Reframe harmful money beliefs with mindfulness practices for healthier finances.
Cultivate equanimity and compassion to navigate financial challenges with a balanced perspective.
Practice generosity to redefine success beyond material wealth and foster abundance and contentment.
Deep dives
Understanding the Buddhist Perspective on Money
The podcast explores the concept of money from a Buddhist perspective, delving into the teachings of the Buddha regarding earning an ethical living and dispelling the misconception that material success contradicts spiritual principles. The discussion highlights how anxiety about money often stems from our thoughts rather than our actual financial status, emphasizing the importance of training oneself to approach financial matters with mindfulness.
Training in Mindfulness for Better Financial Decision-Making
The guest, Spencer Sherman, introduces practices to reframe long-held beliefs about money, such as the 'Enough Practice,' which focuses on cultivating a sense of sufficiency and contentment in the present moment. By applying mindfulness techniques like the RAIN practice to money-related anxieties and learning to let go of grasping tendencies, individuals can make wiser financial decisions and experience a greater sense of well-being.
Achieving Equanimity and Sympathetic Joy in Financial Matters
Sherman discusses the importance of cultivating equanimity in financial situations to navigate challenges like job loss or market fluctuations with a balanced and calm perspective. The podcast also explores the practice of 'Mudita' or sympathetic joy, whereby individuals learn to celebrate others' successes without succumbing to envy or comparison, fostering a mindset of abundance and reducing the grip of the comparing mind in money matters.
Using Compassion to Transform Money Beliefs
Compassion plays a significant role in reshaping individuals' relationships with money. By offering compassion for past money mistakes and the influence of early conditioning, individuals can begin to heal and alter their perspectives towards money. Through practices like reframe meditations, where one challenges inherited beliefs around money, individuals can cultivate empathy for themselves and others, fostering a more balanced and insightful approach to financial decisions.
Generosity and its Impact on Financial and Personal Well-being
Generosity, often equated with loving kindness, is viewed as a powerful tool for enhancing financial and personal well-being. Embracing a mindset of generosity involves offering not just monetary contributions, but also sharing attention, presence, and skills. By practicing generosity, individuals can shift towards sufficiency, redefining success beyond material accumulation. Research indicates that the act of giving not only promotes happiness but also strengthens interpersonal connections and leads to a sense of abundance and contentment.
When we think about Buddhism or the dharma, we probably don’t think about money.
But when the Buddha laid out guidelines about how to make an ethical livelihood, this didn’t preclude material success. This episode is part two of this week’s series on money, and dives into how we can bring Buddhist principles to an area of our lives that can create so much fear, greed, and dread.
Spencer Sherman is the founding CEO of Abacus, a values-driven financial firm, and certified mindfulness teacher. He teaches the Fearless Finance program and The Mastery of Money program for NYU’s Inner MBA program. He is also the author of The Cure For Money Madness.
In this episode we talk about:
How to identify and reframe our potentially harmful beliefs about money
How to apply the Four Brahma Viharas to having a healthier relationship with our finances
How to use the RAIN technique when we become anxious about money
Spencer’s ‘Enough Practice’ designed to give us a sense of equanimity
How generosity helps us let go and can create a sense of abundance
How mindfulness of money can key us into interconnection
And whether you can actually be a successful investor if you’re guided by Buddhist values
