Quote:
A man named Dighajanu once visited the Buddha and said:
'Venerable Sir, we are ordinary lay men, leading the 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 tells 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 (uttbana-sampada);
second: he should protect his income, which he has thus earned
righteously, with the sweat of his brow (arakkba-sampadd); (This
refers to protecting wealth from thieves, etc. All these ideas should
be considered against the background of the period.) 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
(samajivikata).
Then the Buddha expounds the four virtues conducive to a
layman's happiness hereafter: (i) Saddha: he should have faith
and confidence in moral, spiritual and intellectual values; (2)
S i / a : 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)
Patina: he should develop wisdom which leads to the complete
destruction of suffering, to the realization of Nirvana.
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 one 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 (attki-sukha); the second is
spending that wealth liberally on himself, his family, his friends
and relatives, and on meritorious deeds (bhoga-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 three of these
kinds are economic, and that the Buddha finally reminded the
banker that economic and material happiness is 'not worth one
sixteenth part' of the spiritual happiness arising out of a faultless
and good life.
From the few examples given above, one could see that the
Buddha considered economic welfare as 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.