Stories about consumerism
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about consumerism from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- First a flag on the summit, then a coffee shopAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On mountain summits people leave flags, cairns and carved names (he jokes about carving 'Peter Betts was here'); next comes a coffee shop and cable car. Better to leave emptiness…
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you get to the top of the mountain and someone's put a flag up there or they put a bunch of rocks up there and they carve on there. My lane name before was Peter Betts. Peter Betts was here. What do you want to say that for? So instead to really respect like a mountain, isn't it best to leave it alone? Cuz what usually happens, you start with putting a flag there. The next thing you put up there is a coffee shop [laughter] which which sells souvenirs. [laughter] That's really terrible. If you get to the top of the mountain, you found out there's a big coffee shop up there and a cable car on the other side of the road which takes you straight up. It takes Why is that not I really objected to that? Because sometimes why do we need all that stuff? Can't we just respect emptiness and nothing and its beautiful nature where nothing is disturbing it is as it was centuries ago, millennia ago. We don't add to it. We don't take it away cuz it's perfect as it already is. We don't try and cure it. We care for it
- One empty room for emptinessAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Analogy: why put a picture on every wall and a pot-plant in every corner? Keep one room in the house deliberately empty — a fashion statement for emptiness and freedom — and…
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it's my empty room well put something in it no it's for emptiness for freedom and now we can store stuff in it no it's empty that will be pretty radical to have one room which has nothing in it just for the sake of emptiness