Can you be a rich buddhist?

* I wish to be in music as well as acting because when im doing those things I love myself and im better at peace which is also part of buddhism. So can I be rich and still be a good buddhist?

The odds of being a rich Buddhist are much higher than the odds of getting rich through music or acting.

There is this guy in another state I used to live in. He was a Buddhist. One day, he hit the lottery and won millions of dollars. He donated the money to his Buddhist organization, and they built a big, golden temple with his money. They also named the temple after him. I think that’s a good example of Buddhism in these modern times.

my advise to you realy is read the koran and look into islam it completley changed my life I swear when I converted I had a hot rush on my back and my eyes that are green turned blue for 3 days it was a amazing feeling I had brest cancer at the time and went for my treatment a week later and had found that it had completly dissapered so just read the first part of the coran and you can see so much truth I lovd buddism until I studyied islam and now know the truth lies there and you can be rich with islam you just give a percent of your years takings to the poor every year and what god gives you is yours love tulip good luck I hope you find whats right for u

If you go to Nepal today, you’ll see many Buddhist monks with laptop computers and cell phones. I don’t think the religion has a problem with you making money.

What you ask here is interesting and it is a question that is worthy of serious consideration. Speaking as person who has been a Buddhist for many years, I would suggest that if your objective is to reach a state of enlightenment (Buddhahood) then your passions and desires are not necessarily elements of your physical, psychological and emotional construct that have to be eliminated. The fact that you want to be a good person, valued and respected by others is a desire in itself! Whether or not you achieve true happiness in your life depends on transforming desires and obsessions (that are causing you and others misery and despair) into powerful forces that will elevate your life condition and reveal you as a human being that is connected with others in a creative and positive way. Just like gas, electricity, wind or the ocean, money is essentially just another form of energy that we can harness either for the good of ourselves and others in a selfless way or we can choose to use money to fuel all the negative forces within us and without us, such as will be inevitable if we allow the conditions of greed, anger and stupidity to govern the way we live our lives. I’ll give you another, more elemental analogy here - think about water - water is the great giver of life and we all need it to survive but at the same time it can also destroy life when it manifests in the form of a flood, or a tsunami. Now I realise that you would have very good reason to accuse me of introducing aspects of Cartesian Dualism to make the aforementioned analogy but it is true that you cannot have good without evil, light without dark, hot without cold and so on, and therefore we have to make a choice regarding our life choices. It is one of the tragedies of the human condition that a situation is allowed to persist where a small proportion of the human race hog all the world resources whilst many continue to suffer poverty, famine and disease, often at the hands of governments who wage wars in order to keep control of resources such as food and oil, and much of this is often done in the name of whichever deity people choose to worship exclusively. So it is natural that people harbour an abiding desire for justice and equity for the world community. It is unrealistic to think that you can eschew any involvelment with fiscal matters and still function within this community so it is worth pondering these thoughts and ideas in order that you can come to your own personal understanding of this problem. You may care to discuss some of these points with your friends because what I have said here is only my point of view and I am but one of millions of souls travelling the path of life on Planet Earth in the 2nd Millennium. I will end this by wishing you joy and fulfilment in all you do.

If there are rich Christians, why can’t there be rich Buddhists? Christianity originally taught abstinence from wealth and material success, and clearly doesn’t any more.

Money and material objects are not good or bad. It’s how you relate to them that matters. Buddhists would tell you not to allow your self-worth or identity be based upon making money or having lots of possessions. The act of making money is not condemned anywhere in Buddhist teachings.

Besides, if you’re sharing your material wealth with people in need, I think that would be more in line with the religion’s teachings.

Buddhism isn’t about getting rid of desire. As human beings, desire is natural and healthy. The point is having insight into the false idea of self that identifies with desire and aversion.

It is not how wealthy you are that’s important; it’s what you do with what you are given

I’m Buddhist and I’m not wealthy, but I share what I have with whomever is in need

It is impossible to ask people to completely rid themselves of desire if we even could do that we would fall into despair. Its more of a perception then a rule for buddhism we can want things but we cant be attached to them you can have money and material goods but you have to be ready to leave them behind and lose them without any wish to keep them with you. Top to bottom type of thing without careing that more of what it implys although even that would take a lot of self control.

It is more like a perception then a rule really. Telling a person not to have desires is almost entirely impossible, instead it suggests the idea of disconnection, when you lose an item (which we all will) its telling you that the item is unimportant. Unattached you lose nothing when it dissapears thats what it is really saying, so yes you can be rich you just have to have very little if any care about the money itself or the things that it can grant you.