Talking money at Ampleforth

It was an honour and a privilege to talk to the Middle Sixth last Monday about money, a topic never before covered at the school, but dealt with now as part of the newly instigated Christian Living programme.

I used the opportunity to take the students through the bare bones of a life plan, dealing with painful issues around money before moving into the actual planning process, taking students through vision (using the three questions) and dealing with the three pillars of financial planning (budgets, savings and compound interest and key ratios), then moving on to dealing with obstacles and the commensurate need for understanding, and then execution and vigour.

Throughout I related it to the Rule of St Benedict, showing how our planning tools could be used to live the by the rule in modern society, and how the rule was still very relevant today.

I sensed the talk was well received on the whole, although some bits were evidently difficult (the concept of understanding in particular), but I was anxious not to dumb down. Looking forward to expanding and developing the programme, possibly in conjunction with the FSA’s pathfinder Financial Capability programme due to kick off in the North East in 2009.

Originally posted on my family blog here

Listening and talking

Kinder and Benedict have much in common when it comes to listening and talking. As most of us know the opening words of the Rule are "Listen carefully... with the ear of your heart." Later, in his powerful section on humility (Chapter 7), Benedict reserves the three penultimate degrees of humilty for the way we speak - "refrain from unecessary speech", "don't be given to empty laughter" and "speak gently and seriously with words that are weighty and restrained".

How wonderful to apply those parts of the rule to financial planning, as George Kinder has done. Kinder pays great attention to the importance of listening deeply, not only to our clients but to ourselves also. In the first few meetings, life planners sit with their clients, letting them talk, listening not just with their ears, but their whole heart and mind, asking nothing more than a few open questions where necessary.

More, these listening sessions are conducted in a spirit of compassion; they are absolutley non-judgemental, and for the client are the start of the process of healing from pain and suffering felt by so many in the world today.

In the same way, Benedict encourages us to listen deeply, be aware and be understanding. We should not tell others how to run their lives, shame them, laugh at them, denigrate them.

In the end, our clients usually come forward with their own plan for life; their planners don't impose it upon them, but simply guide, challenge and suggest solutions for the obstacle that prevent the client getting where they want to be.

For so many in financial services, whose work is about presenting, selling, persuading, these parts of Benedict's Rule make a superb teaching text.

Using pain around money to achieve wisdom and outreach

We can use the pain that so often attaches to matters monetary to achieve wisdom, in particularly the wisdom of living for the community rather than ourself.

As Kinder says, we cling to thoughts and stories about money, because we cannot give up the innocent beliefs about money that cause pain when they hit reality.

Kinder's approach to pain is to "let the thoughts go, let the feelings be". This is a matter of dealing with our egos, which want to keep us at the centre of attention, part of our own drama. It is the ego, me, my, mine that links the thoughts of the head to the feelings of the heart, smothering the feelings. Letting the thoughts go in a meditative practice is equivalent to prayer, healing, compassion for self.

"To step down in humility will lift our spirit up towards God" (7.20).

In dealing with the ego and understanding humility, we achieve wisdom. The essence of that wisdom is the realisation that others matter more than ourselves, which paves the way towards a focus on the wider community, not just on ourselves, the last to stages of the seven stage process of achieving money maturity.

Possesions

Whilst the Gospels and the Rule are strongly biased against posessions (camels, needles etc, Matthew19.24 and the Rule, 33.2: "no-one may presume to give, receive or retain etc"), Buddhism accepts wealth as part of life and is seen (by Patrick Henry) as more a question of generosity than renunciation. Important, too, is the idea of attachment to possessions being the obstacle to spiritual growth, rather than the possessions themselves. Once again, the theme of clinging (an important element of Kinder's approach to money) comes through strongly. Giving away possessions is more than generosity, it is true rennunciatiation, letting go, which in turn leads to being at ease with self and money.

Clinging and letting go

Blake, quoted often by Kinder:

"He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise"

Clinging onto thoughts or experiences denies the mutable nature of the world, replacing it with a false sense of permanence - innocent beliefs that cause pain when the world, inevitably, changes.

Vigour and lethargy

For Kinder, vigour is the third element of adulthood, which drives the achievement of goals. Key point: goals breed vigour. Kinder's three questions for ascertaining life goals are based on the distant, then imminent approach of death.

St B: "let us rouse ourselves from lethargy" and "run while you have the light of life before the darkness of death overtakes you" (prologue).

Joseph Goldstein (Benedict’s Dharma) reflects how impermanence and change awakens us from lethargy:

• “The end of birth is death”: time is running out, but we see death more in others than in ourselves. St B: “Keep the reality of death always before your eyes” (4.7); in other words, return to Kinder’s three questions time and time again. Reflecting on death can paradoxically enhance our freedom and give us vigour.
• “The end of all accumulation is dispersion”: Kinder sees possessions as a vigour drain. In money terms, why spend money on possessions for them only to be burdened with clutter? Acceptance of impermanence is a route to freedom
• “All meetings end in separation”: forgetting this leads to such entanglement and attachment that separation leads to undue suffering

Good and bad

When we see something good, rejoice; when we see something bad, examine our consciences.

Is this the faith equivalent of what the psychoanalysts call transference?