Following yesterday’s discussion of the Four Siddhānta, I’m offering a short discussion of greed and suffering from Chinese Master Hsuan Hua’s commentary on Chapter 3, A Parable.

The cause of all suffering / Can be traced to desire. Of all the factors that aggregate into suffering, greed is foremost. What is greed? It is insatiability. No matter how much one gets, one always wants more. Let’s say you start off with nothing, and you somehow acquire 100 dollars. Before you had 100 dollars, you were satisfied with the idea of acquiring that much money. But once you get that 100 dollars, you feel it is not enough.

“I need 1,000,” you think. But when you get 1,000, you still aren’t satisfied.

“I want to buy some clothes, a house, and some property. A thousand is simply not enough. If I had 10,000 dollars, I’d really be satisfied. In fact, I’d retire. I’d never work again or want anything else. That would be enough for me!”

But once you’ve gotten 10,000 dollars, the price of goods and supplies has inflated. For example, when I first arrived in San Francisco, the price of a box of tofu was two cents. But over time, there has been inflation, and a box of tofu is now much more expensive. Then you think, “I would like to retire, but I need 100,000 to pay all my expenses after retirement, so I can’t retire yet.” As a result, you greedily go after 100,000, but it’s still not enough. When you attain 100,000, your greed is entirely out of hand, and you dream of becoming a millionaire.

But before you get 1,000,000 dollars, impermanence befalls you and it is your time to die. As you die, you think, “I wanted 1,000,000, but I never did reach my goal. I’ll try again next life, for sure.” In your next life, you again work like a horse so you can leave money for your children. What benefits does greed bring? The text says, “The cause of all suffering / Can be traced to desire.” Greed always brings misery, for greed is the root of suffering.