Chapter 7. Contentment & Ambition Scenario
Scenario of Ambition & Contentment
Contentment is a core value of Buddhist monastic life which leads
to self-sufficiency and satisfaction against mental craving. So, it is an ideal for members of the Buddhist
monastic community to prosper their contented life and enjoy peace and
tranquility for oneself which encourage Dhamma practice such as mindfulness and
Vipassana meditation leading to enlightenment.
On the other hand, ambition plays an important role in worldly
tasks engagement such as the religious propagation. This is vital in the work of many Bodhisatta
or Buddha-to-be individuals who usually invest concerted effort to advance
their religious works including teaching and charities to benefit others as
much as possible in order to accumulate merit and cultivate perfections.
In Dhammonomics, we present this scenario with graphs showing how
(1) work or tasks (2) productivity (3) peace and tranquility (4) ambition, and
(5) contentment are interrelated. With
the graphs, we aim to understand better about this scenario and find the ‘right
balance’ between ambition and contentment in order to live our life
appropriately in the society by enjoying the peace and tranquility from
contentment and being able to do the religious works to benefit others.
According to graph #1, when ambition is high, one can achieve more
work and productivity. For graph #2,
more work leads to less peace and tranquility, and when there is more peace and
tranquility, one achieves less work. When
we put graph #1 and graph #2 together, we come up with graph #3 which shows the
correlations between (1) work or tasks (2) productivity (3) peace and
tranquility (4) ambition, and (5) contentment. Then, we can find out the more or less of
ambition and contentment per our wish in order to achieve work, productivity,
and peace or tranquility for ourselves.
By Pittaya Wong
16 August 2018
