Dighajanu approached the Buddha Shakyamuni: “Venerable Sir, I am an ordinary man, leading the family life with wife and children. Would the Blessed One teach me that which will bring happiness in this world and hereafter?”
The Buddha replied that four factors are conducive to happiness in this world:
being skilled, efficient, earnest, and energetic at work;
protecting income, earned righteously, from loss or theft;
having friends who are faithful, learned, virtuous, liberal, intelligent, and give good counsel; and
spending reasonably, without avarice or extravagance.
The Buddha then explained that four others are conducive to happiness hereafter:
faith and confidence in moral and spiritual values;
abstaining from killing, dishonesty, adultery, falsehood, and intoxication;
practicing generosity, without attachment and craving for wealth; and
developing the wisdom of the path leading to the cessation of suffering.
