Thus, good and praiseworthy wealthy people are those who seek wealth in a rightful way and use it for the good and happiness of both themselves and others. Accordingly, the Buddha’s lay disciples, being wealthy, liberally devoted much or most of their wealth to the support of the sangha and to the alleviation of the suffering and poverty of others.
For example, the millionaire Anāthapiṇḍika is said in the Commentary on the Dhammapada to have spent a large amount of money every day to feed hundreds of monks as well as hundreds of the poor.10 Of course, in an ideal society under an able and righteous ruler or under a righteous and effective administration, there will be no poor people, as all people will be at least self-sufficient, and monks will be the only community set apart by intention to be sustained with the material surplus of the lay society.
A true Buddhist lay person not only seeks wealth lawfully and spends it for the good, but also enjoys spiritual freedom, not being attached to it, infatuated with or enslaved by that wealth. At this point the mundane and the transmundane intersect. The Buddha classifies lay people or the enjoyers of sense-pleasure into various classes according to lawful and unlawful means of seeking wealth, the spending or not spending of wealth for the good and happiness of oneself or others and for the performing of good deeds, and the attitude of greed and attachment or wisdom and spiritual freedom in dealing with wealth. The last, which the Buddha calls the best, the greatest, and the noblest, is praiseworthy in four respects. Such a person enjoys life on both the mundane and the transmundane planes as follows:
Mundane
1. Seeking wealth lawfully and unarbitrarily,
2. Making oneself happy and cheerful,
3. Sharing with others and doing meritorious deeds.
Transmundane
4. Making use of one’s wealth without greed and longing, without infatuation, heedful of danger and possessed of the insight that sustains spiritual freedom.11
This person is indeed an Ariyan or Noble Disciple, that is, one who has made great progress toward individual perfection. Of much significance, moreover, is the compatibility between the mundane and the transmundane spheres of life which combine to form the integral whole of Buddhist ethics in which the transmundane acts as the completing part.
In spite of its great ethical utility, however, too much importance should not be given to wealth. The limitation of its utility in relation to the realization of the goal of nibbāna, furthermore, should also be recognized. Though on the mundane level poverty is something to be avoided, a poor person is not deprived of all means to act for the good of himself or herself and for the good of society. The ten ways of doing good or making merit begin with giving, but they also include moral conduct, the development of mental qualities and wisdom, the rendering of services, and the teaching of the dhamma. Because of poverty, people may be too preoccupied with the mere struggle for survival and thus cannot do anything for their own perfection. They may even cause trouble to society and difficulty for other people in their effort toward their own perfection. But when basic living needs are satisfied, if one is mentally qualified and makes the effort, nothing can hinder one from realizing one’s individual perfection. Wealth as a resource for achieving the social good can help create favorable circumstances for realizing individual perfection, but ultimately it is mental maturity and wisdom, not wealth, that bring about the realization of this perfection. Wealth mistreated and misused not only obstructs individual development, but can also be detrimental to the social good. A wealthy man can do much more either for the better or for the worse of the social good than a poor man. The wealth of a good man is also the wealth of the society. It is, therefore, conducive to the social good and thus becomes a resource for all the members of that society. In other words, acquiring wealth is acceptable if, at the same time, it promotes the well-being of a community or society. But if one’s wealth grows at the expense of the well-being of the community, that wealth is harmful and becomes a problem to be overcome. If personal wealth is not the wealth of society and is not conducive to the social good, the society may have to seek other means of ownership and distribution of wealth to ensure the social good and the resourcefulness of wealth for both individual development and perfection of all members of the society.
In short, the Buddhist attitude toward wealth is the same as that toward power, fame, and honor. This is clearly expressed in the words of the great Buddhist king, Asoka, in his Edict X, “King Piyadassi, the beloved of the gods, does not consider prestige and glory as of any great meaning unless he desires prestige and glory for this purpose, that people may attend to the teaching of the dhamma and that they may abide by the practices of the dhamma.”
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