During a Q&A session that Warren Buffett hosted with his company’s shareholders in 2008, a young man posed a bold query: “Do you know and believe in Jesus Christ, and do you have a personal relationship with Him?”
“No. I’m an agnostic,” the billionaire replied. “I grew up in a religious household, and if you asked my mother or father, the response would differ. I’m a genuine agnostic. I’m no nearer to a theist than an atheist. I simply don’t know, and perhaps someday I will find out, or maybe not. But that is the nature of an agnostic.”
Buffett might not be pious, but throughout his existence, he has invested considerable spiritual capital. As the 95-year-old prepares to step down as CEO of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway later this year, many laud his financial acumen. He is described as one of history’s most prosperous investors, with an estimated net worth of $150 billion.
Yet, Buffett also leaves behind spiritual insight that can assist individuals beyond just money matters. He has drawn upon concepts from Zen Buddhism, Confucius, Stoic philosophers, and even the New Testament to demonstrate to people how to navigate—not only market fluctuations but also life’s downturns.
Buffett is more than just a business figurehead—he possesses a Zen sensibility, say scholars and religious practitioners studying his work.
The aura of spirituality enveloping Buffett has radiated for many years. To many of his adherents, he is the “Oracle of Omaha.” They do not secure appointments with him; they undertake pilgrimages from as far-flung places as China and Australia to his modest Omaha residence and attend Berkshire Hathaway shareholder gatherings to meet the man whom one executive termed the “God of Investing.”
And authors compose business volumes about him that transition into sermons with titles such as “The New Warren Buffett Dao” and “Warren Buffett’s Investment Mantras.”
It is such spiritual assertions from Buffett that convinced Leo Babauta, a Zen Buddhist, that Buffett has a Zen perspective.
“He’s one of the wealthiest people globally, and yet I don’t really feel he’s made that a central facet of his persona,” Babauta, author of The Power of Less: How Less Effort Leads to Greater Success… in Business and Life, tells CNN.
“He’s surrounded by folks focused on accumulating wealth, and he observes people going astray (because of it). That is one of the core tenets of Zen: we all live in illusions about what will bring us felicity.”
For Buffett, being a sound investor and a good person are closely linked. A person will always thrive in a bull market if they remember these three spiritual maxims, articulated in his own phrasing:
“Envy and greed walk hand in hand”
“Thou shalt not covet” is one of the Ten Commandments. Envy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Yet, much of capitalism—and engagement on social media—is propelled by envy. We frequently desire what someone else possesses—and crave more than necessary.
Buffett may be a man of immense riches, but there are no accounts of him chasing the playthings many billionaires splurge on. He still resides in the five-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Nebraska he acquired in 1958 for $31,500. He still dines at McDonald’s and once piloted a 20-year-old vehicle bearing the license plate “THRIFTY.” One well-known anecdote recounts Buffett treating fellow billionaire Bill Gates to a McDonald’s lunch and offering to settle the bill after retrieving coupons from his pocket.
“Being envious of someone else is quite foolish,” he once remarked. “Wishing them ill or wishing you did as well as they did—all that does is spoil your day. It doesn’t harm them in the slightest, and there’s no benefit to you. If you’re going to select a sin, opt for something like lust or gluttony. At least then you’ll have something to recall the weekend by.”
This outlook mirrors another Zen principle: accepting the power of fulfillment, explains Babauta, a Zen practitioner, to CNN. Comparing oneself to others is an illusion because it only leads to further suffering, he states.
It can also result in poor investment choices. In an essay on Buffett’s Zen sensibility, he noted that Buffett is a conservative investor who is never tempted by the “Next Hot Thing.” He recognizes his own limitations. He seldom invests in tech firms because he doesn’t fully grasp them, Babauta notes.
“You would never find him pursuing cryptocurrency or the latest AI,” says Babauta. “He seeks something fundamentally sound, and such discipline can only exist if he doesn’t feel compelled to chase something out of yearning. That yearning, in his situation, has resulted in great discipline.”
“If you are among the luckiest 1% of humanity, you must consider the remaining 99% for the rest of humanity”
In June 2006, Buffett made an unusual public declaration. In a series of letters, he stated he would bequeath the majority of his fortune to various foundations and charitable causes. This philanthropic urge was also evident in his final shareholder letter last month. He acknowledged his remaining time was limited and pledged to accelerate his donations, bestowing roughly one billion dollars upon four of his family’s foundations.
Few affluent individuals in America embody the New Testament adage, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” more than Buffett. That form of benevolence inspired Robert L. Bloch, son of the founder of H&R Block, to pen a book, “The Warren Buffett Book of Investing Wisdom: 350 Quotes from the World’s Most Successful Investor,” which compiles many of the investor’s most encouraging sayings. Bloch informs CNN that Buffett’s appreciation and generosity are “bedrock spiritual principles.”
Warren Buffett speaks while Bill and Melinda Gates look on during a news conference in New York on June 26, 2006. Buffett had signed over much of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, uniting two of world’s richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education.
Warren Buffett speaks while Bill and Melinda Gates look on during a news conference in New York on June 26, 2006. Buffett had signed over much of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, uniting two of world’s richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
He (Buffett) genuinely cares about the deprived and the average person, and he desires to contribute back to society,” Bloch remarks. “That is quite spiritual. Not many billionaires share that trait.”
Buffett’s munificence also reflects the Stoic philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome, others posit. Stoic thinkers such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius held that a joyous existence was unattainable without living virtuously. Attachment to assets like wealth, they believed, hindered self-control. Aurelius, the Roman sovereign, liquidated many of his palaces’ furnishings to lower the empire’s debt and lighten the strain on Roman occupants, wrote Ryan Holiday, an author of bestselling volumes on Stoic philosophy.
Buffett’s detachment from possessions affords him a moral clarity ensuring he would remain content even if the market crashes, Holiday noted in an essay on Buffett’s Stoic inclinations.
“The more items we crave and the more we must labor to acquire or preserve those accomplishments, the less we truly savor our lives—and the less autonomous we become,” Holiday wrote.
‘American magic has always triumphed, and it shall again’
It has been a difficult annum for many Americans. Nearly half report struggling to meet basic necessities like foodstuffs and medical attention, according to a recent survey released by Politico. Numerous other polls indicate that over half of Americans feel the nation’s finest moments are in the past.
And yet Buffett maintains confidence—in America. Confidence is an additional quality central to Christianity, a belief system he declines. Faith, according to the most revered figure in Christianity, can shift mountains. It is defined as “conviction in what we anticipate and certainty of what we cannot perceive,” according to another New Testament author.
Buffett is the nation’s foremost evangelist. Through unsettling economic declines and political uncertainty, he has responded with assurances such as, “For 240 years, it’s been a terrible error to bet against America, and now is hardly the moment to commence.” And: “We perpetually reside in an unpredictable world. What is definite is that the United States will progress over time.”
That belief is also what prompted Bloch, the writer, to examine Buffett’s quotations.
“You must possess conviction that things will improve and we will emerge from this,” Bloch conveys to CNN, alluding to the dreary political and economic sentiment in the US. “Examine 1776, 1820, and the Great Depression. America simply expanded and prospered throughout history.”
Buffett’s conviction is perhaps what has enabled him to consistently exhibit a cheerful demeanor. That rustic Midwestern optimism is mirrored in a phrase from his retirement letter: “Kindness is without cost, yet invaluable.”
We are accustomed to billionaires who dominate the scene with the imperial haughtiness of Roman emperors. Yet, Buffett is noted for treating even impolite objectors at shareholder meetings with regard and declines to transact business with individuals of questionable probity. He once stated, “You cannot strike a good bargain with a dishonest person.”
He even discusses a subject not typically associated with the cutthroat realm of investing: affection.
Perhaps this—rather than the stocks he holds in Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, and Kraft Heinz—constitutes Buffett’s greatest inheritance. He is one of the rare figures universally respected in America, not merely for the accumulation of wealth, but for the manner in which he treated individuals along the way.
It appears that affection was Buffett’s finest investment.
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