Spending our Savings

This morning I was sent an article from the Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com – China Cracks Down on NGO, December 6, 2007 ) about Chinese crack down on NGOs (nongovernment organizations)within China. This article along with a related article uncovered the manipulative approach of Chinese officials in dealing with these NGO.

The first point was that China began aggressively shutting down many NGOs within the country most notably this summer. It appears that they are concerned about them getting out of the control of the government and concerned about them providing information contrary to how China wants to world to view them. (So much for the truth, eh?) Anyway, it appears that China is preparing for the Olympics and has decided that controlling information and appearance is of greater benefit than trying to really resolve their problems. Let us pretend that the problems do not exist and then they will go away, right?

So where do we fit into this? Here is what I see. In the United States, we are receiving a great economic benefit from letting China do what they want. China continues to buy lots of national debt securities and thereby finance our country’s overspending. We continue to buy billions of dollars of goods made in China to support our never ending desire for more and more goods. A big screen tv is not good enough so we go buy a new flat screen tv. Now it needs to be HD ready.

I feel as if we, as a society, are generally willing to overlook China’s mistreatment of their citizens and abuse of their environment so long as we receive a benefit from them. We tend to overlook their grossly unjust and inhumane activities, which are being done in order to feed our spending and acquisition addictions.

From a Buddhist view, we in the United States especially received this wonderful and advantageous life as the result of good actions in past lives. Sounds great, huh? However, here is the kicker. We are spending our karma savings. We are doing little or nothing as a society to reinvest in the account. It is easy to see that we can soon deplete the good karma savings account and end up with a negative balance.

Not participating in the depletion of the karmic savings and always doing good in order to increase our positive karmic savings accounts has great benefits for this life and especially for future lives.

Next time you walk into the store to purchase, consider if your purchases are depleting your karmic savings or adding to it. If the product you buy are unneeded and produced by inhumane systems, you are in fact supporting their actions. I would contend that you are depleting your account. If your purchase supports sustainable communities and living, you are likely contributing to the overall well-being of people. As a result, your purchase would be actually adding to your karmic savings account.

And if in doubt, just say “No thanks!”

Many Dharma Blessings,


Geoff