Enjoy The World
LIVE IN JOY, WITHOUT POSSESSIONS, LIKE THE SHINING ONES.
Buddha says: Enjoy the world, enjoy the sun, the moon, the stars, the flowers, the sky, the earth. Live in joy and peace, without possessiveness. Don’t possess. Use, but don’t possess – because the possessor cannot use. The possessor really becomes possessed by his own possessions. That’s why so many rich people become very miserable, they live a poor life. They have all the money in the world, but they live in a poor way.
The richest man in the world, just fifty years ago, was the nizam of Hyderabad – the richest man in the world. In fact, his riches were so great that nobody has ever been able to estimate how much he had. His treasuries were full of diamonds; everything was made of diamonds. Even his paperweight was the biggest diamond in the world; even the Kohinoor is only one third the size of his paperweight.
When he died, his paperweight was found in his shoe. The diamonds were not counted because there were so many. They were weighed, not counted – how many kilos, not how many diamonds – who could count?
Each year the diamonds were brought out of the basements. He had the biggest palace in India, but all the roofs were not enough, because his diamonds were spread on the roofs of his palace just to give them a little sunlight every year.
But the man lived a life of such misery, you cannot believe it; even beggars live far better. He used to collect cigarettes which others had already smoked and thrown away – just cigarette ends. He would not purchase cigarettes for himself, he would collect these cigarettes and smoke them. Such a miser! For fifty years he used only one single cap – it was so dirty and stinking! He died in the same cap. He never used to change his clothes. And it is said that he used to purchase his clothes from the secondhand marketplace where old, rotten things, used things, are sold. His shoes must have been the dirtiest in the world, but he would only send them once in a while for repair, he would not purchase new shoes.
Now, the richest man in the world is living in such misery and miserliness – what had happened to this man? Possessiveness! Possessiveness was his disease, his mania. He wanted to possess everything. He would purchase diamonds all over the world; wherever there were diamonds his agent was there to purchase them. Just have more and more! But you cannot eat diamonds – and he was eating the poorest kind of food.
He was so afraid that he was unable to sleep at all – constant fear that somebody might steal from him.
That’s how the paperweight – the costliest diamond that he had, three times more in weight than the Kohinoor – was found in his shoe. When he was dying he had hidden it in his shoe so nobody could steal it – otherwise the paperweight would be too visible, too much in the eyes of people. Even dying he was more concerned with the diamond than with his own life. He could never give anything to anybody.
This happens to people who become possessive: they don’t use things, they are used by things. They are not masters, they are servants of their own things. They go on accumulating and they die without ever having enjoyed all that they had.
Buddha says: LIVE IN JOY, WITHOUT POSSESSIONS, LIKE THE SHINING ONES.
Live like the buddhas, who don’t possess a thing but can use everything. The world has to be used, not possessed. We come empty-handed and we go empty-handed, so there is no point in possessing anything. To be possessive is ugly – but use everything! While you are, use the world, enjoy everything that the world makes available, and then go without looking back, without clinging to things.
This is the way of the buddhas. AES DHAMMO SANANTANO: this is the inexhaustible law of the buddhas. Then a buddha can be a beggar if he chooses to be so – if that is his way – or a buddha can be an emperor. There have been emperors who were buddhas.
In India there has been one man, Janaka, the father of Sita, Rama’s wife, who was a buddha. He lived in the palace with all the richness of a great king and yet he was absolutely non possessive, he possessed nothing. It was just as if you are staying in a hotel; you don’t possess anything. You stay for a few days and then you are gone. You use it.
The intelligent person uses life and uses it beautifully, aesthetically, sensitively. Then the world has many treasures for him. He never becomes attached, because the moment you become attached you have fallen asleep.
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