I’d like to know what principle of Dhamma can give stability to the family till the next generations?

Answer
by Venerable Dhattajeevo Bhikku 

This question means what we shall do since even a billionaire can be bankrupted like what we saw when we experienced an economy crisis during the IMF time. What shall we do not to experience this situation again? So that a billionaire will not be bankrupted and a poor person who is easily bankrupted will not experience it.

The Lord Buddha gave us 4 principles of Dhamma; namely,

1. Immediately find the lost things.

2. Immediately fix the broken things.

3. Don’t be extravagant.

4. Don’t choose leaders from relationship, not from their qualification.

These 4 things are all important. Let me moderately explain them.

If we don’t immediately fix broken things, it means we are not responsible to the equipment and assets we own. This kind of person can be compared to the blind. Because though their eyes are still good, they still perform just like the blinds and don’t care about their own assets. When time passes, they cannot find their things. So, be careful.

Talking about extravagance, we shouldn’t waste money for unnecessary things since money will not last forever. During IMF, we saw many people who made much money like millions of Baht each month lost their profit real fast. Were they still skillful? Yes, but the way to make money was gone. Therefore, don’t be careless about this thing. Don’t spend money more than what you make, also be careful about overabundant investment.

The saying the more debt we have, the better our credit is could be easily told if it’s true or not when the IMF time came. Presently, many people already know that it’s not true. This principle taught in schools should be repealed. Don’t be extravagant; also don’t waste money in something unessential, for instance, wasting money in the road to ruins, etc. because no matter how much we spend time and money on these things--alcohol, gambling, going night out, it’s never enough. No matter how rich a person is, if he walks on any road to ruins, he will definitely be all ruined.

Fourth, don’t appoint somebody just because of the relationship. Somebody has a big business or a high position, but he cares only his relatives and appoints close but unqualified people to the leader jobs, they can ruin the works and can give bankruptcy to the family. But for somebody who has no choice because nobody else is trustful, he needs to give the jobs to his unqualified relatives. He has to train them beforehand until they are qualified to become leaders. If not, an unskillful leader can ruin the business and cause bankruptcy.

I’d like to give you a word for your family to be forever rich that never ever experience bankruptcy.

First, you need to be seriously responsible of yourself and show that responsibility to your family.

1. Being responsible to your own humanity, i.e. observing precepts purely all the time. No matter how rich we are, we will not walk on any road to ruins.

Second, what else? Well…being responsible to the economy. As I mentioned, you must not walk on any road to ruins. What else do we need to be responsible? Being responsible to everybody in our family. How? Teach our descendants real well. Don’t spoil them. The better our financial status is, the greater the possibility is that the members of our family will be spoiled, lazy and self-centered because they have a lot of wealth.

Therefore, we need to be their model in self training and train them in the same time. Don’t even allow them to sleep in late. We are humans, not pigs. What kind of people are we? Responsible people, not beggars. We have to wake up early no matter how late we stay up, but we have to wake up since the early morning to get ready to perform good deeds, to gain wealth since we still need to eat, to live, to get ready to check our deficiency for increasing our goodness. If we can usually be responsible to ourselves, our families, our relatives, our people will be able to take care of the wealth we work hard for. If we have good responsibility in things and people in our families, the family will definitely never ever experience any bankruptcy.