The Scope of Greed

The scope of greed is very broad: any dharma within the desire realm, as long as one is fond of it, is greed. Those literary masters skilled in poetry and verse, and those painters who wield their brushes with effortless flair, have almost all gone off to the ghost realm to roam at ease, because all of that belongs to greed—let alone other aspects of it. Romantic love and passion are even more certainly greed, making it impossible to escape rebirth in the ghost realm. Those who often paint horses, painting them with striking lifelikeness, are reborn into a horse's womb after death; those who often write ghost stories, writing them with great vividness, are reborn as ghosts after death. Whatever one's mind frequently dwells upon, after death one goes to keep company with that very thing. A painter who paints horses with total concentration has a mind that resonates with horses, and in the next life he will be reborn as a horse; those who often write novels about ghosts and spirits pour their minds into ghosts and spirits, resonating with them, and after death they will become ghosts. Now we recollect the Buddha, and when our minds resonate with the Buddha, we will be born beside the Buddha. When the mind resonates with the wholesome, one will be reborn in a wholesome destiny; when the mind resonates with the unwholesome, one will be reborn in an unwholesome destiny.