SIPS Log #2

After studying monastic buddhism, Greed has become more evident to me. The buddhist monks live lives without greed, spending their days with the four necessities-food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. In addition, they can also dispense these necessities to the community, and all the while, they are enlightened.

This overturns Maslow. Maslow believed it was through fulfilling all the levels that we achieved self actualization. The monks seem to have already achieved self actualization without expanding much past the first level. I would say that greed isn't the need to conform to the levels, but instead comes with the other levels. Once we begin to be concerned of other's perceptions of us, and expand beyond what we actually need, we become greedy. In that sense, the monastic lifestyle, which isolates the initiates from a larger sphere of the outside world, allows them to remain without greed.

I plan to look into an application of this lifestyle that doesn't involve remaining cloistered.