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The Buddha considered economic welfare as a requisite for human happiness, but moral and spiritual development for a happy, peaceful and contented life.
A man named Dighajanu once visited the Buddha and said, ‘Venerable Sir,
we are ordinary laymen, leading a family life with wife and children.
Would the Blessed One teach us some doctrines which will be conducive to
our happiness in this world and hereafter?
The Buddha told him that there are four things which are conducive to a
man’s happiness in this world. First: he should be skilled, efficient,
earnest, and energetic in whatever profession he is engaged, and he
should know it well (utthana-sampada); second: he should protect his income, which he has thus earned righteously, with the sweat of his brow (arakkha-sampada); third: he should have good friends (kalyana-mitta)
who are faithful, learned, virtuous, liberal and intelligent, who will
help him along the right path away from evil; fourth: he should spend
reasonably, in proportion to his income, neither too much nor too
little, i.e., he should not hoard wealth avariciously nor should he be
extravagant?in other words he should live within his means (sama-jivikata).
Then the Buddha expounds the four virtues conducive to a layman’s happiness hereafter:
(1)Saddha: he should have faith and confidence in moral, spiritual and intellectual values; (2)Sila: he
should abstain from destroying and harming life, from stealing and
cheating, from adultery, from falsehood, and from intoxicating drinks;
(3)Caga: he should practise charity, generosity, without attachment and craving for his wealth;(4)Panna: he should develop wisdom which leads to the complete destruction of suffering, to the realization of Nibbana.
Sometimes the Buddha even went into details about saving money and spending it, as, for instance, when he told the young man Sigala that
he should spend on fourth of his income on his daily expenses, invest
half in his business and put aside one fourth for any emergency.
Once the Buddha told Anathapindika, the great banker, one of His most
devoted lay disciples who founded for Him the celebrated Jetavana
monastery at Savatthi, that a layman who leads an ordinary family life
has four kinds of happiness. The first happiness is to enjoy economic
security or sufficient wealth acquired by just and righteous means (atthi-sukha); the second is spending that wealth liberally on himself, his family, his friends and relatives, and on meritorious deeds (bhogo-sukha); the third to be free from debts (anana-sukha); the fourth happiness is to live a faultless, and a pure life without committing evil in thought, word or deed (anavajja-sukha).
It must be noted here that first three are economic and material
happiness which is ‘not worth part’ of the spiritual happiness arising
out of a faultless and good life.
From the few examples given above, one can see that the Buddha
considered economic welfare as a requisite for human happiness, but that
He did not recognize progress as real and true if it was only material,
devoid of a spiritual and moral foundation. While encouraging material
progress, Buddhism always lays great stress on the development of the
moral and spiritual character for a happy, peaceful and contented
society.
Many people think that to be a good Buddhist one must have
absolutely nothing to do with the materialistic life. This is not
correct. What the Buddha teaches is that while we can enjoy material
comforts without going to extremes, we must also conscientiously develop
the spiritual aspects of our lives. While we can enjoy sensual
pleasures as laymen, we should never be unduly attached to them to the
extent that they hinder our spiritual progress. Buddhism emphasizes the
need for a man to follow the Middle Path.
BY Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda
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