There’re some major changes going on along one of our busiest streets in town. Strange-looking supposedly avant-garde buildings are replacing the old ones. Out of curiosity, we took a walk from the new Orchard Central to Orchard Ion, to witness part of the whopping 40 million dollar revamp of the stuff on Orchard Road.
Old buildings down, new buildings up. Levels of storeys, partitions of shops. It’s no secret that entrepreneurship in terms of setting up shop is no joke in Singapore. It’s amazing how rapidly shops come and go. Here today, gone tomorrow. Everyone in the malls seem to have agendas, except me, in the middle of it all, lost in bewilderment.
While most of the shoppers have their preferred temple (shopping mall) and deity (brand) to worship (buy), those who have none might feel a sense of lack and urgency to find their godly goods as well. This, is the grip of capitalism, the religion of the masses. Thank goodness I’m a ‘free-thinker’! Thank goodness Buddhism teaches economical living. As Master Shengyen famously said, ‘What we need is not much; what we want is too much’. (需要的不多，想要的太多) If only we learn to live by this adage, we would not feel overwhelmed with this material madness.
Related Article:
Layers Upon Layers
https://moonpointer.com/new/2009/08/layers-upon-layers
So much for “progress”. This type of phenomena is so pervasive in our time. Hopefully people will tire of chasing dead-end paths and uproot the causes of dukkha.
Thank you for your posts!
Not if you have governments imparting ideas like – spend to help the economy.