Correct, because only by having money can most people understand the situation. You've proven this yourself by calling it "a load".

Zen monks have attained this understanding without the need to make the money first however.

No, you cannot make the comparison between having money and not having money if you have never not had money. If you have always had money, you have never known the difficulty of living without it.

I never read any of the comments here as belittling what it is to be poor.

It reads to me as being critical of the assumption that being rich makes you happy.

This is reflected by many people who became rich and self destructive.

That is the entire point.

Money removes unhappiness and raises you to a baseline, but after that it doesn't provide extra happiness in and of it self.

It can, if you use it wisely. It's just not that you eat the money yourself, you apply it to things you want to do. That could be buying guitars, or it could be setting up solar panels in Ghana. There's a lot of things you can do with money.