Money and Happiness

What’s the Connection?

Did the Buddha Teach That Money Is “the Root of All Evil”?

—Vimalakirtinirdesha Sutra 7

THIS DIALOGUE BETWEEN two awakened beings brings out our real relationship with money. It evokes St. Paul’s statement in the Bible, that love of money is the root of all evil. But the Buddhist teaching goes deeper. Our desire for money goes beyond the nature of money, even beyond the nature of desire itself. It points to the nature of all things.

Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, begins with a question asked all over the world: What is the root of all evil? The great householder bodhisattva, Vimalakirti, answers right away that not greed, not money, but focus on physicality is the root. In this, the Buddha teaches something slightly different from, but not incompatible with, what Jesus taught. Money, even loving it, is not intrinsically evil. Instead, evil comes from our delusion that the physical world is fundamental. Money responds to and perpetuates this delusion that the physical will satisfy us. In a way, money is the ultimate empty thing: something appearing huge but in fact entirely hollow. It acts to entrap us in pleasures that are themselves empty. We—both individuals and organizations—keep score with money. We measure success with money, so our earnings and our economies must always grow. Yet this never-ending quest can never be fulfilled.

This entrapment in the physical arises from our desires, our unquenchable yearnings, brought on by our ignorant belief in our selves as separate beings. In reality, our selves, and all things, are open or empty or hollow. These words express the Sanskrit shunya, which means having no significance or essence in and of itself. Instead, things are significant in their connections to everything else. Shunya means not separate, never alone. It means interfused and interdependent with all other beings, all other things. And it’s how we are.

This has profound implications for our relationship with money. If this is how things really are, money distracts us from what will genuinely give us happiness: the pleasure of experiencing the whole world. The whole world is available right now, for free. You don’t need money; you need freedom from desire. You also don’t need to avoid money. Money only hurts you if you let it. But unless you are very wise and wonderfully self-aware, be careful that you don’t start looking to money for fulfillment it can never bring. The best things in life aren’t things.

Is It Okay to Have Personal Wealth?

When a person of integrity becomes wealthy, he provides pleasures and satisfactions for himself, for his parents, for his wife and children, for his underlings, and for his friends. He makes offerings to priests and holy persons, offerings of the highest kind, aiming toward heaven and leading to supreme happiness. When he uses his wealth properly, kings don’t take it, thieves don’t take it, fire doesn’t take it, floods don’t take it, and unworthy heirs don’t take it. His wealth, used properly, goes to good ends, never to waste.

—Samyutta Nikaya 3.19

THE BUDDHA HAD no problem with people making money, or even becoming rich. Personal wealth is not a problem unless it is not used well. The Buddha teaches rich people to be responsible with their wealth by providing for family needs, employee needs, and the needs of friends. He also supports giving to spiritual organizations in order to enrich the spiritual well-being of everyone. In the quote, he emphasizes that good stewardship of money guarantees that one’s personal wealth will be secure from threats and loss of all kinds.

This is naturally what a person of integrity does when wealthy. But for many of us, integrity does not always come naturally, especially when we get rich. We are torn between our personal desires and our commitment to live our values. Developing integrity is like developing a muscle—the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. If our integrity is weak, we can act our way to right thinking. If we act as if we have integrity, in time we really will have it.

Creating a Long-Term Spending Plan

One quarter he spends on himself,
Two on his business,
The last he saves for times of need.

—Digha Nikaya 31

“PAY YOURSELF FIRST” is the advice of many wise financial planners. This means taking care of your personal well-being and expenses first. But employees and bosses alike get their financial priorities confused and end up in a pickle. Some become slaves to their creditors, paying their debts first and neglecting their own basic needs. Others pour every cent into their businesses, leaving themselves busy but broke. The Buddha famously rejected these extremes in life, and here we see him rejecting these extremes in finance. Why not follow the Buddha in applying a middle way? You don’t have to divide your money exactly into quarters, but you should divide it into portions that are sensible, balanced, and far-sighted.

Here’s a good question to ask yourself as you plan: “What plan will bring me peace?” We don’t mean in the far future; we cannot be sure of that. We mean now. Your checking, credit, and savings accounts make the best fiscal Rorschach test. If you want to know what you really value and what your true priorities are, take a look at how you allocate your income: what you spend it on, how you invest it, and what you’re willing to save for. Your accounts are the genuine bottom line here. Let them teach you who you are.

What percentage do you want to put into savings every month so that you have a cushion when hard times come (knowing that hard times will always come)? What percentage do you need to support yourself and your family in your needs and pleasures? What percentage do you want to give to help others? And what percentage do you want to plow back into your business or your career? Answer these questions honestly, and you will find a sense of financial peace.

Would the Buddha Caution Us about Greed?

Even heavenly pleasures don’t distract
One who’s pleased by ending of desire.

—Dhammapada 187

IT’S A GOOD thing the Buddha wasn’t around for the “Me Decade” of the 1980s. He wouldn’t have liked what he saw: conspicuous consumption, “looking out for number one,” and “greed is good” were inescapable attitudes. “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” the Buddha would have clucked. He would have seen through our mania for possessions to the restless vacancy that lies beneath the sparkling veneer of “have more, be happy.”

Mother Teresa once remarked that the spiritual hunger she saw in the Western world was far worse that the physical hunger she saw in India. She, like the Buddha, knew that money and things can never make us happy—more things only make us want more things.

Real happiness comes when we become free of our cravings and stop the endless searching for something to satisfy them. When freed from our greed, we can again delight in pleasures. In fact, we can truly delight in pleasures for the first time, since until then, pleasure is veiled with the clinging film of desire.

What Should Mindful People Do If They Get Rich?

That’s how it is! Few are those who get rich and yet don’t
become intoxicated and irresponsible from it, who don’t get
greedy for sensual delight, who don’t mistreat living things.

—Samyutta Nikaya 3.6

THE PERSON WHO can get rich and not be ruined by it is rare. Jesus said something like this as well: It is easier to fit a camel (or perhaps a rope) through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven. Spiritual teachers work hard to keep us from going astray. They see the seductive poison of money, and they want to keep it from us. The Buddha himself grew up with endless money and finally had to abandon it completely. He had experienced firsthand how excessive money negatively affects us.

Money is a great temptation; it deludes us, it cajoles us, it waits us out. It has implacable patience and terrible readiness. If we have irresponsibility or greed in us, it will wait for its chance and entice us to do the wrong thing.

So what would the Buddha do if he got rich? He showed us: he turned away from a life of riches. If we don’t have the freedom to follow him financially, we must follow him internally. Our minds must be free from the distortion of riches. We cannot be greedy for the power and the sensual indulgence that they promote. We have to treat money like a visitor we respect but also know is dangerous. We greet such a visitor cordially but do not get too intimate, lest we be seduced. Living this way, we are free to aid the world in material ways that the Buddha never could. Material and monetary giving is a vital part of right livelihood and right action—that’s a quarter of the eightfold path, right there.

How Would a Buddha Deal with Financial Setbacks and Losses?

View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don’t run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate.

—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English¹

IT IS EASY to feel mindful, serene, and grateful when things are going well, especially financially. Many of us think that money is security, and for some of us, money is God. We revere money; we’re convinced that if we only had more, all our problems would be solved. When we lose money, it feels like the end of the world. When we have no money, we feel we actually may die. So the real test of our character comes when times are tough, when we are facing adversity—especially financial adversity.

The Buddha understands our attachment to money and what it provides: an illusion of safety and fulfillment. He would empathize with, not condemn, our possessiveness, but he would not dwell with us there. He would coax us out the door of that burning house.

Among the smoking embers, the Buddha would give us a new frame for our broken financial situation. First, he would remind us that our value as human beings is not measured in dollars. We are not our money. So when we lose our money, we do not lose our value. Next, he would point out that humans learn best from their failures (indeed, some of us learn only from our failures). Third, he would teach that this applies to finance, just like anything else. Finally, he would remind us of all the wealthy, successful people throughout history who experienced bankruptcies, business failures, and personal disasters on their way to financial success. Who are we that we should think ourselves so different?

Many teachers have said that pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth. Learn from your financial problems. Approach them with curiosity, not despair. And, as the Venerable Gunaratana says, do not add to your setbacks with ongoing blame. Look for the opportunity; look for the growth available in meeting your financial setbacks with a spirit of courage and openness.

How Would the Buddha Counsel People in Financial Hardship?

No matter how painful experience is,
if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.

—The XIV Dalai Lama, on Larry King Live

THE DALAI LAMA has seen suffering: the loss of his entire nation. So how does he keep from losing hope? How does he keep smiling? He sees things as they are, not as they are for him. It is only when we see things as they really are that we can live integral lives, make integral actions and choices, and find integral happiness.

So, how are things, really? The Buddha taught anicca (impermanence). Impermanence comes, in turn, from paticca-samuppada (“dependent co-arising”), what contemporary Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh calls, much more manageably, “interbeing.” Later Buddhists evolved interbeing into shunyata (“emptiness” or, more accurately, “openness”). These are all views of the world that find the reality of things in their actual interactions, not in their doubtful essences. So the Buddha understood the dialectical nature of reality: that nothing is all good or all bad—that everything is both good and bad, and thus neither. What makes the difference is us. Our experience of the world makes our present, and what we do with the world determines our personal and collective future.

Some people respond to financial hardship by blaming others and portraying themselves as victims. There’s a life’s work there, a miserable one. Other people respond by seeing financial hardship as one more temporary situation to be transformed by taking initiative and getting into action that transforms those proverbial lemons into lucrative lemonade.

Many of the richest people on the planet experienced childhoods—even adulthoods—of extreme poverty, deprivation, and suffering. Oprah Winfrey, Sam Walton, and J. K. Rowling are just a few who have demonstrated that it doesn’t matter where you come from—it only matters where you’re going.

In every financial disaster you have a choice. You can give up and tell yourself, “It’s hopeless.” Or you can rise to the occasion, roll up your sleeves, and begin again.

How Should I Plan for My Retirement?

Do not chase after the past, nor pine for the future.

—Majjhima Nikaya 131

THE BUDDHA UNDERSTOOD the human mind. He noticed how much time we spend mulling over the past, replaying events again and again in our heads as if we were watching a favorite movie. He observed how often our imaginations fly into the future—planning, scheming, daydreaming, worrying, and wondering how our lives will turn out. Finally, the Buddha noted how little time we spend in the present, being awake to all that is unfolding around us and in us. In the sutta (the “scripture” that Majjhima Nikaya 131 denotes), he goes on to say, “What is present you clearly see right there, right there.” Yet how much of our lives we miss, lost in the past or future.

It is in this present moment where we make choices that will determine so much of our lives to come. So the financial choices we make today contribute to our entire financial future. We make assumptions that the future is going to be more of what we have today, without realizing that our world can be turned upside down very quickly—as the global recession beginning in 2008 did with so many people’s retirement goals. It is good to make plans, but it is not good to become attached to those plans. More often than not, plans are positions we can adapt as we gain more information and change perspective. And we don’t mean just financially.

Our system encourages us to make retirement plans as if our lives are not going to change—ignoring the fact that our interests, needs, values, and preferences change fundamentally as we move into our later years. As we age, objects tend to lose their appeal, replaced by experiences, often inner ones. We may live lives of greater simplicity, but we may also live with expensive health challenges. Our financial needs may change dramatically, and we cannot predict when or how.

How would the Buddha plan his own retirement? He would focus on his work of the day. Part of that work would be taking advantage of the company retirement plan or setting up an IRA. Then it would be forgetting about that and getting back to doing good work.