The Buddha's Teaching on Material and Spiritual Welfare | (Dīghajānu (Vyagghapajja) Sutta - AN 8.54)

The Buddha's Teaching on Material and Spiritual Welfare | (Dīghajānu (Vyagghapajja) Sutta - AN 8.54)

By Bhante Sumitta

This discourse from the Anguttara Nikaya, known as the Dighajanu (Vyagghapajja) Sutta, presents the Buddha's comprehensive teaching to a wealthy householder on achieving both worldly prosperity and spiritual progress. The text provides practical guidance for lay practitioners seeking to balance material success with dharmic living.¹

Context and Request

Dighajanu, a Koliyan householder, approaches the Buddha acknowledging his enjoyment of worldly pleasures—family life, luxury goods, and material comforts—and requests teachings that will lead to "weal and happiness in this life and to weal and happiness in future life."² This honest acknowledgment sets the stage for the Buddha's balanced approach to lay Buddhist practice.

Four Conditions for Worldly Progress

The Buddha outlines four essential conditions for material welfare and happiness in this life:

1. Accomplishment of Persistent Effort (Utthana-sampada)

Developing skill and diligence in one's livelihood—whether farming, trading, cattle-rearing, archery, royal service, or any craft. This involves becoming expert in one's field, avoiding laziness, and possessing discernment about proper methods and resource allocation.³

2. Accomplishment of Watchfulness (Arakkha-sampada)

Carefully protecting wealth that has been righteously earned through honest effort and legitimate means. This includes safeguarding resources from loss through political seizure, theft, natural disasters, or family disputes.⁴

3. Good Friendship (Kalyanamittata)

Associating with virtuous companions who embody faith, virtue, charity, and wisdom. The Buddha emphasizes adopting the qualities of such friends, allowing their positive influence to shape one's own character and conduct.⁵

4. Balanced Livelihood (Sama-jivikata)

Living within one's means by carefully managing income and expenses, avoiding both extravagance and miserliness. The Buddha uses the analogy of a goldsmith's balance to illustrate the precision needed in financial management.⁶

Wealth's Sources of Destruction and Increase

The Buddha identifies four destructive behaviors that drain wealth like outlets from a tank:

• Debauchery
• Drunkenness
• Gambling
• Association with evil-doers

Conversely, four positive practices increase wealth like inlets to a tank:

• Abstinence from debauchery
• Abstinence from drunkenness
• Non-indulgence in gambling
• Friendship with virtuous people⁷

Four Conditions for Spiritual Progress

For welfare in future lives, the Buddha prescribes four spiritual accomplishments:

1. Accomplishment of Faith (Saddha-sampada)

Developing confident faith in the Buddha's enlightenment and the truth of his teaching, based on understanding rather than blind belief.⁸

2. Accomplishment of Virtue (Sila-sampada)

Observing the five basic precepts: abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxication.⁹

3. Accomplishment of Charity (Caga-sampada)

Cultivating generosity with a heart free from avarice, delighting in giving, and attending to the needs of others.¹⁰

4. Accomplishment of Wisdom (Pañña-sampada)

Developing insight into the arising and cessation of the five aggregates—the penetrating wisdom that leads to the destruction of suffering.¹¹

Integration of Material and Spiritual Life

This teaching demonstrates the Buddha's recognition that lay practitioners need guidance for both worldly success and spiritual development. Rather than demanding renunciation of material life, the Buddha provides a framework for ethical prosperity that supports rather than hinders spiritual progress.¹²

The concluding verses summarize the teaching: one who is "energetic and heedful in tasks, wisely administering wealth, living a balanced life" while being "endowed with faith and virtue, generous and free from avarice" achieves both present happiness and future spiritual welfare.¹³

Significance for Buddhist Economics

This sutta provides scriptural foundation for what Schumacher would later call "Buddhist economics"—an approach that:

• Validates material prosperity when ethically obtained and managed
• Emphasizes the importance of virtuous associations and community
• Integrates practical financial wisdom with spiritual development
• Demonstrates that material and spiritual welfare can be mutually supporting rather than contradictory

The teaching offers a middle way for householders, neither condemning wealth nor promoting attachment to it, but rather showing how material resources can be skillfully used in service of both temporal well-being and ultimate liberation.

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Reference:

¹ "Dighajanu (Vyagghapajja) Sutta: Conditions of Welfare," Anguttara Nikaya 8.54, translated by Narada Thera, Access to Insight, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.054.nara.html.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Ibid.