I'd like to spend my time today briefly and directly addressing the topic of this conference. As opposed to that which is ponderous, earthy, weighty, hefty, dense, and onerous.
Ascetics are in favor of lightness.
Mahatma Gandhi, who travelled lightly for many years during his long protest marches, pointed out that there is often enough for our needs, yet never enough for our greeds. Gandhi considered the urge to consume resources to be a wicked appetite that grows with the feeding. Buddhist asceticism holds that by destroying desire, one can destroy unhappiness. The ascended one, the en-lightened, will float weightlessly into nirvana, free of the karmic wheel. Ascetics believe that materiality is a spiritual problem.