I like Alain de Botton&#x27;s take: money and status are essentially a proxies for love, in that people feel worthwhile if others &quot;pay&quot; attention&#x2F;respect&#x2F;cash to them. (Heavily paraphrased)<p>Now consider that Buddhist monks are forbidden from handling money, preparing their own food, and are willingly entirely dependent on the charity of others. It is a kind of self-imposed poverty that demonstrates how much a person can achieve without much more than the shirt on his back.