Human Desire Is Bottomless Indeed

In Japan, there is an old saying which expresses the five wishes of human beings. It goes like this: “The season should be always spring. My age should be always 20, and the age of my partner should be 18. I’d like three dutiful children who will never leave us. I’d like to have a stash of 10,000 dollars that doesn’t decrease no matter how much I spend. And lastly I’d like to live on even after death.”

These wishes cannot be reallised, but I guess the ultimate wish of human beings is represented in the last line: I’d like to live on even after death. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of unified China, was so afraid of death that he desperately wanted the elixir of life. It is said that he pushed his retainers too much and it caused him an early death. Let us read one chapter from Unshakable Spirit.

A young man once worked for a wealthy merchant. He was extremely bright and talented, and the merchant thought highly of him. One day the merchant summoned the lad and said, “You have a knack for business. Here are one hundred gold coins. I want you to use them as capital for whatever business you like, and return them to me tenfold.”

Overjoyed, the youth set out to do as he’d been told. Instead of starting a big venture that might only fail, he decided to build up a small business and earn a slow but steady profit. He bought paper scraps, made them into tissues, and sold them for a small amount. In three years he had earned three hundred gold coins, and in five years, a thousand.

He went back to his employer and reported, “I increased the gold you gave me tenfold. Here it is.”

His boss was impressed. “I knew you had talent, but this is amazing! Now go out and do the same thing again.”

Several years later, the younger man returned with ten thousand gold coins, as promised. His boss praised him again and instructed him to increase his capital tenfold once more, which he did in only three years’ time. Still unsatisfied, the master told him to come back with a million gold coins.

This time the younger man drew himself up and replied, “Turning one hundred thousand gold coins into a million is far easier than turning a hundred into ten thousand. But however much money one has, it is never enough.

Human desire knows no bounds. I do not wish to be a slave to limitless desire. Gold serves no purpose when we are dead.” And so he firmly rejected his master’s wishes and became a Buddhist monk.

One day a man paid a call on an older man who lived alone 15 and was gravely ill. “You are really sick, my friend,” he said. “Why don’t you go into the hospital?”