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So here are
practices. If you practice these things, then you will be more
aware of some of these issues. They will be in your consciousness.
Practice means you have to do it, and if you don’t do it, it doesn’t
work -- that’s why they’re practices. But don’t confuse the
practice for what is supposed to happen. You do these practices for
one month and I promise you, your attitudes about money will begin
to shift. Feel free to tailor make the practices. The practices
aren’t holy—it’s the awareness that’s holy.
Practice #1:
"Bring In/Bring Out"
Here’s practice
#1. I call it: “buy something or bring something in and take
something out.” Whenever you buy something, you have to remove
something from your home. I live in New York City in a small
apartment. This is a wonderful practice for a variety of reasons.
But if you live in a big house, it’s even more important. When you
live in a big house, sometimes you look in the closet you don’t even
know all the things you have. I buy a CD, a CD goes out. The kids
buy a toy, a toy goes out. It’s wonderful because, first of all, it
gets you to understand the difference between need and desire.
“Okay, I really need this toy.” “Oh, do you need this toy?” “Well,
I really want this toy.” “Well, let’s get rid of another want.”
Moreover, because generally you give something away to someone who
actually needs something, you tie your desire and your want to
someone else’s need—that’s a very healthy expansion of desire.
Practice #2:
"Increasing
the Pleasure with Gratitude"
Practice #2:
this is the gratefulness or pleasure practice. When I was growing
up, we used to get new clothes twice a year – in the fall before
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and before Passover in the
spring. And as we put things on, there was a blessing we recited.
A blessing is just a fancy way of saying, “Wow, thank God I’m at
this moment and I’ve lived to enjoy this.” When you put the new
clothes on, or when you eat something for the first time in a
season, or when you use something for the first time and take a
moment to feel the blessing, you actually can taste the pleasure
more deeply. And if you taste the pleasure more deeply, you have a
kind of satisfaction that is filling so that you do not immediately
need something else 15 minutes later. You can use any affirmation or
any blessing you want, but before you get something new and use
it—step back and enjoy and examine the pleasure that you really
feel.
Practice #3:
"Giving Before Celebrating"
Practice #3 also
comes from the Jewish tradition. There is an amazing Jewish practice
that is carried out before every holiday or is associated with every
holiday -- and we have a lot of holidays. It is a form of charity
or philanthropy which means when you celebrate a holiday, you tend
to take care of yourself: you have a big meal, you buy new stuff for
yourself, you celebrate with your family and your friends and,
precisely at that moment, we widen the experience to be inclusive of
those people who need something. Now imagine if we did that.
Imagine that instead of a sales day, in which we get something on a
celebration day — Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday --
imagine instead that we actually give something to someone else as
our way of celebration. This again would begin to get at the
awareness that there is a difference between need and desire. It
would begin to form new ways of associating money with who we are
instead of money only being about our means to consume. Money would
actually be able to go out—to transform the world—so that in the end
what affluence means is you have new and higher and wider
responsibilities not only to be able to celebrate and enjoy the
material world which we should as it is an absolutely spiritual
thing to be able to take care of ourselves at the highest levels,
but also to ratchet up our responsibility to transform the world.
If you do these
practices, and keep some of these ideas in mind, you’ll know the
truth of a very ancient statement by the rabbis: Who is the person
who is really wealthy, the person who is happy with his/her lot, and
the person who really is strong? It’s the person who understands
and can control his/her desires. That’s “Simple Wisdom.” |
