How much is enough?

It is too much to expect people to realize the futility of something they do not have. Buddha may never have become enlightened if he just had enough to get by. It was only his having everything at his disposal that made him realize the uselessness of it. He realized that he could not buy happiness, health or immortality with all the money in the world, because he had all the money and power in the world. But for most of us, the idea of tying happiness to wealth and power seems like a bankable dream since we do not have either of them in excess. Only those, who have successfully made the journey to the end of the rainbow and have not found a gold pot there, realize that the gold was actually strewn all along the way and that if they had cared to pick it up as they blindly pursued the distant dream, they would have succeeded in finding their much cherished pot of gold at the end. We find happiness not in what we have on the outside, but in what it brings to life within us.