A vow of Poverty

In many spiritualities and religions monks and nuns take a vow of poverty. To our western, capitalist ears this sounds like sacrilege. Why would you want to do that? Keep in mind though that poverty, at least in the minds of the stoic philosopher and the nun, is not destitution. Being destitute is something else, something we would call extreme poverty, not-having-enough-to-eat poverty, and no monk or philosopher is espousing that as a virtue.

The poverty these monastics vow to is about holding your possessions, however little or much, with  open hands. It’s about not attaching to anything and therefore not needing anything. The vow helps them to learn the ability to be happy and content with either.

Question is, would you and I be able to take a ‘vow of poverty’. Can we hold our possessions with open hands? 

Get skin in the game, practice poverty. 

pierre