Editor’s note: This bonus episode comes from the podcastKnowledge and Action Tavern, Episode 169, originally titled “The Buddha Says Making Money Is Fine—If You Do It as It Really Is.” Host: Yubai. Post-production: Mingrui. Producer: Xingxing.

Knowledge and Action Tavern, produced by Knowledge and Action, is a podcast about investment and life. It cares about finance, and even more about living better. Visit the Knowledge and Action app or search and subscribe on Xiaoyuzhou, Himalaya, QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music, Apple Podcasts, Qingting FM, Lizhi Podcast, WeChat Listen, Spotify, and general podcast clients.

03:08 Highly practical and utilitarian people may gain a clear understanding of Buddhism with a single shift of thought

06:16 Buddhism does not oppose making money, provided you remain true to things as they are

11:18 Ought and is: accept that reality does not develop according to your values. Judgment is unavoidable, but do not become attached

16:26 Can Buddhist thought be applied to investing?

21:08 Modern education’s flaw is excessive emphasis on human subjectivity

25:46 From engineering to Buddhism: giving up stable work and Shanghai residency because they could not provide the deepest happiness

29:55 “Each time you break convention on life’s track, you gain inner autonomy rather than convergence with others’ goals.”

34:05 Every place is a site of practice: true Dharma transforms ideas in daily life without depending on forms or images

40:44 Let life resemble a river; do not fill it with too many reefs

45:40 Longing for stability while repeatedly being hurt by what we rely on is many people’s predicament

49:52 How to help without being depleted: I will keep acting and speaking from responsibility, but will not carry the result

61:04 Cheng Qing once immersed himself in Western art and philosophy. What conditions led him to Buddhism?

63:59 A Xiaohongshu headline writes itself: I lost twenty jin effortlessly in under thirty days of meditation

67:42 Spiritual consumerism and mind-body-spirit practices: beware of energy available only through dependence on a person, group, or object; it is far removed from genuine self-fulfillment

82:38 Now is now and later is later. When death arrives, die just so

87:39 Where are life and death? Between one breath and the next

 

02:00 Program mentioned here: Knowledge and Action Tavern, Episode 138, conversation with Wen Yifei

21:56 “God is dead” (German: Gott ist tot) is Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous statement in The Gay Science, further developed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra

30:37 Program mentioned here: Knowledge and Action Tavern, Episode 167, “Before the College Entrance Exam, Just Work Hard; After Starting Work, We Only Want to Go Mad—What Happened to Education?”

51:43 “Thus I shall bring immeasurable, countless, boundless beings to cessation, yet in truth no being attains cessation” comes from Chapter 3 of the Diamond Sutra. It emphasizes that when liberating beings, a bodhisattva must not cling to the thought “How many beings have I saved?” Such attachment obstructs genuine bodhisattva conduct.

82:38 The film Perfect Days

87:39 “Life lies between breaths” comes from Chapter 38 of the Sutra in Forty-Two Sections. The Buddha asks a monk, “How long is human life?” He answers, “Several days.” The Buddha says, “You do not know the Way.” Another answers, “The time of a meal,” and receives the same reply. A third says, “The time of a breath.” The Buddha says, “Excellent! You know the Way.”