“I have question [about] self belongings… Let’s say I want to get a new TV. Bigger one than the one I have. I haven’t bought it yet but I started to see the [suffering] that comes with this new TV such as spending so much time doing research online, check the cheapest price I can get, go to stores to checkout the item, got angry about not getting the deal I want and also I have to think about what do I do with the current TV, and etc… When I think about this I feel like these sufferings come before I even actually have it.. May be I shouldn’t get it. May be it’s not worth it. but after a while the feeling of wanting a bigger TV came back… Is this because I don’t really feel the [suffering] enough? or I have to dig down into the reason why do I think I want this bigger TV?”
The point is, can you afford it or not? If you have the new TV, you feel good about it, it’s not bothering anyone, why not? It’s purely your own business, right? You are working. Why? To live in comfort. And what are you going to do with the old TV? As long as it doesn’t bother other people, then fine.
The bottom line is, as practitioners, do what creates the least bad karma. After all, bad or good karma, we are the ones who have to receive the consequences. When the bad comes, you cannot escape it. So why are you trying to escape the good karma?
People think Buddhist practitioners have to live like ascetics. But don’t forget that we live in society, we have the four elemental body we need to sustain. Have you forgotten that Luang Por Thoon said we can be up to 75% crazy? We aren’t being overindulgent and wasteful. We are being moderate, but moderation varies depending on each person. For someone extremely wealthy and highly influential maybe a Ferrari and designer clothing is appropriate.
What’s your moderation? You have to figure that out. That’s your topic of contemplation.
My “moderation” revolves around food. I like to each good food. I like how moderation is all relative. I torture myself over small things like the time I took Meaw out for lunch when she pass the San Francisco massage license exam. I complained about how much lunch cost and how I could have eaten out for a week for what we paid. I missed the point! We were celebrating an achievement and it was not a lot of money. We went to one of my favorite Thai restaurants. I was too busy comparing the cost which was not fair since this was a separate situation…it was a celebration! There is an old saying “Penny wise, pound foolish” I was “Penny wise, living life foolish” by creating a lot of unnecessary suffering in my life by worrying about something that didn’t really matter.