More on Buddha and Wealth

Friend Adrian read my last post and wrote me this (he was gonna comment it). I think this is worth posting.

You can find (as the guy in the link did) stuff that the Buddha apparently said about money if you look for it hard enough, but it wouldn't be right to say that there's a big emphasis on it. The only part of the main teachings I can think of that relates much to wealth is the bit in the Eightfold Path about 'right livelihood', which essentially just says that whatever job you do, try to make sure it doesn't do unnecessary harm to yourself or others. There is also a precept on not stealing, which would be relevant to some kinds of wealth creation...

I don't think making money is seen as inherently 'good' or 'bad'- it all depends on a) how you got it, and b) what you do with it. If you can get disgustingly rich in an honest way and then do something really good with it, then fine. In practice I'd say most people have found that getting very rich usually involves either dishonesty or a lot of work (sometimes both), either of which will distract you from the things that really matter. (Winning Lotto might be another way, but not too reliable.)

Someone was saying that the Buddha was a privileged prince who needed to live in a rich enough society that he could drop out and seek enlightenment. The story goes, he was born a prince, but left home and lived on alms for the rest of his life. So not exactly a life of luxury. When times were hard the monks and nuns went hungry too. According to the stories they were sometimes offered animal fodder if things were bad, but they refused it if it was going to cause animals to go hungry. Once they are supposed to have experimented with eating bits off trees but found it didn't really do the trick. The Buddha apparently died as a result of eating something dodgy that someone had given him.

For more stories of his life, written in a pretty thorough but readable and unembellished way, I'd recommend Thich Nhat Hanh's book 'Old Path White Clouds'.