The Antidotes Against Greed

Dharma Talk on 11/10/93
(page 75-76 Achievement of Rainbow Light Body Volume Seven)


Last night a disciple told me : "Although I know everything will come to pass eventually, I just could not control my greed !"

Having learned the concept of "impermanence" from Buddhadharma, we are still very greedy about money . The more we have, the more we want. When are we going to be fully satisfied ? The answer is "never". When the desire can never be satisfied, we call it "greediness". What can we do about it ?

Our greed is not limited to money alone. Among others, we crave for social status, material gain, and sex . Can we find any antidote against greed from the Buddhadharma ? The Hinayana school of Buddhism advocates meditation on the uncleanliness of human body of oneself and others , as all things in existence are impure and subject to decay. When the greed is on sex, we could meditate our love ones decomposing gradually into skeletons.

In the Mahayana school of Buddhism, the antidote is known as "the meditation on impartiality ". We must be compassionate towards all other sentient beings, by treating them as our equals. We should not have discriminative minds. To stop our greed, we must make vows to be altruistic. We must be very compassionate before we can reach the stage of "no ego".

Among the five poisons namely greed, hatred, ignorance, doubt and pride, greed is considered by the Vajrayana school of Buddhism as the most severe hindrance. To stem our greed, we must meditate on transforming greed into emptiness - just like the process of cleaning up a filthy place into a spotless one. Only the Vajayana School of Buddhism uses this purification method. Greed is thus viewed as the equivalence of emptiness.

In conclusion, in order to get rid of our greed, followers of Theravada School of Buddhism will meditate on impurity and skeletons , believers of the Mahayana school of Buddhism will make Bodhi vows to be altruistic and treat all sentient beings equal; and cultivators of Vajayana school of Buddhism will transform greed into emptiness.

The above-mentioned are nothing but theories. To stop our insatiable greed, we must put what we have learned into practice. I hope all of you do have a better understanding on the antidote against greed now.

Om Mani Padme Hum