PureInsight | February 27, 2003
[PureInsight.org] Everyone wants to be wealthy. There isn't anyone under heaven who doesn't need some wealth. However, we cannot let it rule or ruin our lives. If you're stubborn and stingy and cannot stand the slightest loss, even when your riches are stacked higher than a mountain, you will not be able to enjoy your good fortune. There is an ancient Chinese saying, "The stingier you are with your treasure, the more reluctant the gods will be to come to bless you." Moreover, money and wealth are external things. You cannot bring your wealth with you when you are born or take it with you when you die.
I once encountered a patient who loved his house like he loved his life. The stress of worrying about his house caused him to have an illness in the region between his heart and diaphragm. Still he guarded his house like a slave, until it was time for him to leave this world.
Jie bought a large house. The scenery was beautiful but it was situated on an unstable hill. He tried everything to keep this house from sliding off the cliff upon which it was perched. The weather did not cooperate. Every day the rain fell steadily, sometimes hard, sometimes gently. It was just a matter of time until the mud and rocks of the slopes would shrug off his home. The results were unthinkable. Many Hollywood movies have shots of houses sliding off of steep cliffs. However, those were mostly faked scenes. This house, on the other hand, was really in danger. Many curious folks set up cameras aimed at the unstable house, waiting to capture some intense action. One of these people was a tenant who had been evicted from Jie's home. Out of maliciousness, he eagerly awaited the day that the house would fall off the cliff
Jie had clung to every penny, when he was saving up for the down payment for his dream home. He also budgeted and saved up to pay for the interest and the loan. He took in a tenant whom he would follow around, turning off the lights in rooms after the tenant was done there. He constantly ate food that did not need to be cooked. At last he got himself a body full of illnesses and had to go to the clinic. Jie didn't want to pay the fee, so he asked the doctor to treat him in half the time and with half the supplies, so he could pay less.
He felt constant anxiety because of the house. Chinese medicine says that constant thought will hurt the spleen. Anxiety made his qi weak. His damaged spleen caused stomach failure. Because of that he had no appetite. Since he feared the house could slide of the slopes at any time, he lived every day in state of terror. Fear hurt his kidneys. When nothing went wrong he worried without stop, when something did go wrong he feared even more. Jie's fearful life caused him to be very ill. When he went to the clinic, his illnesses were already far advanced.
Finally the day came. The rain came pouring down for days. At last heeding the warnings of rescue workers, he finally came out of the house. He stood in front of the house and the house, for which he saved for so long, slid down the hill and disintegrated until nothing was left but sticks and mud. He cursed the heavens, his mind seething with anger and his body wracked with pain. After a few days went by, he left this world.
He thought that everything he could grasp in this world was his, but in reality these things were not part of his life. From the beginning, nothing on this earth belongs to any man. Even the human body, as with a piece of clothing, is only worn for a period of time. If you really want to take something with you, the only way to do so is to practice cultivation. Otherwise you'll come and go empty handed. Once the end approaches and you come to realize this, it will be much too late to regret.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/1/23/20161.html
