they don’t eat at the same time. What the man eats, and when he eats, is not
known by his wife. The times of the children’s departure for school and their
return home and the parents’ departure for work and their arrival home are all
different. When the children leave for school, the parents have already left home.
When the parents return home late at night, the children are already fast asleep.
Though they stay together in one house, they can meet only once a week. That is
all because of money; it is money that so often creates the chasm between family
members. Businesspeople and wage earners are all the slaves of money.
Capitalism is basically money-slavery!
Second, through attachment to our reputation, we become a slave to it, and we
cannot eat properly or sleep well. When life does not work out according to plan,
some people commit suicide; there are many cases that could be recounted. Some
die having climbed into a rocket for adventure; some die for the sake of name and
fame trying to climb a mountain; some die deep down in the ocean where they
dive for adventure. When someone becomes famous during his lifetime and after
his death has his name carved brightly on a tall pillar, no doubt it gains attention
for a few years. But after a decade or so, the person will be forgotten, and the pillar
will be neglected; his name, carved upon the pillar, will be covered by moss, and
weeds will obscure it. Even the statues of national heroes and heroines remain
unattended, and bird droppings cover them. We can all see these things
happening. Our heroes’ and heroines’ fame lasts for only a few years and then
slowly fades away. To spend life looking for fame is to waste a precious human
body as a meaningless slave to reputation. Also, consider the effect of divorce on
reputation, or an abortion that must be kept secret to protect reputation. It is all
meaningless. In Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva, the poet Shantideva says,
Spending money to sate desire,
Risking life for reputation,
What is the point of that?
Who will benefit at death?Third, we all know the disasters that attachment to a spouse or consort has
wrought throughout history. Consider the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan’s madness
when his queen Mumtaz Mahal died—he built the Taj Mahal. Even the great gurus
suffered from this kind of attachment. The rishi Vyasa, who wrote the Ramayana,
for example, was deeply attached to a woman of Varanasi named Kashi Koliti.
Koliti’s beauty was legendary, and it attracted many men. Vyasa fell under her
spell and began an affair with her. Then one day the kingdom of Kashi was
attacked by an enemy kingdom, and for defense the king ordered all the youth of
the kingdom to dig pits about ten feet deep in a single day, find a stand-in to do the
work, or pay a high fee to avoid so doing. Kashi Koliti could not afford the fine, so
she searched for a substitute to do her digging for her, but she could find no one,
and this made her sad. The rishi Vyasa, knowing her situation, asked her to bring
him a spade and a shovel and said he would dig the pit for her. The task had to be
finished before sunset, but the rishi was advanced in age, and, since it looked as if
he’d not be able to complete it before the sun set, he stopped the sun in its tracks