The Man Who Lives Without Money - Buddhist Things

The Man Who Lives Without Money - Buddhist Things

Think you couldn’t live without money? Irishman Mark Boyle challenged this notion and here’s how he finds life with no financial income, bank balance, and no spending.

“If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal.” According to Boyle, the plan back then was to ‘get a good job’, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society he was successful.

Like most individuals raised in a consumer-driven society, he never second guessed those goals. For a while he had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company and even had a yacht in the harbor. If it hadn’t have been for the chance purchase of a video called Gandhi, he’d still be pursuing the same life. “I’d still be doing it today. Instead, for the last fifteen months, I haven’t spent or received a single penny. Zilch”.

The change in life path came one evening on the yacht while philosophizing with a friend over a glass of Merlot. “Whilst I had been significantly influenced by Mahatma’s quote “be the change you want to see in the world”, I had no idea what that change was up until then.”

The two friends began talking about all the major issues in the world – environmental destruction, resource wars, factory farms, sweatshop labor – and wondered which of the issues they could best devote their time to. Mark didn’t feel he could really make any difference, however “being two small drops in a highly polluted ocean”.

That evening, though, a revelation came through: “These issues weren’t as unrelated as I had previously thought – they had a common root cause. I believe the fact that we no longer see the direct repercussions our purchases have on the people, environment, and animals they affect is the factor that unites these problems.”

Boyle believes that the degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that it now means most people are completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering embodied in the ‘stuff’ they buy.

It can be agreed that few people actually want to cause suffering to others; most just don’t have any idea that they directly are. The tool that has enabled this separation is money, especially in its globalized format.

“If we grew our own food, we wouldn’t waste a third of it today” is one of Mark’s examples as to why it’s important a reconnection with natural/source living is established. “If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior décor. If we had to clean our own water, we probably wouldn’t shit in it”.

The above arguments all honestly assess the undervalue most objects now have. With convenience at our fingertips, most don’t consider where their trash product or unwanted items go.

Deciding to be the change, this then spurred Mark to fully dive into his new viewpoint and give up money, which he only planned on doing for a year. “I made a list of the basics I’d need to survive. I adore food, so it was at the top. There are four legs to the food-for-free table: foraging wild food, growing your own, bartering and using waste grub, of which there are far more”.

On his first day, he fed 150 people a three-course meal with waste and foraged food. For himself, however, he ate his own crops and waste only made up about 5% of his diet. “I cooked outside – rain or shine – on a rocket stove”.

The next concern was shelter. He found himself a caravan from Freecycle, parked it on an organic farm he volunteered with, and renovated it out to be off the electricity grid. I’d use wood I either coppiced or scavenged to heat my humble abode in a wood burner made from an old gas bottle, and I had a compost loo to make ‘humanure’ for my veggies”. Up front and to the point, Boyle clearly understood the necessity of using every available resource to be most sustainable.

“I bathed in a river, and for toothpaste I used washed up cuttlefish bone with wild fennel seeds, an oddity for a vegan. For loo I’d relieve the local newsagent of its papers (Once I wiped my arse with a story about myself); it wasn’t double quilted but it quickly became normal”. For transportation, Mark used his bike and trailer, using the 55 km commute to the city as an alternative solution for the gym. Beeswax candles served as his lighting.

Humorously inspiring to some, deluded and anti-capitalist to others, Mark had this to say about his radical lifestyle: “Many people label me as anti-capitalist. Whilst I do believe capitalism is fundamentally flawed, requiring infinite growth on a finite planet, I am not anti anything.” More than anything, Boyle claims to be pro-nature, pro-community, and pro-happiness. How often is that a city dweller’s life philosophy?

“And that’s the thing I don’t get – if all this consumerism and environmental destruction brought happiness, it would make some sense. But all the key indicators of unhappiness – depression, crime, mental illness, obesity, suicide and so on are on the increase.” More money, it seems, does not equate to more happiness. (See Documentary: Happy)

Another positive effect of Mark’s unique lifestyle is the joy he has created for himself. “Ironically, I have found this year to be the happiest of my life. I’ve more friends in my community than ever, I haven’t been ill since I began, and I’ve never been fitter. I’ve found that friendship, not money, is real security. That most western poverty is spiritual, and that independence is really interdependent.”

Mark’s example certainly stands as inspiration for those seeking freedom from the fast-paced modern age; most alternative media sources would agree that the more one reconnects to nature, the better their mental, physical, and spiritual health is. However, could everyone live like this? According to Mark, no.

“It would be a catastrophe, we are too addicted to both it and cheap energy, and have managed to build an entire global infrastructure around the abundance of both.”

The prospect of gradually transitioning to re-localized, small communities is a possibility, though. With greener energy sources and healthier communities being implemented at a growing rate, natural living is already a reality, but may be made much more mainstream in the future to come.

“For over 90 percent of our time on the planet, a period when we lived much more ecologically, we lived without money. Now we are the only species to use it, probably because we are the species most out of touch with nature.”

Asked what was missing from his old world of lucre and business, Mark replied “Stress. Traffic-jams. Bank statements. Utility bills. Oh yeah, and the odd pint of organic ale with my mates down at the local”.

It just goes to show, if you are passionate about anything, you can be that change you’d like to see in the world.

The song of the child

 There is a tribe in Africa called the Himba tribe, where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him. And then, when they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it.

And then, when the mother is pregnant, the mother teaches that child’s song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people around her sing the child’s song to welcome it. And then, as the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child’s song. If the child falls, or hurts its knee, someone picks it up and sings its song to it. Or perhaps the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song.

In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.

The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

And it goes this way through their life. In marriage, the songs are sung, together. And finally, when this child is lying in bed, ready to die, all the villagers know his or her song, and they sing—for the last time—the song to that person.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn’t. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.

The Mind Unleashed

www.themindunleashed.org

Student Was Asked About “Hell” On An Exam. You Have To Read His Priceless Answer!

Since Hell receives no more souls, when you die, you must go to Heaven. No other choice. I am sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read here

If you just take one minute to read this, It will change the way you think…

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.. Hospital window.

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene. One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Days, weeks and months passed. One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed.

It faced a blank wall.

The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’

Epilogue:

There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations. Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled. If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy.

 Source: http://www.trulybuddha.com/if-you-take-just-1-miniute-to-read-this-it-will-change-the-way-you-think/

Listen with your own wisdom

Meditation is learning how to listen with your own wisdom, so that you can see. I think why meditation is amazingly important, is that somehow our unconscious world is much bigger. It is huge, universal, and we don't understand that one. Meditation allows this world to be light and knowable, understandable. That is why it is important. 

Normally we are totally robbed by the egotistic, conventional mind, not allowing the fundamental mind to be functioning. That is why one should have confidence, truly... through experience, one has confidence in one's spiritual journey.

~ Lama Thubten Yeshe ~

If Buddhism is so good why are some Buddhist countries poor?

If by poor you mean economically poor, then it is true that some Buddhist countries are poor. But if by poor you mean a poor quality of life, then perhaps some Buddhist countries are quite rich. America, for example, is an economically rich and powerful country but the crime rate is one of the highest in the world, millions of old people are neglected by their children and die of loneliness in old people’s homes, domestic violence and child abuse are major problems. One in three marriages end in divorce, pornography is easily available. Rich in terms of money but perhaps poor in terms of the quality of life. Now if you look at some traditional Buddhist countries you find a very different situation. Parents are honoured and respected by their children, the crime rates are relatively low, divorce and suicide are rare and traditional values like gentleness, generosity, hospitality to strangers, tolerance and respect for others are still strong. Economically backward, but perhaps a higher quality of life than a country like America. But even if we judge Buddhist countries in terms of economics alone, one of the wealthiest and most economically dynamic countries in the world today is Japan where 93% of the population call themselves Buddhist.

Good Questions and Good Answers

With Ven.S. Dhammika

"Why am I so poor?"

A poor man asked the Buddha,

“Why am I so poor?”

The Buddha said, “you do not learn to give.”

So the poor man said, “If I’m not having anything?”

Buddha said: “You have a few things,

The Face, which can give a smile;

Mouth: you can praise or comfort others;

The Heart: it can open up to others;

Eyes: who can look the other with the eyes of goodness;

Body: which can be used to help others.”

So, actually we are not poor at all, poverty of spirit is the real poverty.

(From Internet)