Working With Greed

This podcast is about one of the three defilements of Buddhism, Greed. The defilements are three ways we can get caught in the cycle of suffering. We all experience greed in our day to day lives, in the form of wanting and/or clinging on to something that we have or don't have. In this, I describe my own experiences with greed and how I skillfully explore and work with this defilement.

Transcript

I am Kimberly,

I am your host,

I'm so grateful you're here.

Today we're going to talk about greed.

And I'm not talking about money greed necessarily,

But greed as one of the three defilements of Buddhism.

So in Buddhism,

They say that there are three defilements,

Three things that will really keep us stuck in suffering.

And the first is greed.

The second is hatred.

And the third is delusion.

And I want to really start this podcast with a slight tribute to living our lives fully.

I found out today that a friend of mine that he had a sibling die.

And the sibling was in their early 20s,

Young,

Healthy,

Vibrant,

Serving part of their community.

And as I was learning about this,

I was really,

Really touched in my heart.

And I was touched in my heart because one of the requests of my friend was,

Please go live your life,

Live your best life.

Serve people well,

Treat people well,

Be kind,

Be loving.

And really live your best life to kind of commemorate or honor their siblings life.

And I was so moved by this gentle request.

And so I want to pass that request on to all of you too.

And for me,

You know,

This is just for me,

Whenever I really hear something like this,

Or begin to actually feel the impact of a person's life,

I really get clear how important it is for us to be living.

And I really notice in my coaching practice and also just in life,

How and me too,

Right,

So I'm not excluded from this,

But how we are always kind of waiting to live.

And how life is actually now you don't need the perfect body to live.

You don't need to be in the perfect mood to live.

You don't need the perfect circumstances to live.

Actually you can choose to live every single day.

And for me,

It's like little things like when I got off social media,

Really choosing to use my time differently,

Or making this podcast instead of reading the news,

Right?

So using my time to really share with others what really matters to me instead of watching the world,

You know,

Go by,

While I'm not really doing the things that feel important,

Or that feel really beautiful to me.

And so I just want to extend this offering,

This beautiful offering before we jump into greed of living your life,

Doing the things that make you feel alive,

Doing the things that make you kinder,

Doing the things that make you more connected,

Doing the things that blow your heart open.

And then sharing those things with the people you love and with the people that you meet.

And I'll be doing it too.

You know,

I'm so moved and touched right now.

Just realizing that death is constantly around the corner.

We act like we know that we're going to live forever and we're going to live these long lives and that things can wait.

And I want to suggest that we need patience as we live.

And why are we waiting?

What are you waiting for?

The perfect moment is not going to come.

And I want to really maybe transition into greed now because this totally,

In my opinion,

Bleeds right into it.

I began examining my relationship with greed,

One because I love Buddhism,

But two,

Because I noticed this kind of,

In Buddhism they call it the hungry ghost,

This like hunger for more and more and more.

And I can really feel it in my body and in my experience.

And so I've been just observing my hungry ghost.

And it's interesting because like I was saying with living our lives,

You know,

It's kind of like we're always waiting for some day.

Well,

I have really been waiting for some day to really explore these topics on a more personal level.

And I really realized that I was not exploring them,

Certain topics in depth because of my fear of having to actually maybe experience deeper suffering or my fear of having to let certain things go and feeling like I'm not ready to let those things go,

But having no idea why,

You know.

And these things that I'm talking about letting go are habits,

Habits of like for me,

For instance,

Just with food stuff,

Not wanting to let go of these patterns with food that I know for a fact do not serve me.

And when I begin to watch these patterns and notice the suffering they cause,

I've become more and more intrigued and interested in looking.

And so I've really noticed with greed.

So I want to talk about greed because that's what has come up most as I've observed this kind of behavior.

And it's not just food.

I have some other behaviors too that I'm watching.

But it's kind of this always wanting something else or always wanting more.

And so greed and hatred,

You know,

It can ping pong back and forth,

Always wanting more.

So for me,

Always wanting more food or always,

You know,

Watching who's getting the bigger piece or always kind of watching,

You know,

Am I going to get the most broccoli because I want the broccoli and you can have the potatoes.

This like greediness of wanting more.

And then even as I've eaten what I've wanted,

Not being satisfied and kind of thinking about the next thing.

It's really interesting in my relationship sometimes we'll like be almost done with our meal and I'll be thinking about the next food that I'm going to eat.

And I'll like say it to my boyfriend.

I'll be like,

Oh,

Maybe we could make this.

And he's like,

How are you thinking about food?

And I'm like,

Oh,

Interesting.

He's like it.

That's like the greed,

Right?

The like,

I'm not satiated with what I have right now,

Even though when I check in.

So let's say I just ate a meal.

And I check in with my actual physical body and physical experience.

I'm actually really full.

Like my body feels full.

And often,

I feel satisfied.

But my mind isn't satisfied.

So my physical body is satisfied.

And I'm like,

Oh,

That's really interesting.

But my mind starts going into the loop of greed.

When can I get more?

And then sometimes I can switch to hatred when we don't want what's in front of us.

So something's occurring.

And so we don't want it we have aversion to it.

And that is like hatred or aversion or ill will,

Which is the second thing we can really get stuck in.

That causes us a lot of suffering.

And for me,

This hungry ghost,

This part of me that never feels satisfied.

It's like almost like I imagine it like someone just like,

Searching,

Searching,

Searching,

Searching,

Searching,

And I can see this in my life.

It's like this,

Like,

Always searching for something that's gonna make me feel better.

And maybe I've been searching for men at times in my life,

Or maybe I've been searching,

You know,

Through substance abuse,

Like,

Will this make me feel better?

Or maybe it's been food,

Right?

Will this make me feel better?

And currently,

Because I have given up a lot of my vices,

Food is the way that it becomes most present,

That it becomes most aware to me.

And also with my time,

I think with my time to I'm kind of greedy with my time.

Like I want to have more time for myself and more time to do the things that I want to do.

And so I'll notice that I like hoard my time.

And it's interesting because when I get those chunks of time,

I wouldn't say that I always use that time to really live.

It's kind of like this hungry ghost thing,

Like all of a sudden I have this time and I'm still not satisfied.

It's the same with food.

I'll have this delicious meal,

But I'm still not satisfied.

And some people are really hungry for status.

Some people are really hungry for money.

Some people are really hungry for sex.

Some people are really hungry for substance,

Right?

So it's this constant,

Constant searching for more and more and more the thing that's going to hopefully fill our void and save us.

And what I've begun to notice,

So what we can begin to do with greed,

There's some ways to like counteract greed.

And one of the things that we can do is we can be gracious,

We can be giving,

We can be generous,

We can give with a loving heart and really practicing.

So with food stuff specifically,

I will always try to give my boyfriend the plate that I want.

So if I notice that I'm tending toward one plate over another,

I will intentionally let go of the desire,

The greed of wanting that plate and I will offer it to him.

And I do,

It's little things that we can begin working with.

Let's say I go up to a stop sign and there is a person experiencing homelessness at the stop sign and I notice myself maybe being greedy with my money.

Well,

I don't have enough or I can't give.

I really force myself to let go of those stories and practice generosity.

Being generous really is a practice.

I don't think personally,

In my experience,

I don't think that it comes naturally to humans.

Like in some instances,

I would say maybe in like worst case scenarios or traumatic accidents like people tend to like they'll give of themselves more.

But in day to day life,

Generosity is an active practice.

And it really combats greed.

Like can I let go of this weird desire that I need this thing or I want more or this is mine and really practice being generous and giving.

The other thing that I have found super helpful and for me super valuable when experiencing greed.

Now I want to say I experience some form of greed every day.

And for me,

This isn't a negative.

There's no negative connotation.

Like when I say I'm a greedy,

I'm feeling greedy.

It's not like I'm a bad person.

My personhood is not attached to the greed.

What's attached to the greed is that I can recognize that I'm acting in a way that's causing me suffering.

And I,

You know,

One of my goals in this life is to,

As much as I can,

Alleviate my own suffering so that I can really show up in this world how I really want to,

That I'm not in constant reaction to my internal conditions or my external conditions,

But that I can be balanced and that I can choose in each moment.

I can have awareness in each moment and really choose how I want to be.

So when greed arises,

You know,

One of the things I've been practicing is like,

Oh,

Okay,

Can I be generous?

And maybe another way to describe greed is just having like intense desire.

So not like desire is bad.

Desire isn't bad.

It's natural.

It's human.

And when we're desiring something,

We often,

We may not get it,

Or maybe that thing that we're desiring is taken away from us and then we suffer greatly.

So working with these desires in healthy,

Skillful ways helps us with our attachments,

Helps us with these ways that we really do create our own suffering.

Like whenever I have eaten a meal and then the next thought I have is like,

When can I have the next meal or when can I have the next treat?

One,

I'm not experiencing the present moment.

I'm not really being with this delicious food in front of me.

And two,

It's this,

It's like I'm feeding instead of actually feeding the qualities I want to feed in myself,

Which is contentment,

Which is equanimity,

This being able to be balanced with whatever is here.

Instead of feeding those qualities,

When we are constantly caught and wanting more and more and more,

We feed that quality.

We feed the greed.

And so the practice of not feeding the greed is simply,

It's like,

You know,

It's like bank accounts.

If you have a bank account that has the quality of generosity and presence and awareness and contentment and then you have this quality,

This bank account over here that's like greed,

Hatred and delusion,

Then it's in each moment we have the opportunity to really choose which bank account we're putting money and time into.

And so the other quality that I was going to say that I really have been practicing with when greed arises is this practice of precise,

Precise awareness,

Precise attention.

So what I begin doing is I noticed that my mind is wanting more,

Wanting more,

Wanting more,

Right?

It's not in the present moment.

It's kind of in this constant desire for more.

And I began actually coming into my present moment experience and I began being really precise about what I'm noticing.

So if it's around food stuff,

I'll be like,

Okay,

Are you actually hungry?

How are you feeling?

And I'll begin noticing how I feel in my body.

And it's interesting because what I notice most of the time,

Actually I would say 100% of the time there is a difference like when we're actually hungry,

It doesn't feel,

It doesn't feel like suffering really.

It's just like,

Okay,

I'm hungry.

I need to eat.

Sometimes if we go beyond,

Excuse me,

Sometimes if we go beyond,

You know,

That hunger point where people get hangry,

Like there can be a little suffering there,

But you just know you need to eat.

You're not like obsessing about food even though you just ate,

Right?

There's different levels of suffering.

The one where you're actually hungry could be considered just natural human pain is that sometimes we get hungry and then the body starts responding to that hunger.

But if you've just eaten and you're suffering over food,

It's a different situation.

It's suffering.

It's not the pain of human life.

Like at times we get hungry,

That's pain of human life.

But this greed is not hunger.

It's the hungry ghost.

It's the wanting something that is almost like not even here.

It's in the mind.

And so once I start queuing into my body,

One,

I notice almost 100% of the time that I'm not hungry,

Has nothing to do with actual hunger and that there's usually discomfort in my body.

And maybe it's like,

Sometimes it's like feelings of anxiety.

Sometimes it's feelings of sadness.

Sometimes it's feelings of discomfort.

Like the other day,

You know,

I've had to have,

Sometimes I have to have hard conversations in my business and almost every single time I have to have one of those hard conversations,

I start feeling this like almost like I start searching through the cabinets for people that deal with food stuff.

I hope you really know what I'm talking about where you just start searching through the cabinets.

You're not even sure why.

It's always because I'm feeling uncomfortable and I'm not wanting to deal in present moment with my discomfort.

I'd rather try to do something to shove it down.

And food is a really good way to shove it down.

Substance,

Really good way to shove it down.

Dating apps,

Really good way to shove it down.

Social media,

Really good way to shove it down.

Sex,

Really good way to shove it down.

We have a lot of good tactics for shoving things down.

Distraction,

Avoidance.

And we all do it.

There's nothing wrong or bad about it.

And we can begin to recognize that nothing fruitful happens from us shoving things down.

Eventually those things are going to have to come up and out.

And so the more that we shove down,

The more that we are just literally avoiding these things.

Like when an emotion arises,

When the discomfort arises,

It's like just a signpost.

It's just saying,

Hey,

Can you pay attention?

Hey can you pay attention and be kind?

And it's really interesting the more and more that I observe greed.

It does have these very similar characteristics I'll say.

Is that I usually am not hungry.

So if I'm working specifically with food,

I usually am not actually hungry.

I'm almost always having discomfort in the body.

And then I'm becoming like this hungry ghost,

Right?

This like I'm searching and searching and searching and searching and searching for something to make me feel better.

And when I turn within and I start getting really,

Really precise in my awareness and I start noticing the actual sensations that are in my body.

Now remember with precise awareness,

We have to also have kindness.

We have to also have compassion for our experience.

We can't practice mindfulness without this compassion piece because often mindfulness can become like a way to almost be mean to ourselves or berate ourselves or get more caught in something when if we want to really work on being mindful,

We also have to really work on how we're meeting what we're being mindful of.

And so when we meet this discomfort in the body with compassion and kindness,

It really,

Really begins and having patience.

This is the other thing is having patience with the discomfort,

Not then turning it into hatred and then like wanting it to go away as quickly as possible because like that can be the other side of the coin.

We move from greed to hatred.

We're like,

Oh,

Okay,

I feel the discomfort and now I don't want it.

So we try to,

We also try to push it away,

Push it down.

And my suggestion is that when we work with greed,

One,

Being really kind to ourselves.

We were taught greed.

There are conditions within which our life,

We can look at our life and really see that we were taught greed.

You didn't just wake up one day greedy.

Like we were taught greed through our life,

Our life experiences through where we're born in the world,

Whatever it might be.

And that there's that every human experiences it.

It's a human experience.

There's only three defilements in Buddhism.

That means every single human is dealing with those same three defilements,

Greed,

Desire,

Wanting,

Wanting,

Wanting,

Hatred,

Ill will,

Right?

A version,

Aversion,

Aversion,

And then delusion,

Which is really,

I'll use a quote from tricycle,

A beautiful Buddhist magazine,

If you don't know it and website.

And the quote is,

Delusion is the folly of thinking we can get what we want to the exclusion of what we don't want.

It's an attempt to split up circumstances into categories of our own devising.

But reality is not divisible in that way and the irony of such delusion resides in a failure to recognize that greed and hate are psychologically one in the same.

So you know,

We can really begin.

So I want to read what it says also about the other two.

So it says,

Greed drives us to cling or hoard the things we want and hate drives us to avoid and resist what we don't want.

So I think those are just really good definitions.

And so with this delusion,

Right,

The delusion is that we can have what we want at the exclusion of what we don't want,

That we can just always get what we want,

Get what we want,

And that we'll never have anything come that we don't want,

Which is just never going to be the case.

There are going to be things that we get in this life that we want,

And there are going to be things that happen in this life that we don't want.

And if we're constantly chasing only what we want,

Without recognizing that we're also going to get what we don't want,

We're just like in some ways,

That's the delusion is that we're avoiding a whole chunk of life,

That life is these things that are pleasant and these things that are unpleasant,

These things that we want these things that we don't want,

These things that are good,

These things that are bad.

And instead of just clinging to what we want,

Right,

Clinging to the food,

Clinging to the sugar,

Clinging to the,

The substances,

Cl Inning to the relationship,

Cl Inning to the status or the money,

Clinging to the material possessions,

Or having aversion to the pain,

Or having aversion to the heartache,

Or having the aversion of letting go of habits,

Right?

What we can begin to do is begin to find that place where we can have balance no matter what is here,

This equanimity.

So if greed is here,

Instead of me pushing it away and thinking I'm a bad person,

Or having shame about feeling greed,

What I can do is I can one,

Just acknowledge it,

Oh greed's here,

Okay,

Greed's here,

I'm having this clinging,

I'm having this wanting,

I'm having this hungry ghost feeling of looking for all the things that might feel good,

And just being able to notice it,

Like okay,

Really begin to have precise attention,

What does this feel like?

Where do I feel it most in the body?

What are the sensations?

What are my thoughts?

What are my emotions?

And let's just talk about thoughts for a second.

Our thoughts will always,

Like I don't,

People of course have different vernacular and different words that their,

That their brain creates,

But my brain is always like,

Especially around food stuff or substance stuff,

It's always like,

Well you can just,

You can just start tomorrow.

Or it does this thing where it's like,

But you deserve it.

You deserve it.

You deserve this treat.

And you know what I want to say right after it?

Well then I guess I also deserve the pain and the suffering that comes after it.

Right?

It's like we have to begin to notice the cause and effect nature of this life.

The things you do.

So if you act on your greed all the time,

So let's say,

You know,

For some of us maybe we act on this desire to eat,

Eat,

Eat,

And I have too,

You know,

I'm not better than anyone.

Like I'm totally walking hand in hand with every one of you.

The second we act on that,

Pretty soon after,

It could be a few hours or it could be the next day,

It comes with suffering for me.

One like regretful feelings like,

Oh,

I feel bloated now.

Why did I do that?

Or two,

Like having sugar comatose where then I get really tired and then I can't really do anything for the rest of the day.

Right?

Like it then has suffering.

And that's the precise attention we can begin noticing.

It's like,

Oh,

I just ate all this stuff.

Okay,

Like,

How do I actually feel?

We think that eating the food is going to make us feel better,

But does it?

We think,

You know,

Doing the substance is actually going to make us feel better,

But does it?

We think that getting online and,

You know,

Being on Instagram for an hour,

Two hours is what will make us feel good,

But does it?

And we have to be willing to ask these questions.

We have to begin making the attention more precise.

Like,

Is this actually giving me what I'm wanting?

And one of the things that I say often when I'm experiencing greed is this is not going to give you liberation.

This is not going to give you the freedom that you seek.

This is not going to give you the peace that you seek.

This is not it.

This is not going to save you.

This is not going to be the life changing thing that your mind is telling you it will be.

And often for me greed is like a future,

A future,

You know,

Wandering like I'll wander into the future of like,

I'll feel good when I eat that.

Or you know,

Something of that nature.

Or I'll feel more fun and better when I do the substance or I'll do you know,

Whatever it is,

It's this like future,

Future,

Future.

It's this future wandering in order to avoid the discomfort in the present.

And what we can begin to really train our minds to see is,

Oh,

Actually,

Does that give me the future that I want?

Does that actually make me more peaceful in the long run?

And we can begin to really,

Really,

Really just notice these things.

Notice the body,

The thoughts,

The sensations,

The emotions,

And really sit with them,

Let them,

Let them come and go.

I the the other thing with greed,

So you know,

What I've been noticing is that if I sit with it long enough,

If I have patience with it,

It goes away completely.

It might come back,

Maybe in like an hour or two.

And then if I sit with it again,

It'll go away again.

It really is this game of patience.

And it's knowing it's,

It's a slow knowing of how the body starts acting when it's caught in greed.

How does the body start acting?

Well,

I start having thoughts that I'm deserving or I start having thoughts that,

You know,

It's not fair that everyone else can eat all this stuff,

But why can't I?

Or I start,

You know,

It's like this,

I start noticing the thought patterns and then I start really noticing,

Okay,

The discomfort's in the body.

Ooh,

Okay.

There's like tightness in the chest.

A lot of my discomfort comes in my solar plexus and my solar plexus will just feel like churny.

Like it just,

It feels like it's churning.

And when I can sit and meet all of that with the most kindness and really speak to truth like Kimberly,

This is not going to give you what you want.

My love,

This cookie is not going to bring you peace.

And when I hear that and I keep reminding myself that and I keep meeting myself in present moment with whatever is coming up,

It really just kind of does this really,

Really cool wave thing where it comes like this is,

You know,

The Buddha talks about this.

It's like it,

It comes into existence.

So greed arises,

This kind of hungry ghost,

This desire arises,

And then it peaks.

So it can get pretty intense at the peak.

No problem.

You're capable.

The earth,

The universe is actually is actually big enough for all of your peaks.

There's enough spaciousness for anything that arises in you.

And then slowly it dissipates,

It shifts,

It changes.

And if instead of just reacting to the discomfort,

If we begin to really notice this kind of evolution,

This arising how it comes into existence,

How it peaks,

How it comes with like,

A pretty intense,

Maybe thought patterns or storylines or body sensations or emotions.

And then it slowly starts changing,

Shifting.

And often it's funny,

I won't even like I may not even notice the whole shifting and changing my mind is just somewhere else.

Like I'm like,

Oh,

I should go work at the garden.

You know,

I'm like,

I have left the greed.

And my mind is completely somewhere else.

And then I'm having to notice like,

Oh,

The greed is gone.

Okay,

Yeah,

The greed is gone.

Okay,

Interesting.

Okay,

I'm gonna go water the garden now and try to pay attention to that.

And so I really just wanted to have this conversation because it's so profound for me to notice when greed is here to really notice when I'm wanting,

Wanting,

Wanting,

Wanting,

Or searching,

Searching,

Searching,

Searching for something to save me to make me feel better.

And for me,

It's also this like,

I can feel great.

It's this feeling.

It's not peace.

It's not peaceful.

It's this like why I call it the hungry ghost and why I think they call it the hungry ghost is it is this like,

It's this jittery energy.

It's this looking and searching.

It's like almost like you can imagine someone just in a room,

Lifting up all the papers and looking for something frantically.

It's like that feeling.

It's like restless.

It's searching,

Searching,

Searching,

Searching.

It's this and we can notice it.

Like if you're picking up your phone every five seconds,

That's it.

If you were like scrolling for hours and you're you're kind of loving the quick hit,

That's it.

It's not,

It's not bad.

If you're always looking through the cabinets for food,

That's it.

It's not bad.

It's normal and we can learn to not react to it.

We can learn to really learn from it.

Sit with it.

Learn about humanity.

Learn about ourselves through watching it with this precise eye with deep curiosity and deep kindness.

And then practicing generosity,

Really practicing generosity.

Can I give the person the bigger piece of chicken or can I give the person who's in front of me saying that they need something?

Can I give them something that I have an association that it's mine?

And this is also really the practice of letting go and also the practice of letting go of this identity with self,

That something is ours.

None of this money is ours.

None of the status is ours.

None of this food is ours.

It comes into our life.

It goes out of our life and eventually it all goes out of our life with death.

And if we can learn to really be with this process of,

You know,

This whatever is here or going to the peak and then letting it go away without attaching to it,

Without clinging to it,

Without having aversion to it,

And without living in the delusion that we can cling to something or have aversion to it,

Like it's still going to be here.

All of these measures that we take to cling and all of these measures that we take to avert ourselves,

Does it go away?

Have you guys had something go away?

The discomfort always comes back.

The desire for more always comes back.

I've never had something if I have overt myself enough that it actually goes away.

No,

It just comes back and I got to keep averting myself.

I got to keep,

You know,

Like looking away or,

You know,

It's like I can't,

It doesn't matter how much I cling to my boyfriend.

Like that's not going to keep him around.

Right?

Or it doesn't matter how much I cling to this food.

It's not going to keep it around.

And so this is just like a way that we can really practice with life,

Not judge ourselves,

Not beat ourselves up,

Not hate on ourselves for having these tendencies.

Every human has these tendencies.

And the way that we meet these tendencies can really offer us freedom in present moment.

In those moments when I don't just react to the hungry ghost and I don't just go through the cabinets and eat a bunch of random stuff because I'm feeling uncomfortable,

But I actually meet my discomfort and I acknowledge my discomfort and I sit with it and I'm kind to it.

And then I get to kind of watch this beautiful ride,

You know,

Coming into existence,

Its peak,

And then it's,

You know,

It's dissipating nature,

It's changing nature.

And it's really kind of beautiful to begin just to watch life and know that we're not,

We don't have to be caught or stuck in it.

That we have choice.

And so maybe as you listen to this or begin wanting to maybe explore your own relationship with grief,

Maybe the first thing is just to notice when it's here.

Just notice when am I wanting wanting wanting?

When is the hungry ghost present?

And then maybe if you have the capacity or the bandwidth at that time,

Practice generosity,

Or practice this really beautiful practice of precise attention,

What's actually going on?

Can I let it be here?

Can I watch the whole ride?

Can I ride the wave home?

Can I ride the wave home?

Thank you so much.

Until next time.

Reviews

Thank you ♥️💖♥️
Interesting points to ponder,

This really have me a lot to think about! Thank you!