Volume 38. April 24, 2023
Like a wolf at the door, tax season bit us. No one was happy, not even the accountants. Most tax-filers ground their teeth, stifled resentments and ponied up the dough. Great minds throughout history put in their two cents worth.
Benjamin Franklin was resigned: “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”
Albert Einstein was confused: “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
George Harrison was irritated: “Let me tell you how it will be. There’s one for you, nineteen for me. ’Cause I’m the taxman. Yeah, I’m the taxman.”
Perhaps only Oliver Wendell Holmes had an enlightened attitude: “I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”
Buddhism agrees. There’s no reason to attach to money because we are billionaires — billionaires in nirvana.
Without doing anything, right where we sit, with empty wallets, we are rich and self-sufficient. The poor people of this world are the Elon Musks, the Jeff Bezoses and the Vladimir Putins.
Attached to material things, rabid dogs ignore to their peril the first Noble Truth of the Buddha: Attachment causes suffering. True wealth consists of being kind to others, meditating and realizing that all things are impermanent, even one’s ego.
We live in one vast appearance of emptiness, an endless illusion. Everywhere is One Great Flower, One Grand Light, perfect without end. One Great Secret Smile lies behind it all.
Everlasting bliss is always here. We cannot escape it. The Great Order of the Buddha’s Body — the Dharmakaya — is all around and infinite. We close ourselves off to it through attachment.
Yet, when we meditate, we let go of attachment to people, to places, to things, to thoughts, to money, to egos. We see things in their pristine purity. We behold the Oneness behind creation.
Enlightenment is not something we attain. We already have it.
We simply open ourselves up to it through detachment.
Meditation is internal work. Meditation values deceleration.
Meditators are students of inactivity. They slow down.
There’s no reason to rush through meditation, and every reason in the world to slow down.
Be as dead to the world as a tree stump.
The world despises meditation.
But what is the world, except a world of sorrow?
Internal work is not really work at all. It’s play.
It’s time to go to the playground and play.
Don’t worry another minute.
After all, tax season is over, and you are a billionaire.
A billionaire in nirvana.
The Buddha Times 