Daoist, and should have said so right away.

[zerostao]

Money is a hard one to get past for most. They have been sold on the idea. One of the things that I am most grateful for is that I am not one of those. I have experimented with all kinds of conditions, largely without a starting hypothesis, just experimenting to check out what happens. I found that when I did have money, loose stacks, easy come easy go, life could be grand---sometimes though only for the moment. I later determined that was an illusion. And life without money is priceless, and I am far richer for it. Going from frugal to frugile is when one can place a feather in their cap if they're into that lol

 

[rene]

9 minutes ago, zerostao said:

...Going from frugal to frugile is when one can place a feather in their cap if they're into that lol

 

Just confirming: What you mean is going from having to be frugal - to choosing to be frugal. Yes?

[zerostao]

16 minutes ago, rene said:

Just confirming: What you mean is going from having to be frugal - to choosing to be frugal. Yes?

It's always been a choice. Frugile, is perhaps a word of my invention meaning taking frugal to another level. An art form. It is kinda like agile in the frugal way. Maybe frugility is the better invented word.

If I wanted to choose to have loose stacks, that isn't much of a challenge.

Edited July 15, 2018 by zerostao

[rene]

1 minute ago, zerostao said:

It's always been a choice. Frugile, is perhaps a word of my invention meaning taking frugal to another level. An art form.

If I wanted to choose to have loose stacks, that isn't much of a challenge.

Thanks for clarifying (-:

 

[Marblehead]

33 minutes ago, zerostao said:

If I wanted to choose to have loose stacks

And if you drink a lot of prune juice you will have loose stools.

 

[zerostao]

That's true. I never have any problems with that sort of thing though.

[Starjumper]

https://youtu.be/xkNpJ1BVIPs

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Starjumper

[vonkrankenhaus]

Keep sight of YinYang.

 

Money is a system to capture and transfer life energy. It is a slave tool.

 

The beginning of true freedom is slavery.

 

So if you are smart, money system itself is showing you how to live without it.

 

Many people miss the significance of Life, until a noose is put around their necks.

 

Then, to some - Life becomes crystal clear.

 

If you have a "problem" with something intended to enslave you, then this is a sign to you from you about Reality.

 

Follow it. Read the sign fully.

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Aetherous]

I don't know what Daoists think about money. Some modern Daoists learn feng shui, and I think "wealth" is one of the 9 palaces, so that makes me guess they are concerned with it. Pretty sure they also charge and accept money for various things.

As for what I think...I view money as our primary means of survival in civilized society.

Prior to civilization, we depended on some tools like knives, and our knowledge such as how to build fires. We hunted and gathered our food. We had our means of survival and it was easy. Later on, we cultivated through agriculture and farming, although that began to get tied in with various forms of money...still, we were largely dependent on working with the natural world for our survival.

In our societies today, building fire is just to make s'mores. We don't hunt and thereby survive. It's a sport, or provides a little bit of extra meat, but not enough to live on. We don't gather...unless we're making blueberry pie, or going to the farmers market. We don't farm for the most part, unless we grow a few extra things. Really, we can't depend on ourselves alone for our survival these days without enormous effort. Society makes us more interwoven.

Now that we're in civilization, what determines everything for us is money. Without any of it, we die. With some of it, we survive. With more of it, we thrive.

So my perspective is: do you want to die? Do you want to merely survive? Or do you want to thrive?

Do you want to live in a house, or be homeless?
Do you want to drive a car across town, or walk?

Do you want to afford three meals a day, or dumpster dive?

Our personal ethics will determine what we do with our money beyond that. Some might feel like having money while others don't is bad. But I think that if you use your money to help others, it's better to have than to not. If you're barely surviving, yourself, your ability to help others is extremely limited.

[joeblast]

So ultimately it would seem to boil down to - do I want to be part of this society, or not?

[Aetherous]

1 minute ago, joeblast said:

So ultimately it would seem to boil down to - do I want to be part of this society, or not?

 

I think there are ways to get around it somewhat...but unfortunately it's hard to avoid money/society completely. For instance, we can almost avoid it by already owning a plot of land way out in the middle of nowhere, hunting and growing food...but I think we still have taxes on that land.

I don't see how anyone could avoid it who uses the internet.

[Marblehead]

And if there is anyone here who feels they have too much money and want to rid themselves of the worrying about it you can send it to me and I will invest it in something you might be proud of being a part of.