Mangoes and Oranges

If you love mangoes, you are free to continue to eat mangoes, but no one forbids you to eat pineapples or oranges. Your favorite fruit is the mango, yes, but you don’t betray your mango when you eat pineapple. I think it’s too narrow-minded, even stupid, to enjoy only mango, when there are so many different fruits around in the world. Spiritual traditions are like spiritual fruits, and you have the right to enjoy them. It is possible to enjoy two traditions, to take the best of two traditions and live with that. If you like to eat Italian food, you can still enjoy French and Chinese cooking. You cannot say. “I have to be faithful to my Italian cooking”—that’s too funny.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

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I like Zen teachings but I also read all other good teachings that come my way, whether Christian, Muslim, Catholic, philosophy whatever. Like what Thich Nhat Hanh said, we can like our mangoes but still eat pineapples and oranges! So today I would like to share something from the Gospels whereby Jesus said the rich will find it difficult to enter the kingdom of God. I think it’s quite similar to the Buddhist teaching of practising non-attachment to worldly possessions.

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The Rich Young Man - extracted from the Gospel of Mark

10.17And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 10.18And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 10.19You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 10.20And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” 10.21And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 10.22At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. 10.23And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” 10.24And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 10.25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 10.26And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” 10.27Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.” 10.28Peter began to say to him, “Lo, we have left everything and followed you.” 10.29Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 10.30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 10.31But many that are first will be last, and the last first.”