The Tricycle Book Club is discussing Lin Jensen’s Deep Down Things: The Earth in Celebration and Dismay! Look for daily excerpts from the book on the Tricycle Blog to inspire the conversation, which is happening here.

From Deep Down Things:

“

Now as an adult, I’ve adopted a Buddhist economic heritage characterized by modesty and restraint. It’s an economy that distinguishes between “need” and “want.” The needs of any one person, household, or township are finite, while wants are without limit. Wants reside in the mind, a product of thought, while needs are of the body, consisting of such reasonable necessities as food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. A simple analogy makes the distinction more tangible: wanting to eat is eating when you feel like eating; needing to eat is eating when you’re hungry. It’s a distinction upon which the survival of earth’s delicately balanced ecosystem relies.”

Have something to say? Visit the Tricycle Community Book Club to discuss Deep Down Things!

Image: From the Flickr photostream of -RejiK

Thank you for subscribing to Tricycle! As a nonprofit, to keep Buddhist teachings and practices widely available.