By Ru Lan 

I found Jen Chen Buddhism ten years ago. Following the Teachings of Jen Chen Buddhism wholeheartedly without any query, I gradually eradicated my bad habits.

Though I did not have the chance to meet Venerable Master Shen Kai in person, I was still able to be with Him when reading his books and listening to his talks on the Buddha’s Teachings on discs. Venerable Master Shen Kai prepared and wrote the daily morning and evening practice routines for His disciples and every method is also a path for cultivation. I really regret not cultivating conscientiously enough, for not putting enough effort and not achieving good enough results. For instance, recalling one of his Teachings ‘One would rather die than to reveal other’s misdeeds’, I wonder whether there was a time when I had never complained or gossiped about someone else’s mistake or wrongdoing, and I realised my answer was “No!” Now I strive to say good things at all times, to only talk about work or school and not about people, to refrain from gossiping about people, and to focus on carrying out my duties well.

One particular Teaching of ‘Do not be too attached to one’s ego and outlook or appearance’ has the most effect on me. I used to spend lots of time on my personal appearance in the past. Ever since I understood that our bodies are simply empty shells, I no longer regard looks as much as I did before. I stopped spending money on facials, styling my hair and buying expensive clothes and cosmetics. I know all these are just an illusion and unnecessary as long as we dress neatly and appropriately. What’s most important is to make good use of our body given to us by our parents to do many things that benefit others, to follow the Buddha’s Teachings in our daily lives and never do evil things. We need to purify our minds and increase our blessings and wisdom so as not to waste the opportunity as a human in this lifetime.

I would self-reflect on my actions everyday. I pledge to follow the Buddhadharma to cultivate in every way so as not do injustice to our gracious Master.

By Sinlei

While holidaying in Cambodia, I met an old British couple who were on the same one-day tour that we signed up to. During the tour, we went to a village and observed how the Cambodian villagers lived. It was an eventful day.

During our lunch break, the British husband shared that his son used to work in Japan as a part-time worker for a company that produces batteries. As the Japanese boss had a poor command of English, his son went beyond his job scope to help the boss create presentation slides, prepare meeting minutes and review documents in English everyday. 

Then, one day, the boss asked the son if he would like to relocate to the company’s South America branch, to work in a new role. The son was surprised by the offer. He clearly did not expect the opportunity as he was only a part-time worker. Upon hearing the offer, the son’s immediate reaction was: “But I know nothing about batteries!”  The boss, however, was confident that the son would be able to excel in the role and insisted that he take up the job offer. Eventually, the son accepted the offer and went to South America.

I was truly touched by this sharing. This was a real life situation of a young man, who, although was only a part-time worker and not earning as much as a full-time worker, did his best for his boss and the company without expecting any returns.

After I reached my hotel that evening, I reflected on myself. I had always thought that I was a responsible worker, who would occasionally go out of the way to help my bosses and colleagues to complete work that did not belong to me. However, there were also occasions where I could have offered more assistance to my colleagues, but I did not. As such, how could I consider myself as being responsible?  I should treat all my colleagues equally and offer the same quality assistance and responsiveness to each of them.

Apart from going out of his way to help the boss, the son of the British couple must have exhibited other positive traits which the boss liked so much that he would offer the son, who had no prior relevant work experience, a relocation package. I reflected on myself again. Are there any other aspects which I need to improve on? Apparently, yes. There were times when I was not tolerant of other people’s mistakes and I was also mean to colleagues who were a bit slow. Thus, I should learn to be more accommodating so that a more harmonious work environment can be achieved.  

I will definitely need to work on my attitude when I am back to work!

By Alvin

After I started working and earning my own living, I began to wonder how much is enough for me to enjoy a good standard of living while saving for the future. I have dreams of becoming wealthy, but I pondered, “What does it really mean to be wealthy? What does it cost to become wealthy?”

Defining Wealth

Firstly, let’s discuss how personal wealth is measured. We typically define our personal wealth based on the amount we have in our bank account or the number or type of assets that we own. We spend a significant portion of our lives chasing the dream of becoming wealthy; a dream that has become distorted by modern society’s disproportionate expectations and never-ending comparison. On a daily basis, we always compare with our peers who are doing better in life. These comparison is often done subconsciously. Money is important in life, but are we forgetting the other types of wealth that we have, or we need to accumulate?

Cost of Earning Money

I remember seeing a photo of a frail and haggard looking Chinese Kungfu star, Jet Li with the caption saying: “when young, we spend our health to earn our wealth, now when we are older and with sickness, we spend our wealth on our health”. This is the best example to illustrate the point that we are giving up too much just to make more money. Earning a living becomes living to earn money, and then living to spend the money. Money becomes the basis of our life rather than us living our own life in the way we want. We have to consciously ask ourselves: is it worthwhile to work like slaves just to have the ‘richer’ lifestyle and to be like our peers who owns fancier material things? We must make these life choices consciously. 

Many people work excessively so as to achieve their financial goals. However, we should consider how our lives are revolving around work and how it consumes our time. Whenever possible, we must manage our time so that we have time for other things in life besides work. However,if we lose awareness of our mind, we tend to allow work to occupy our mind even during non-working hours, and work stress affects us continuously. I am also guiltyof this, perhaps especially so because I am not working a 9-to-5 job. I have to constantly remind myself that time is irreversible and I cannot allow work to occupy my whole life. However, I am not advocating anyone to do a YOLO (You Only Live Once)! Yes, we should live life to its fullest, but we need to liveit wisely.

The Essential Wealth

It is obvious that there are other types of wealth, such as kinship and friendship, which are very important in our lives. However, there is an essential wealth, which other wealth depends on. I am not referring to the ‘wealth of knowledge’, although being knowledgeable is crucial in our knowledge-based economy. To me the most fundamental form of wealth is the ‘wealth of wisdom’. Being wise, we will know how to better spend our time, identify better ways to earn our living, select what to invest in, and decide how to spend our budget. A person can accumulate a tremendous amount of money, but without wisdom he can lose it easily, anytime. Being wiser, we can also improve our relationships with our family and friends.

Don’t be Greedy

Based on my existing wealth of wisdom, I am constantly reminding myself not to be too attached to money as I strive to enrich my pot of gold. When investing, I need to remind myself not to be greedy. For example, when buying a stock, we should not aim for the lowest price to buy and the highest price to sell. As long as we can make a profit, we should not regret that we could have earned more. This logic also applies to our daily groceries shopping. For example, after buying groceries from a stall,we discovered that the next stall sells it at a cheaper price. Some people will go back to the first stall and demand a refund, spending a lot of time and effort to make sure they do not lose out. Actually, we should take it as a lesson learnt for future purchases, but if we are feeling cheated and ‘heart pain’,then we are missing the point. Being smart means making good decisions to make sure we always make the most gains, but with wisdom, we avoid being ‘penny wise but pounds foolish’.

How to Accumulate Wealth of Wisdom

So, the next question is, how to accumulate wisdom? My advice is to be a BuddhistPractitioner who learns and applies Buddhist Teachings in our daily lives rather than just a ‘believer’. Even though Buddha’s teachings have been passed on for thousands of years, it still has much relevance to us. Personally, they have guided me in slowly changing my thinking and mindset. I have only just started my ‘wisdom accumulation’, but I have discovered that I am not as attached to chasing materialistic goals or being caught up in consumerism. I still feel the occasional work stress when there is a tight timeline, but I am enjoying more of my work. This is because, through my Buddhist cultivation, I am more aware of my choices in life, and Iam more balanced when I seek my pot of gold.

By 智扬

Jen Chen Buddhism is very practical and applicable in all aspects of our daily life. Recently, I realised that my outlook on life has changed. I find myself not as ‘kiasu’ (afraid of losing), and not as competitive as what our current day society has been forging us to be. Now, I am beginning to view earning money as not the most important objective in my career or even in my life. Yes, we still need to earn a living, but with a renewed perspective, I go about doing my job professionally, working to the best of my abilities and not blindly striving for the biggest profit or fat pay-checks. 

Growing up in a very competitive society, I used to aspire to lead a good life; I wanted to climb up the corporate ladder, own a property early and drive a fancy car – these were the benchmarks to gauge how well I am doing in my life. I now realise that these are just materialistic pursuits, and I had been following and chasing these external yardsticks in today’s ever changing world where it can be a endless pursuit. 

Now, I view working as more of a necessity to earn a simple living and my definition of a good life has changed. Any honest and decent job that can sustain a comfortable living is good enough. I do not need to wear fancy clothes and accessories to make myself look good, as I do not deem these as things that others will judge me on. Similarly, I do not judge others based on what they wear and how much they make. I am glad to have realised this early, rather than realising it at my deathbed when I look back and ask myself why had I spent my whole life chasing after all these materialistic stuff. We came to this world penniless and that’s how we will depart. As simply put by Jen Chen Buddhism Reverend Teacher Chen Ming-An, “there is only one path we take in our life, the path towards death” (我们人生只有一条路走，就是死路一条).

I know that the way I handle my finances is still not ideal. I hope to reduce my expenses in my indulgences; a meal at the hawker fills my stomach the same as a meal at an expensive restaurant. I will keep reminding myself I have more than enough clothes and shoes to wear, even when my favourite brand or a design I like is on sale. Hopefully, these savings can help to increase my contribution to those who need it more. A dollar to us may be small change, but to others, a dollar can be their family’s daily expenses for food. I know that I cannot contribute millions of dollars to make a big change but I know that I can start small and do my small part, and so can you.