Investing for Real Profit
A very generous benefactor started a fund with the idea of investing a large sum of money into a business to generate money to continually help run the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an international affiliated network of centers, projects and services founded by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Normally, worldly business people think that the best way to invest is by doing business. But that is only certain when you make a profit. Until then, it’s uncertain. My own feeling is the most reliable investment is to offer money to monasteries and offer charity to sentient beings. This way, even though the result of the investment, the income, doesn’t appear right now, it is one hundred percent certain that it will be received in the near future.
The result of karma is that not only do you receive the income back, but the result manifests in various forms, various instances of happiness. The karmic result is so much more than the profit you would get from business. The result of karma is expandable, not just in one lifetime, but hundreds of thousands of lifetimes, and can also expand up to enlightenment.
This way, there is no loss at all. In the case of business, there is uncertainty until you actually make a profit. I feel this way, investing by making charity or offerings, is more satisfying. Then, not only do you get the result of whatever you achieve, but others get the benefit also. This is something to think about.
If you use money for business purposes, it becomes much harder for that action to be virtuous. The action of offering charity becomes a virtuous action much more easily. I am not saying that you can’t use money for business purposes, what I am saying is in regards to safety and unimaginable profit.