We've Been Given So Much

There’s a passage in the Pali Canon where the Buddha meets King Pasenadi, who has just come from confiscating the estate of a recently deceased banker. Though immensely rich, the banker lived on cracked rice and pickle brine. You might expect the Buddha to praise such thrift, but instead he condemns the man’s miserliness: Why did he neither enjoy his wealth nor share it with others? Did he not know that you can’t take money with you when you die?

We tend to be very confused about material possessions. On the one hand, we never think we have enough; on the other, we refuse to enjoy what we already have. And we hoard more than money: We hoard our time, afraid to answer the phone lest a friend rob us of a few precious minutes of TV-watching. We hoard our affection, afraid to express love lest it go unreturned. Yet what we hoard loses its value entirely. Death takes it away, or kings confiscate it.

We’re all misers on some level. Whenever we think, “I give so much and get so little,” we’re usually confronting our miserliness. I used to resent not getting enough praise or recognition for my music. “I give so much and get so little,” I told myself. Until one day I realized: what utter bullshit. I’ve been given immense talent, education, and opportunity to make beauty. Why devalue what I already have by focusing on who likes it?

People who struggle with being single often say, “But I have so much love to give.” You do! The question is whether you will trust that love, or devalue it because someone didn’t text you back, or because you have no one to bring home for Christmas. You have a beautiful heart, a mind that can understand and awaken, a body capable of great pleasure. Don’t throw these away for the sake of a shit story that keeps you from living.

You may think you didn’t get the inheritance you deserve, but that’s not your true inheritance. Your true inheritance is whatever you do with whatever you’ve been given.

Angu Walters, "Sun Shine In My Mind"