Curing Ourselves of Greed

A self-centred person likes to believe that he is independent and separate from others and will come up with ways to gain advantages for himself without including the well-being of those around him. This type of thinking is called greed, and it is one of the prime evils in Buddhism.

Greed causes a person to suspect others of being his enemies and makes him feel envious when others are successful. It clouds and weakens the moral sense, and over time it poisons his thoughts and makes him unsociable.

Here is an old tale that I heard as a little kid:

There once was a merchant who lost his wallet. The merchant put up a poster offering a $10 reward to anyone who finds and returns his wallet.

A little girl finds the wallet and seeing the poster, she returns it to him.

But the merchant refuses to give her the reward. “There should be $10 in this wallet, and it’s not there. You must have taken it.”

“But sir, I didn’t even open your wallet.”

“No. Go away. You got your reward.”

Just as this happens, a wise man walks by, and says, “If your wallet had $10 in it, and this wallet has nothing, then it cannot possibly be the same wallet.” The wise man takes the wallet and hands it to the little girl. “Little girl, you may take this wallet with you. It is not the merchant’s wallet.”

And so, the little girl goes home. She opens the wallet, and finds herself with $10.

To act on greed is one of the worst possible things a person can do to himself, as it tends to turn cheap opportunities into something even less.

To overcome greed, a person would need to realize that there is nothing for him to lose when others make progress, and that he is not entitled to more than he deserves – which is what he himself earns. When undergoing this realization, it may seem to him that he is losing more than he is gaining, but as he realizes more and more, he will understand that he has given up nothing. Instead he will have overcome greed.