Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

“Health is the highest gain, Contentment is the highest wealth”, go the first two lines of Verse 204 in The Dhammapada, or The Word of the Buddha. We all know how important health is for our wellbeing, especially for those of us who are prone to illness and bad health. But what does the Buddha mean by saying “contentment is the highest wealth”? Is the Buddha referring to “material wealth” when he speaks of “wealth”?

What the Buddha means when he says “contentment is the highest wealth” is made explicit in one of the suttas in Anguttara Nikya titled santutthi, which is the Pali word translated as “contentment”: “Bhikkhus, there are these four trifles, easily gained and blameless. What four? A rag-robe is a trifle among robes, easily gained and blameless. A lump of alms food is a trifle among meals, easily gained and blameless. The foot of a tree is a trifle among lodgings, easily gained and blameless. Putrid urine is a trifle among medicines, easily gained and blameless. These are the four trifles, easily gained and blameless. When a bhikkhu is satisfied with what is trifling and easily gained, I say that he has one of the factors of the ascetic life. When one is content with what is blameless, trifling and easily gained; when one’s mind is not distressed because of a lodging, robe, drink, and food, one is not hindered anywhere.” (Anguttara Nikaya, IV.70)

While the sutta is intended for his monastic disciples, what the Buddha is trying to convey to us is very clear: we should be content with a modest way of life with respect to what we wear, what we eat and drink, and where we dwell. When we are content with what we can gain easily and blamelessly, what we have, the Buddha assures us, becomes the highest wealth. What the Buddha means by “the highest wealth” is not, therefore, “the highest material standard of living” that has become the goal of many individuals and nations in the world since the Industrial Revolution.

The Buddha’s message of “be content with what we have”, which is behind the concept of santutthi, has been transmitted to Buddhist practitioners by generations of Buddhist masters in all traditions. In the Chinese Chan tradition, for example, we find the following words of Master Sheng Yen: “To purify the mind, start by reducing desires and knowing contentment; to purify society, start by extending loving care to others.” (108 Adages of Wisdom, 2008, p.222) Here the Pali word santutthi has been translated as “知足” in Chinese, which literally means “knowing enough.” Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen master in the Plum Village tradition, translates santutthi into a simple message of “You have enough”, which is circulated among his followers with his beautiful calligraphy. In the Japanese Zen tradition, “knowing enough” has been translated into a pictogram that combines the four Chinese characters “吾唯足知”, which means “I just know I have enough”. One striking example of such a pictogram is a stone hand-washing pot in the garden of Ryoan-ji, a Zen temple in Kyoto.

The Buddha’s message of “be content with what we have” behind santutthi is not only relevant but also becoming of imminent importance in the world today, with the environment around us threatened by climate change brought about by the universal pursuit of economic growth and material progress. While COVID-19 is still on everybody’s mind, global warming is wreaking havoc on the environment, with fires in mountains and rainforests, with floods from rising sea levels caused by the melting of icebergs, and with heat waves getting more oppressive year after year. It is in recognition of these threats to the environment that the Dalai Lama reminds us of the importance of the Buddhist teaching of santutthi as he writes in his latest book: “As a Tibetan Buddhist monk, I am committed to a moderation of our consumption patterns. A responsible life is a simple and contented life. We must learn to cooperate, work and live with nature, not against it.” (Our Only Home: A Climate Appeal to the World, 2020, p.74)