[1] The CIA’s classified ‘KUBARK Counter Intelligence Interrogation’ manual lists “principal coercive techniques of interrogation,” which it identifies as “arrest, detention, deprivation of sensory stimuli through solitary confinement or similar methods, threats and fear, debility, pain, heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, narcosis, and induced regression.” Especially effective in depriving an “interrogatee” of sensory stimuli, the manual stated, is placing the person in a “cell which has no light” or a “water-tank or iron lung.” (Encarta)

[2] How else contrive to explain that Atlanta was chosen for the 1996 Games, when only three times prior Los Angeles had been given the deal, while two times before that, Montreal hosted the Games. Similarly, London had them in 1944 and 1948, when they already had them in 1908. It seems political power attracts Olympic Games… 

[3] Perhaps it is just a teaching that sounds nice – all psychological and politically correct. Meditation teacher S.N. Goenka, for example, reports contracting an allopathically incurable migraine from the many honorary positions he obtained due to his engagement as benefactor of the Hindu community in Burma, the distinctions having ‘gone to his head.’ The problem, for which he had sought extensive international counsel, was permanently solved in his first ten day course of meditation.

[4] Similar A 5.58, where the Buddha instructs some wild Licchavi princes on generosity. In effect, he tells them, if they are generous to everyone – including the devas – they will receive blessings that will be to their advantage.

[5] At A 5.37 and Mv 6 with patibhanam (wit). Not all eating makes witty but without food, intelligence cannot develop. Also very satisfactory food tends to improve mood and consequent wittiness; throughout political diplomacy and the business world this insight is used for bonding and in many places, monks give Dhamma talks after the meal.    

[6] Apart from wealth, a good reputation for virtue, confidence in assemblies, an unconfused death and a good rebirth are given in these places.

[7] Appamad-adhikaranam

[8] utthanam analasyam

[9] silavantesu patitthapeti

[10] sabba danam dhamma danam jinati (the gift of Dhamma surpasses all other gifts)

[11] A good example for this is the contemplation of death, which discourages proliferation into the future. It is explicitly designed to combat lust for life (A 7.46). The Bhaddekaratta Sutta (M 131) which discourages ‘reviving the past’ and ‘building up hope on the future’ explicitly takes issue with ‘delight’ (nandi, the cause of suffering in M 1 and M 145; also M 38) in aspects of life (‘khandha’ M 131) and sensual thoughts (M 133). Depreciative or sublimating thoughts about past or future don’t appear to be targeted in this exhortation.

[12] A particularly charming example of this is mentioned by Professor Robert Cialdini (‘Influence,’ p.18ff). In 1985 Mexico suffered from an earthquake crisis which led to much international aid being sent, mostly of course in the millions of dollars. Among the aid, however, was also a donation of 5000 US dollars from the Ethiopian Red Cross, an abjectly poor organization much in need of help itself. The background was that Mexico had sent aid to Ethiopia, when it was invaded fifty years earlier by Mussolini in 1935. 

[13] This emphasis on future lives in the Buddha’s discourses can be seen also in discussion of other results. Central teachings such as the stages of enlightenment or the fruits of keeping precepts are dominantly or exclusively defined via results in future lives.

[14] Belief in the kammic efficacy of generosity is part of mundane right view (M 117); not, however, any practice of dana. We could say analogous that belief in the health benefits of a nutritious diet is necessary but may be neglected by a person of robust constitution for other advantages, such as not being choosy. 

[15] Dipa Ma came pretty close to being an overworked ghetto-mom and is an interesting case here. In spite of her awesome talent, she was held back for much of her life by desperate conditions. Whenever she had some space she made quick progress. A little more previous generosity could have helped her a lot. Canonically, Kisagotami is a rare example of such an enlightened ghetto mom. They are very rare, though.

[16] As for this life, the Bodhisatta likely really had only the path to Buddhahood open, as Kondañña is reported to have augured at his name giving ceremony (Milinda Panha 236).  

[17] A beautiful little story to the same effect can be found in the last sutta of S 41. Citta, the householder foremost Dhamma teacher (A 1) started to mumble on his deathbed ‘… but that’s impermanent!’ His relations worried that he might have lost his mind at this crucial hour and tried to bring him to but he explained to them that celestial beings had approached him, suggesting that he become a world ruling emperor and to this inquiry he had answered thus. 

[18] In fact, it is likely cheaper to make poor people reasonably well-off then to face the total cost of crime (increased security, court time, prisons, rehabilitation, social costs) as especially European countries have shown. Poverty can be very expensive.

[19] In fact, he was very enthusiastic about the offer and compared his former love’s beauty, previously considered the most beautiful girl in the county by him, with a mutilated she-monkey. This is a great warning for all girls about the true nature of men’s love J.

[20] Ridicule is not a typically recommended form of speech and could generate a transgression against monastic discipline (probably a Dubbasita, possibly Pacittiya 2 or 54). The intention may of course have been good. Even unwholesome actions can lead to wholesome reactions, though, but that would not likely change the unwholesome result of the offender. 

[21] The greatest brewer in the world was at one point a Christian monk from the Weihenstephan brewery. Another Christian monk was at one point the greatest vegetarian chef in the world. The finest and most expensive liquors in the world are supposed to be two Chartreuses, made exclusively by Carthusian monks. It should be said that some of the monks are quite aware that this is a suboptimal livelihood but they are of course caught in an established and profitable system difficult to change. 

 

[22] This order was officially destroyed on Friday, the 13^th of October 1307 by French king Philip La Belle (‘The Fair’) who owed them a lot of money (since then Friday the 13^th is considered an unlucky day). Most of the order and it’s wealth had disappeared mysteriously just before and there is a good historical case to be made that the world-(in)famous Swiss banking system is direct heir to the Templar underground.  

[23] There is evidence that these armies also continued after the order was destroyed by Philip La Belle. Legend has it that during the Battle of Morgarten in 1315 that led to the establishment of Switzerland (or at least the name; certainly the ousting of foreign Habsburgers) mysterious white knights were fighting among the peasants who are supposed to have defeated a fully army. Scotland has with great likelihood been another of their safe havens after official dissolution and in some battles that the English lost against the Scots again mysterious knights made an appearance. The Swiss and English flag also look remarkably similar to the logo of the Knight’s Templars. The Scottish rite of Freemasonry has absorbed much of Templar lore but the nature of the affiliation is shrouded in myths.

[24] Some say until today, but this is more the realm of hardcore conspiracy theorists; especially the Jesuits, Opus Dei and the Vatican are popular suspects.

[25]  For various practices see M 12, M 45, M 57. Infamous are the dog and ox duty practices mentioned in M 57, which the Buddha pronounced to be leading to rebirth in lower realms. The (deluded) idea behind them seems to be that emulation of the habits of these animals carries a kind of wholesome sacrifice and humility.

[26] Pa Auk Sayadaw disrobed as a novice because he was unable to obtain a robe and his was beyond repair; Ajahn Cha’s biography has similar stories. Also in these days of general abundance, monks in living in the countryside do not rarely have difficulties to obtain essentials.

[27] Current estimates are around 400 000 Theravada monks each in Burma and Thailand, less in all other countries. As already the round figures suggest, these estimates are not worth that much. There are huge seasonal fluctuations and many semi- or quasi-ordination statuses. Also, the ordination of university students has a different effect than that of farmers. Many monks actually work in professional ways as teachers or doctors, with less remuneration than lay people do. Suffice it to say that the burden can be substantial for a society.

[28] An interesting question is under which of these headings stock market crashes would come. Many analysts consider them engineered, in which case they would probably fit the ‘robbers’ category. If one were to consider them natural phenomena, the elements or mismanagement would remain. Another difficult one is unreturned loans which can not smoothly be considered ‘robbed’ or ‘mismanaged’ unless one considers militant debt collecting an inevitable part of this business. Famously, especially in the US, hard to foresee legal and medical expenses are known to ruin some families, which also would need to be forced between ‘robbed’ and ‘mismanaged.’ Also storms or other accidents seem not to be covered. Possibly, the list provides just a sample of causes. 

[29] It is perhaps good to make the point, though, that monks are by no means obliged to accept everything offered to them. The Buddha himself did not accept requisites beyond measure (Mv 10) and some rules actually prohibit monks from accepting requisites excessively (Sek 30, NP 9). 

[30] From the same root derive ‘artisan,’ ‘artificial’ and ‘inert.’ German language features the same etymological connection ‘Kunst’ (art) being derived from ‘können’ (to be able).

[31] Generosity (caga) is here one of six recollections (anussati). The others are Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, virtue (sila) and celestial beings (devas) for each of which the statement is repeated. ‘Caga’ means really more ‘letting go’ and can mean that up to the highest forms (e.g. M 120); in this context it is usually translated as ‘generosity’ because it is directly mentioned to counter stinginess.

[32] Generosity (caga) is here one of a group of five brahmanic virtues, the others are ‘being a speaker of truth’ (sacca vadi); ‘being ascetic’ (tapo); ‘being celibate’ (brahmacari); ‘being one who engages in study’ (ajjhena). The set seems to describe standard sub-specializations of spiritual practice. The Buddha tries to shift the attitude from a kammic piggy bank mentality to one of contemplatively remodeling one’s identity. This is important especially for monastics and a much needed correction these days, too. More about this point below.

[33] This was already so when the commentaries where compiled, about a thousand years after the Buddha, as we know from such texts as the Visuddhimagga who introduce limitations such as ‘forty meditation-objects’ within rigid work parameters.  

[34] ‘Cittam pasidati.’

[35] Alan Feingold of Yale, investigating 35 studies.

[36] ‘Mukkhavanno vippasidati.’ Note the same verb stem as in the above ‘cittam pasidati,’ describing that one should give ‘when the heart delights or is inspired.’

[37] Oxytocin is a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland to facilitate uterine contractions during childbirth and milkletdown to nurse the baby. It is also called ‘the cuddle hormone’ for its bonding qualities to both babies and partners. It has been shown, for example, to be released when a mother just hears her child crying. Oxytocin is the chemical that makes girls and women all gooey eyed when they see or hear babies. Significantly, it has also been linked to increased generosity in recent studies. While this is really just a speculation, unrepresentative samples or peoples’ past life memories indicate that change of gender occurs in about fifty percent of all sequences, but a rarer from one life to the next (i.e. people tend to attach to one gender for a while). 

[38] As the female prison population, abuse and infanticide rates attest to, a substantial number of women don’t like their children much. Children are abused more by women than men. The reasons for this are complex, from cultural and emotional to hormonal and personal preference.

[39] The subjunctive ‘is supposed to’ here because many, even Christian, scholars consider the Sermon of the Mount an apocryphal compilation for text critical reasons. That Jesus possibly never lived is another finding, as none of the roughly forty historians of the times mentions him. Nazareth is not even to have existed as maps indicate.

[40] D 34.7 duppativijjha (hard to penetrate), A 7.64.

[41] Contrary to some sources, ‘añña’ occasionally also describes worldly knowledge (e.g. M 125; S 20.7).

[42] The sixth precept is in Pali: ‘vikala bhojana veramani sikkhapadam samadhiyami;’ in English ‘I undertake the training rule not to eat at the wrong time.’

[43] Carlyle and de Seingalt are two writers who lost manuscripts in this well intended way.

[44] Stories in the Petavatthu (2.12; 3.7) indicate this, when describing beings suffering only at night as this was the time they committed their unwholesome deeds.

[45] Anuggahitacitto; ‘citto’ means heart, mind, ‘anuggahito’ ‘made happy, satisfied, helped, furthered’ (Margaret Cone); ‘commiserated, made happy, satisfied’ (PED); ‘favored’ (Childers); Ven. Nyanatiloka translates ‘generously’ (‘freigebig’). The term has strong undertones of caring, compassion, empathy.

[46] As this is sometimes misunderstood, the point should perhaps be made here that one does not later receive exactly what one gives. One generous woman, for example, did not want to offer a particular drink because she did not like it. If she could not enjoy giving it, perhaps she should not give it but she need not fear that she will be drowned in that horrible liquid for lives to come. It is the intention to provide what is needed or desired that ripens as getting what is needed or desired, though sometimes in the same general area, such as food or clothing (D 30).

[47] Analogue, the Buddha says to his cousin Anuruddha in A 8.30 that deep absorption meditation will generate a contentment that will make him experience his simple sensual life as extreme sensual wealth. This is an illustration of the provocative Dhammapada 207: ‘Santutthi paramam danam,’ ‘contentment is the greatest wealth,’ a statement that is generally respectfully doubted.

[48] Killing living beings to offer their meat is criticized by the Buddha as extremely demeritorious in M 55.

[49]

This 1957 Cadillac El Dorado convertible epitomizes the large cars of the “American Dream” era. Tail fins are an example of a trend in car design at the time. Although the feature did little for the performance of the vehicle, consumers loved the look, and demanded fins of increasing size until the 1960s. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

[50] bhoga-byasana

[51] The physiognomic distinctions that accompany this kammic result all concern an impressive chest: lion-like front, no hollow between the shoulders and an evenly rounded bust. Hecker suggests they symbolize spaciousness but we also associate a well-developed chest with power, self-confidence and care giving.

[52] In those blissful times before politically correct speech had been invented J.

[53] An example of mixed, negative and positive reinforcement teaching for lay people is A 10.46 where the Buddha admonishes them not to waste the opportunity of keeping the weekly observance day. The reason seems to be that the lay people are Sakyans so they feel a particular ‘our prince’ and ‘we are or have got to be special’ bond with the Buddha.

[54] Even more daunting perhaps is the interview with Yama, the god of death, that those who neglected developing good deeds have to endure before being cast into hell (M 130).

[55] This admonition also at the end of M 8; M 19; M 106; M 152; A 5.93; A 7.70; S 35.145; S 43.41; S 47.10.

[56] Throughout the suttas, the distinction ‘wholesome/unwholesome’ is always more important than any particular mode of activity such as lifestyle virtues and duties, holy life or services (A 3.79: silabbattam jivitam brahmacariyam upatthanasaram; service also M 96) or ascetic practices (A 5.181ff; D 25).

[57] A being with the qualities of a Buddha, except those that enable a Buddha to teach.

[58] Many of these aspects also have a dark side. This trying to find things for people has the sinister generation of demand in advertising to be aware of. Entire lines of business are devoted to find ways (such as ‘cool hunting’) to sell people things that they don’t need. Note, though, that occasionally this criticism is not justified, as people sometimes do not need the product but the identity enhancement it provides. This is no less real a product than the content of a book or an education.

[59] In top coaching, the prices are much higher than that. Richard Bandler reports charging ten thousand dollars for his miracle cures, the session lasting only minutes, similarly Tony Robbins. Also sports coaches are paid that much. All these people, though, are paid not for their time but the results they produce, whereas results are immaterial to the price of a psychotherapy session.

[60] This type of generosity has not been called ‘communist giving’ here because all applied forms of communism have adhered to principles of strong centralization, forceful control of personal freedoms and negligible non-governmental initiative. The political context is introduced here for the sake of provoking thought; believed ideal forms of communism may suggest such giving and some communists consequently give in such ways, though the typical communists’ lifestyle and giving is generally an uncreative low-class bourgeois imitation. It could also be called ‘libertarian giving’ or even ‘liberal giving J,’ if one wanted to make a point that it is a healthy expression of an uncontrolled economy to look after everybody else. Suffice it to say that this type of generosity can be found commonly in the politically radical left wing and not among neo-cons or ‘normal’ people who tend to be naturally protective of their property.

[61] All the constant I- and my-constructing of unenlightened beings constitutes an illegitimate acquisition of something that is not one’s own. In M 22 the Buddha asks the monks whether, if someone were to carry away the grass, sticks and branches in the monastery, they would think: ‘People are carrying us off or burning us or doing what they like with us?’ – “No, venerable sir. Why not? Because that is neither our self nor what belongs to our self.” – “So too, monks, whatever is not yours, abandon it; when you have abandoned it, that will lead to your welfare and happiness for a long time.”

[62] A 6.14/5 even predict a bad death for a monk who delights in manual labor. Other factors for this dire result are delight in chatting, sleeping, company, intimate contact with lay people and worldliness (papañca).

[63] In the case of Harvard, for example, around ten percent of applicants can be admitted. Ninety percent of applicants are considered able to study at the elite-level they require.

[64] The history of poor trend analysis makes for much humorous reading. Cars, planes, movies all were considered without future by various pundits at their time. In an early consumer survey (80s or early 90s) that asked people if they would have use for a cell phone giving the now common usages, the overwhelming majority said ‘no.’ 

[65] The story of Nanda also indicates this (Ud 3.2). The Buddha promised him 500 heavenly nymphs for giving up the relationship with his bride in order to live the celibate monastic life.

[66] Cetan’aham, bhikkhave, kammam vadami. Cetayitva kammam karoti, kayena, vacasa, manasa.

[67] These cases are easy to point out because of their visibility. Most people, though, just seem to be getting enough success versus frustration to keep them able to put a pleasant spin on their fate and remain addicted to hope. Seeing this reality is the more important spiritual task as it genuinely helps the transcendent tendencies within.

[68] It needs to be said that some people also grow extraordinary strength hard to find elsewhere under oppressive conditions. These resourceful individuals would generally also agree, though, that oppressive conditions are dominantly undesirable and unwholesome.

[69] Both the blameless happiness (anavajja sukha) and the fearless bliss (abhayasekha sukha) at the end of the section on virtue and sense-restraint respectively are freedoms from fear that form the gates for higher attainment.

[70] Streamentry, the Buddhist point-of-no return, is most commonly defined as having unshakable faith in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha and impeccable virtue as foundation for samadhi.

[71] The reasoning being that this kind of lying would generate rebirth in hell.

[72] The word translated as ‘withholding’ here is ‘samyamo,’ which also means restraint in a positive sense; the word for ‘destruction’ is ‘vinaso.’

[73] Note that the Buddha does not teach kammic causalities which may lead to unwholesome actions, such as those relating to sexuality or not being caught or trialed as criminal.

[74] A prime example for this is the Thai Forest Tradition which was essentially founded by Tan Ajahn Mun. Most of the considerable early talent he attracted came out of village monasteries of little virtue. There are many more famous cases like this, in fact, most monks who established a method or style came out of village or city monasteries rather than established elite monasteries.

[75] The Pali word for set is ‘koti,’ a measure. Normally a koti has twenty pieces but in this case, the commentary contents for unknown reasons, only ten.

[76] The estimate is conservative even just because the amount of gold featured in the offering.

[77] The Pali word used here is ‘ditthisampanno,’ someone who has attained to right view; it emphasizes the wisdom-, rather than faith-aspect of streamentry, suggesting in this context that the wisdom of the person makes the difference. For the distinctions in detail see M 70.

[78] pasanna-citto

[79] Credibly expressing love for the Buddha may also come with more substantial commitment. See the end of M 122, where a Venerable Ananda is warned to act hostile towards the Buddha by not following his advice. Nobody, but an arahant or one just before arahantship would be able to do this consistently, though, so likely the attitude is meant.

[80] Depending on how it is measured, a snap of a finger takes about five to ten hundreds of a second. A passing whiff is to hard to quantify but if one inhalation is meant, about two to three seconds, i.e. twenty, thirty times as long as a finger snap could be meant. Note that the experience of loving-kindness really feels a lot more like a scent inhaled, whereas insight tends to snap more sharply like the finger snap, so the imagery may not be just about proportions.

[81] The other being Sakyas, people from the Buddha’s home country.

[82] Although at Dhammapada 107 the Buddha puts the value of the merit of watching the fire into proportion by saying that a hundred years of that practice would not be equal to the paying respect to a developed person for even a moment.

[83] Protestants hold that this purgatory, in which beings are said to be purged of minor sins, does not exist. They believe that Christ has died for their sins already, in other words, the debt is already paid for, and, at any rate, good deeds do not move their god into accepting anybody into heaven. Their god is moved by faith in him alone. Dr. Martin Luther, who escalated the controversy, seems to have had more modest views about purgatory; see his famous ninety-five thesis. The criticism of purgatory found wide acceptance in the 16^th century especially because the church was making a fortune out of selling these ‘indulgences.’ Other churches are well-advised to learn a lesson here…

[84] Ajahn Plian, a Thai monk with reputed psychic ability, said he had never seen so many of these hungry ghosts as in the US because many people there attached very strongly to their homes.

[85] Though his name in a Buddhist text might be supposed to be due to his being reckoned Buddhist, there doesn’t seem to be too much to this; Beckenbauer merely made pro-Buddhist statements (36% of Germans believe HH is the wisest being in the world, so this is not unusual). Most acclaimed western Buddhists do more to embarrass than adorn the dispensation. Tina Turner and Herbie Hancock belong to the infamous Japanese Soka Gakkai sect founded in the late 30s – an aggressive, nationalistic and extremely worldly movement far away from almost anything Buddhist that makes Jehovah’s witnesses and Mormons look like open-minded philosophers. Few famous westerners are known to be adherents of serious Buddhism. The closest would probably be Richard Gere who is chummy with HH, his most amazing experience being that HH ‘just laughed’ when he told him that he identified with the characters he played. Australian fashion designer Trent Nathan practices Goenka style quite seriously. NLP outcast and dating guru Ross Jeffries is also an adherent of vipassana (Young). Daniel Coleman, famous for his bestseller ‘Emotional Intelligence,’ is an adherent of Tibetan Pop-Buddhism with Burmese Vipassana roots. Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac had pro-Buddhist beatnik ideas but not much more, it seems. Likely none of these people have views that will result in the realization of Nibbana. William Burroughs was contrary to some conjecture not Buddhist, though he had a fair understanding of samsara and the misunderstanding of the bodhisattva vow, rejected an clinging to an individual ego and he appreciated mindfulness practice quite well (‘doing easy’); he taught at the Tibetan Naropa institute, though not Buddhism (archive.org). Bowie’s claim that he toyed with becoming a Tibetan Buddhist monk was pronounced a lie by Angie Bowie (‘On the wild side with David Bowie’) and the Golden Dawn Bowie besings on ‘Hunky Dory’ is an elitist Satanist organization founded in 1888 in England (which likely fathered much of Nazi ideology). Mick Jagger who was – sometime after singing about Mrs. Bowie (‘Angie’) – temporarily interested in the heavily alcoholic celebrity Trungpa, reportedly decided in favor of serious Satanism (like many other musicians; google ‘They sold their souls for rock’n roll;’ a well-researched, albeit fundamentalist Christian, documentary series). For some reason most pro-Buddhist celebrity is known to be hyper-sexed and either Jewish or WASP.  

[86] While all credit for being able to host the World Cup was given to Beckenbauer, the truth seems to have been that an editor of the German satire magazine ‘Titanic,’ spontaneously on his way home, faxed some ridiculous, crudely fashioned corruption letters to the jury members on the eve of the election, offering among other things “some very good sausages” and “coockoo clocks” if Germany was awarded the hosting. As a result of this, one elderly jury member for New Zealand was so incensed and tired of being manipulated that he decided not to vote at all – rather than give his vote to South Africa, as was his mandate. With this tiny margin, Germany won the election. Back in Germany, this story was ill-received by tabloid ‘BILD’ which published ‘Titanic’s’ telephone number. ‘Titanic’ then had a field day publishing the recorded insults, complaints and threats of poorly educated tabloid readers.

[87] Bayern Munich, Cosmos New York and Hamburger SV.

[88] After Mario Zagallo from Brazil.

[89] Furthermore, this was in derogatory allusion to Beckenbauer’s advertising soup for food manufacturer Knorr with the unconvincing slogan “Kraft in den Teller – Knorr auf den Tisch” (“power on the plate – Knorr on the table”).

[90] To what degree the value of stock itself is mere promise is variable and debatable; words like ‘bubble,’ though, point to huge discrepancies between real and perceived company value.

[91] He was foremost in popularity with heavenly beings (A 1.13).

[92] The story is embedded in a few other charming incidents of great generosity. One day a poor little girl in the village was crying and on inquiry, Venerable Pilindavaccha found out that this was because she had no ornament to wear due to her poverty. He told her mom to put an old pad for carrying loads onto the girls head and on touching it, magically, the pad turned into a magnificent golden wreath that even the royal ladies didn’t have the like of. On hearing about this wreath, the king had the entire family arrested on suspicion of theft. Venerable Pilindavaccha heard of this and went to the palace. When given the reasoning that this poor family could not possibly have something so precious, he nonchalantly turned the entire palace walls into gold (implying tongue-in-cheek what about the king?). The family was released and Venerable Pilindavaccha was showered with honey and other tonics allowable to monks in the afternoon. This generosity got so out of hand that the Buddha decided to limit the period in which they could be used to seven days (all this in the Nidana to NP 23).   

[93] For this lessening of previous bad kamma by turning away from the inclination towards those deeds, see the story of Angulimala at M 8, especially the verses and the end. Similarly, at A 3.101 the Buddha compares bad kamma salt, dissolved either in a mere jug of water or an entire river, the sweet water standing for good kamma, the final saltiness for the result experienced by the respective persons.

[94] Germany is most well known for this system, which also saves the churches the administrative cost and embarrassment of collecting their own fees. The government will even charge those who are not members of the protestant or catholic church another, slightly lower fee for social services. Still, the pews are empty and people have been fleeing church memberships in droves for decades now, as they resent this taxation. This is widely known. Only the fewest, even of church ministers, know, though, that the high current wages of German ministers are met to the tune of eighty percent by the government (for their social work), so desolate is the situation of the churches, likely not least as a result of this system.   

[95] An interesting exception is the body of a Buddha, which is said to have been kammically assembled (D 30) to arouse faith.

[96] “Surely, your joking, Mr. Feynman?!” Chapter 4: “You’re just asking?”

[97] Literally ‘natha’ means ‘without protection.’

[98] “Cetanaham, bhikkhave, kammam vandami.”

[99] Puññakiriya vatthu (‘basis for making merit’) also D 33.3 and Iti 60. For the Brahmins idea of puññakiriya vatthu and the Buddha’s take on it, see M 99.

[100] Noteworthy is, though, that atrocities like those of the Nazis, the Communists or strata within sinister US policy making which have come from the same cultural base – and have claimed far more victims – proclaim opposition to Christianity; i.e. not all evil coming from western culture can neatly be traced to Christian influence. That some of these creeds, such as Communism or Fascism, may be considered degenerate forms of Christian moral systems by some does not change this a lot.

[101] Prisons became a means of punishment rather than short-term detention in the 15^th century in Scotland and England. Improved living conditions in prisons were fought for and obtained by the Christian Quakers in the late 18^th century.

[102] The ‘great families,’ however, are said in the above fully quoted passage, to all have their wealth from previous giving, truthfulness and self-control (S 42.9). Such families, the majority of them prudently avoiding the sunlight (shareholders of the private bank whom the US owe their deficit trillions, for example, are by law known only the president), are still running a lot of the world. Insider estimates suggest that the world economy is controlled by three to five thousand families. While critics would doubt that their policies echo ‘giving, self control and truthfulness,’ quite a few individuals out of these families have acquired renown for being philanthropist or religious. 

[103] Einstein’s famous quote that ‘things should be made as simple as possible but not more than that’ may be remembered here.

[104] The suttas do not give explicit statistical information on the social stratification of followers. As a perhaps moderately representative sample, the commentary to the verses of 259 enlightened monks gives 113 Brahmins, 60 Khattiyas (warrior caste), 53 merchants, 9 craftsmen, 7 farmers, 10 laborers, fishermen, slaves, 3 illegitimate sons of kings, 1 actor; 3 were designated merely as sons of lay disciples. This sample accords roughly with the impression other data on the social status of followers suggests. 

[105] The word ‘parami’ or ‘paramita,’ meaning ‘perfection,’ is an invention of later Buddhist commentarial literature to explain the virtues necessary to become a Buddha (see commentary to D 1). In current Buddhism it just means ‘virtue.’ The canonical equivalent to ‘parami’ would appear to be ‘bala,’ ‘indriya’ or a subset of the same group, which indicates progress on the eightfold path, although the psychology underlying the two concepts is substantially different.

[106] ‘Rag robe’ is a technical term that designates a robe made from bits of discarded cloth, i.e. from trash.

[107] “During the … cold winter nights when snow was falling, I sat in the open air wearing one robe and was not cold…Even those who are...sensitive to cold and afraid of the cold are able to get by with three robes (one of which is double layer).” (M 8.13.4-8)

[108] It is possible and not even that rare for clothed people to die from hypothermia at temperatures of 10 degrees Celsius. Usually such cases involve intoxication with alcohol. 

[109] The Pali says just ‘kammani’ but in English the word ‘action’ usually refers only to physical deeds.

[110] Lobho. This is an important passage to show that lobha refers only to sense desire and is not synonymous with raga. Rupa- and arupa-raga lead to very high heavenly rebirths. A rare exception to this can be found at A 8.35 where rebirth in the non-sensual Brahma realm is said to require being rid of ‘raga’ (vitaragassa), i.e. sense desire.

[111] An interesting question concerning this passage concerns the streamenterer, who can have sense desire for several more lives but cannot be reborn in the lower realms. The solution seems to be that a streamenterer’s sensuality is very light and always balanced by seeing the danger in it, just like a recovering alcoholic who may drink alcohol at most – and only very cautiously – a tiny little bit for social reasons.

[112] A curious open question is whether Dhamma dana also, like all other dana, leads to the acquisition of wealth, because objects are not necessarily sacrificed. Since heavenly worlds are by nature places of extreme wealth one would think this to be the case in some way. Also one possibility is that disseminating teachings which lead to the acquisition of wealth generate such kind of prosperity if they are accepted just as an instruction or encouragement to kill is considered a criminal offence and leads a person to the lower realms. A monk who encourages specific killing of a human being (even abortion or suicide) is dealt with just like a monk who killed with his own hands according to monastic discipline (Pj 3); the same is true for acts of stealing (Pj 2). 

[113] Saccaka’s family name.

[114] These qualities are frequently mentioned to condition rebirth (e.g. M 120). Conspicuous is here the absence of suta, learnedness, which, however, is said in A 4.191 above to be the prime conditioner for meeting up again. This omission is likely due to the nature of the questioning couple’s individual relationship and balance of qualities (i.e. not to worry them over unequal learning). An example for such balancing see A 10.75/A 6.44, where Purana and Isidatta are said to have ended up in the same heaven, one being purer in virtue, the other in wisdom.

[115] ‘Selfish’ or ‘stingy’ seem to be too excessive appellations in this case.

[116] The rule does list many exceptions, which indicates that its logic was not meant to be etched in stone.

[117] The precise meaning of this compound is open to speculation as it occurs only here. Certainly, a deep meditative absorption is meant. Appamano, ‘boundless’ is a term used for Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha (e.g. A 4.67/Cv 5.6), the Brahmavihara (loving kindness, compassion, (sympathetic) joy & equanimity. E.g. D 33.4; D 13; M 127) but also a variety of other contexts. The commentary thinks the moment of attaining a stage of enlightenment is meant but there appears to be no reason why this state should be understood so exclusively, since the parallel term ‘animitta cetosamadhi’ is said to be a perishable good at A 6.60, as is the even more similar ‘appamana cetovimuttim’ of M 127, -vimuttim certainly being an even more liberating term than -samadhi. The Brahmavihara – so the parallel M 127 – and arup-ayatana states would appear to fit the description perfectly. Generosity is wonderful but that somebody should become a streamenterer just because they gave to somebody who became a streamenterer, as the comy suggests, is impossible.

[118] Some Asian scholars try to make the size of the Buddha a mere 2.50 meters in an attempt to be reasonable, but canonical passages in which the Buddha is publically not recognized (D 2) or somebody else is mistaken for the Buddha (P 92) show that he was, though tall and impressive, of human dimensions.

[119] Canonically, the term Bodhisatta is only used by the Buddha, for himself, in this lifespan (one exception), after he left home and before he attained enlightenment. The practices described are of a contemplative purification type; the term is never correlated with doing anything for other beings. Other designations are later inventions. See the paper ‘Bodhisattva’ for a discussion of the phenomenon (on request).

[120] S.N. Goenka, for example, states this explicitly in his famous ten day course.

[121] For a full discussion of this heterodoxy, see the paper ‘Buddhism and Child Abuse’ (available on request).

[122] Although Luang Por Cha who is not only considered an arahant by many insiders but also the most successful establisher of a western Theravada monastic tradition did. In the 70s he was approached by Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Ram Dass and Jack Kornfield. They told him that they were not streamenterers and asked whether they could they teach Buddhism. L.P. Cha had no objection to teaching, but told them not to accept money for teaching.

[123] The Burmese tradition has a notoriously poor track record for training those entering the monastic life. Due to their attractive retreat format and influential teachers, Burma has inspired perhaps more serious meditators to take robes than any other country. Unfortunately, training is almost exclusively in intensive meditation technique, so the long term survival rate of western monastics is close to zero.

[124] Practically all famous Indian gurus have been implicated in scandals and also Zen and Tibetan circles are so heavily weighed down by constant allegations that one would not wish one’s sister near them.

[125] This is an important reason why many people consider watching ‘harmless’ movies or TV so dangerous. If the stories and information are presented well, the mind absorbs them and is programmed to varying degrees by the underlying logic, even if it is skeptical on the surface. Hollywood movies, for example, have a strong tendency to offer solutions of violence and sexual attraction while stereotyping certain groups of people. Chinese movies are probably even worse. Desensitization through constant exposure to stories involving crime also helps downplay the everyday evil that really makes people’s life miserable – dishonesty, rudeness or ingratitude seem peccadilloes compared to the murders, insanity and abuse constantly portrayed in the media.

In Canada, TV was introduced at one point in only one of two villages of near identical demographics, crime rates, etc. Within a year violent criminality had risen disproportionably in the village introducing TV but not in the other one. That second one caught up, once it was also connected.

Some consider this manipulation of the masses orchestrated by sinister political circles and certainly there are a lot of people who profit from it, but it would be just as bad and effective if it was the more likely work of defiled human nature.

[126] The Buddha spent 37 of his 45 rains retreats or core teaching periods there and by far the most discourses hail from that place.

[127] As in contemporary sports, the men and women ‘compete’ in different groups. For one, this gives more extraordinary people a way to shine. Also, though, cultural context makes it then and now quite a different virtue for men or women, for example to be experts in cuisine. The separate listing guarantees that men don’t feel that ‘this is possible only for women’ or vice versa.

[128] The mind has a way of switching off distinction with extremely large numbers. For comparison, the entire GNP, i.e. the market value of everything that is bought and sold for money, in Cambodia for 2003 was just over 4 billion dollars. Small, poor countries may have just a 100 million dollars or even less. It makes for interesting speculation whether that much buying power has ever been offered in charity before in history, including by Anathapindika.

[129] Ericsson, Krampe, Tesch-Romer (1993) try to make the point that deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable and that flow, therefore, is different. This does not appear to be born out in practice, though. Many great talents are on record reporting high degrees of enjoyment and flow during challenging practice sessions. Their point is worth remembering, though, in so far as one should not become the slave of happiness: The right challenge is the true measure of good work.

[130] Exercise guru Peter Sisco who approaches training with complex scientific measurements, says about the importance of recovery: “… the honest truth is that very often three weeks of staying out of the gym completely will put far more muscle on you than nine more workouts and $200 worth of nutritional supplements will!” (Train Smart, p. 21) The data for the examples is stunning. Too much practice clearly stunts growth: “When you are training at the limits of your muscular capacity, recovery is a crucial element because a miscalculation causes an almost immediate plateau or even retrogression.” (p. 23).

[131] That is why the current habit of noisily talking or even leaving one’s telephone open to ring while people are making merit or are receiving blessings will likely cost many people some of their merit. Of course, one can also do the bulk of the mental work that generosity really is during the preparation period so that one becomes independent from the group.

[132] What exactly ‘dhamma-sota,’ ‘flow of the teaching’ refers to is debated, though a simile at S 35.200/1 shows that the function of right view carrying one along to the final goal may be meant. Our sutta indicates that this is the result of progressive euphoria towards unification and insight, not unlike the flow state described by Professor Csikszentmihalyi.  

[133] German philosopher Karl Marx had a point here when he called religion ‘opium for the masses.’ Directing the mind beyond this world is indeed a good analgesic for many kinds of suffering. Even hundred fifty years after Marx’s statement, opium is still one of the most useful medicines known to man, indispensable for its low toxicity and great analgesic p

 

 

Power Dana

The Art of Giving

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although there is a thread – sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker – from one heading to the next, the headings can be read randomly just as well.

 

There is no copyright. The entire content may be edited without further permission, quoted out of context, censored, reproduced for profit or distributed to Muslims in Malaysia.

 

The system to refer to sutta passages in this text is the now internationally accepted one. An effort has been made to substantiate as much as possible with words of the Buddha in line with M 70 (“…the teacher knows, I don’t know”) and give references for checking (highly recommended, not only for this work). Diacritics have been omitted. Pali terms have been left in regular font but passages have been set off in italics. This makes it possible to find them a little easier.

All of the following are canonical references:

D          Digha Nikaya

M          Majjhima Nikaya

S          Samyutta Nikaya

A          Anguttara Nikaya

Dhp       Dhammapada

Sn         Sutta Nipata

Ud        Udana

Iti         Itivuttaka

Pv         Petavatthu

Mv        Mahavagga

Cv         Culavagga

Pj          Parajika

Sg         Sanghadisesa

Pac       Pacittiya

Pd         Patidesaniya

Sek       Sekhiya

 

INDEX

Survival in the World of Things. 4

The Function of Dana on the Eightfold Path. 6

The Boomerang Effect 9

Risks. 11

The Art 17

Aspects of Parting. 18

The Donor 18

The Art of Regret 29

The Gift 32

The Recipient 39

The Velama Sutta. 42

Donation vs. Sacrifice. 48

Ancestor Worship. 50

Promises and Success in Business. 53

Expected Generosity. 57

Controversial Generosity

    Bribery, Seduction, Spoiling, Begging, Helper Syndrome. 60

Steady Trickle vs. Grand Occasion. 67

Proportions. 68

Rich Christians vs. Poor Buddhists. 70

Generosity versus Renunciation. 74

Aiding & Teaching Generosity. 78

Role Modeling Power Donors. 86

High End Dana. 89

 

Survival in the World of Things

“It isn’t important to come out on top; what matters is coming out alive.” Bertolt Brecht

 

The primordial thought of beings is “How can I get things?” The baby cries from hunger; when it’s nursed by mom, the pain is gone. From the first cry to the last, life is an endless processions of needs, be they physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. The pain relief we experience as pleasure is essential, not only to our survival but also to our mental stability. Human beings can absorb only so much frustration of desire before going insane. Simple sense-deprivation is officially recognized as torture because human beings cannot take it [1]. Prisoners who have been subjected to this are frequently irrecoverably damaged, even if they had daylight, newspapers and radio in their isolation.

Starving monsters inside us command our entire life. We need things and we need hope, i.e. presume that we can get more if we need more. What other beings feel is interesting, perhaps, but we don’t feel their feelings directly. Another’s person eating doesn’t make me full. If I give away all my food and drink to other beings, I’ll meet a painful death within a few days. Even the most radical ascetics and self-mortifiers don’t do it. Life is precious and even the most pathetic forms of it are largely considered valuable by their owners.

 

Living things on this earth subsist in constant exchange. We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. The baby soon learns that its smile is received with a kind of happiness akin to its own receiving attention of various kinds. Later the child learns that sharing treats with other children, helping mom or bringing home good marks are things that are received with delight. This delight may or may not translate into secondary benefits. Employment is giving work in return for money. Social intercourse is giving and receiving and all our relationships revolve around incessant giving and receiving – of material things, love, time, advise, solidarity, support, care.

Courting gentlemen, successful companies and international diplomacy, all realize the powerfully obliging nature of generosity: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” is the bewildered conclusion at how this magic works. Much of top executive working time is spend in these pretend free lunches, thinly as seminars disguised pleasure trips to tropical paradises etc. Insiders have revealed that the selection of cities for holding the Olympic Games – a billion dollar business – essentially comes down to ‘intelligent gift giving’ to members of the committee and their families[2]. America received powerful oil concessions from the Arabs in the middle of the last century, apparently because they gave the Saudi king a DC 5 plane when Churchill came with something like a nice box of cigars. Pharmaceutical companies send their representatives not to sell or persuade – how dare they?! J – but only to inform doctors of products or supply them with expensive free samples. They may casually leave a few practical gifts, of which one of them said: “The trick is to give something that looks cheap but really is expensive.” Casanova already knew as much when he gave exorbitantly expensive earrings to a young girl, telling her that they were just costume jewelry. Knowing this vulnerability, mothers teach their daughters not to accept gifts beyond flowers and chocolates in order to preserve their prerogative to say “No!”

Many of these professional givers know a lot about giving. In the context of the Buddha’s term ‘Dana,’ ‘The Art of Giving,’ however, is something immeasurably greater and much more powerful. It is grand and truly magical in comparison to the more or less dirty manipulation of worldly giving.

 

The Function of Dana on the Eightfold Path

“Even if someone were to rinse a plate or bowl into some pond or lake with the wish that the beings who live in there may feed on it, has done a good deed. How much more, if he intends to feed human beings…” The Buddha (A 3.58)

“Formerly and now, what I teach is suffering and the cessation of suffering.” The Buddha (M 22)

 

With a little contriving the entire path could be subsumed under the English term ‘giving’: giving, forgiving, giving in, giving up. The Buddha centralized object giving in the teaching and involvement of Buddhist lay people. Giving is, as it were, the most coarse and tangible manifestation of the hidden spiritual reality that underlies the lives of beings. Someone who has a hundred dollars has a certain amount of freedom and safety because of that possession. If he or she gives away fifty dollars, simplest arithmetic suggests that this freedom or security are halved by the transaction. Some sensitivity and faith are required to appreciate that this is only a superficial and deceptive aspect of the process. Various kinds of other freedom and security are obtained to make giving in the end very good business, even from a superficial materialistic perspective. Through multiple layers of understanding, eventually a profound appreciation of ‘giving up’ as vehicle for all kinds of happiness and fulfillment can be obtained. Based on gift giving as merit-making process, the Buddha teaches virtuous restraint, identity formation and various forms of meditation with deep, spiritual forms of internal rapture and enlightening insights as fruit. 

Not everything about giving is easy comprehensible spiritual commonplace, though, and quite a few misunderstandings about the Buddha’s teaching on dana are in circulation. For example, frequently it is taught that the function of dana is to reduce ego. Making a lot of money is supposed to make people arrogant and giving some of it away is supposed to remedy this defect. What kind of experience this is based on is hard to say. In general, one would expect that giving would increase a feeling of superiority in one so inclined [3].

It appears that this is not the way the Buddha presented his teaching on generosity. As part of the noble eightfold path – the all inclusive training system towards liberation – faith in the kammic efficacy of generosity is part of right view. It is part of the faith/wisdom foundation on which fruitful spiritual development depends. The kammic result of giving is in the suttas dominantly one ripening in future lives. Faith in this effect or principle makes generosity part of right view.

This doesn’t mean that Buddhist giving ripens only if future lives; various commonsensical results are also listed to be had right away. The Buddha says to Siha at A 5.34 that giving has five benefits: popularity, good people seek one’s company, a good reputation, confidence in assemblies and a good rebirth[4]. In brief, generosity leads to wholesome popularity and a good rebirth. Note that wealth in this life, or the classic blessings, long life, beauty, happiness and strength (A 4.58/9 [5]) are not mentioned as fruit of giving in this life. Dominantly, prosperity will be the result of increased generosity as abundant anecdotal evidence testifies. There is no guarantee for this, though, partly because some have kammic or psychological obstructions to receiving wealth, partly because some people just keep distributing what they obtain, plus the ripening of kamma is extremely complex and difficult to predict. The Buddha recommends being at ease with either increase or decrease of personal wealth, if one’s wealth is only used in the right way (A 5.51). At A 4.77 the Buddha says that trying to work out how exactly kamma ripens by thinking is hopeless as it is too complex (acinteyya). Deep meditative, ‘psychic’ powers are necessary to entirely comprehend how these causalities unfold. This is significant in light of many teachers omission or downplaying of rebirth: the teaching of kamma does not work without rebirth.

Wealth in this life is mentioned as a result of keeping the five precepts (D 16.1.24 at Pataligama and D 33.5[6]), “careful attention to affairs [7]” and diligence[8] (A 10.73). These are not kammic results, though. Also drug dealers, pimps and hit men who diligently and carefully attend to their jobs can amass great wealth in this life.

In A 5.35 one more benefit in this life is added, namely, that one fulfills one’s duty as a householder. What some of this duty might be, shows a sutta that gives five good times for generosity: giving gifts to arriving and departing guests, sick people, in times of scarcity and the first fruits and harvest to virtuous ones (A 5.36 [9]). The verses at the end of this sutta, however, emphasize only the giving to noble ones, sympathetic joy for such a gift or assistance one might lend to giving it, all explicitly as support for the next life.

 

This support for the next life is the big deal in the suttas. At A 5.31 princess Sumana asks the Buddha whether there is a difference between two disciples of his after death, if they are reborn in heaven. Both have identical faith, virtue and wisdom but one gives alms and the other doesn’t. The Buddha replies that the giver of alms surpasses the other disciple in heavenly lifespan, beauty, happiness, honor and power. The same superiority would continue into a subsequent human birth. If both were to be ordained, the giver of alms will have a special kind of contentment with requisites. Only on request does he use a lot but otherwise he is content with little. It seems a kind of abundance perception will take the place of wealth in case of voluntary renunciation. Furthermore, the monastics he or she lives with are acting consistently friendly in body, speech and mind towards him. In the same friendly – never unfriendly – spirit they offer their help to him. Various other benefits of giving have been mentioned above. Wealth is always the most direct benefit; beauty, respect, timeliness, enjoyment, security, honor, lifespan, popularity or power, as it were outfit the space of abundance created by the sacrifices made. This abundant space is the kammic result of generosity.

 

In other words, the ‘ego’ is not diminished but the space in which it unfolds is remodeled. This remodeling of identity prior to its abandoning is also the principle focus of the monastic design. Especially when neglecting the samsaric perspective, we tend to underestimate how much stress and compensation are created by unfulfilled needs or frustrating physical environments such as the human realm. This stress typically translates into huge amounts of unwholesome activity and/or languor. One way of dealing with this stress is reducing desires and needs, another is increasing the ability to gratify them. The better and ultimately necessary solution to this existential situation is the abandonment of all desires, needs, dependencies; in practice it is better, though, to work from both sides. Furthermore, the abundance created through generosity permits supporting all kinds of beneficial causes. Especially the support for the practice and dissemination of liberating teachings is a priceless contribution to one’s fellow beings as well as oneself (Dhp 357[10]).

 

There is also a directly meditative use for the practice of giving, namely the contemplative uplifting of the mind with the memory of one’s own generosity. Teachers who teach their disciples not to pay attention to the past because it’s gone, distort the teaching of the Buddha and deprive their disciples of tremendous opportunities for spiritual growth. Teachings that indicate letting go of past and future are rare in the canon – especially in comparison to the constantly taught reflections on past and future. Also, these teachings are typically misrepresented, both as to content and their stage in development. All rejection of thoughts about past and future addresses unwholesome thought about past and future[11]. The Buddha constantly encourages contemplating past and future. In fact, of the twelve hour progression of his own awakening the first eight were spent contemplating the past and he finishes off at dawn with a look into the future: “I directly knew: Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been liveFd, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.” (M 4, M 19)

 

The process of contemplating one’s past generosity or giving up and reflecting on this virtue as divine will be discussed below. The idea is to dis-tract – derail – or sublimate sensual, diversified excitement into spiritual, unified excitement, shifting the identification in the course. The ‘ego’ is not diminished but remodeled. Being – identifying with a presumed self – and becoming – craving for future existence – are left intact, in fact are, temporarily, encouraged. With this non-confrontational approach to purification, the mind is led into self-absorption, the purity of which permits ‘seeing things as they are’: painful, futile, disappointing, transient, empty and addictive to boot. The rejection of all interest (upadana, lit. ‘up-take’) in conditioned phenomena is the result. In this way generosity is a way to become a true disciple of the Buddha, and for the true disciple generosity is a way to ending the untold misery of countless painful rebirths forever – by giving up some treats & toys.

 

The Boomerang Effect

 

 “Money is good for bribing yourself through the inconveniences of life.” Gottfried Reinhardt

 

“Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

 

When we talk about giving from a spiritual perspective, what makes it almost supernatural, are the results. The results are great even for worldly gifts. Their power to influence consumers or other victims of seduction exceeds what one would expect from a no-strings-attached offering[12]. It seems that – as with a smile – the power of the good-will and faith in the receiver command reciprocity in unconscious ways. Quite beyond his control, the receiver wants to prove him- or herself worthy of the faith put in him, demonstrating to themselves (probably more than anybody else) adequate group membership, i.e. that they are not an outcast.

The Buddha, too, recommends his followers to take advantage of this effect. Lay people are advised to give to guests and family on the proper occasions (A 5.41), monks should share their requisites down to the contents of their bowl with their fellow monks in order to create a harmonious atmosphere in the monastery (M 48, D 33).

As mentioned above, the main emphasis in discussing results of giving, however, is canonically put on the kammic results, especially those occurring in future lives [13]. And the Buddha has a lot to say about them. An interesting question is why? Most of the results obtainable by giving are rather mundane. Well-practiced generosity can make people rich, beautiful, comfortable and influential. All these worldly benefits would appear dangerous from a point of spiritual practice, suggesting false security, possibly impairing urgency to practice. Certainly monks are meant to live quite poorly, i.e. somewhat uncertain of support. Dana itself is not part of the noble eightfold path and many poor people – (poor) people who have not focused on this in the past according to kamma theory – have attained full enlightenment[14].

Suppose a university professor had a class of talented, interested students but their studies were continually hampered by difficult living conditions. They had to work late to earn enough money to study, so they were tired and had little time to learn; they had to live in crowded, noisy living conditions, so it was hard to concentrate or relax; their health was poor due to bad nutrition, which again disturbed their studies.

Now, maybe this professor knew that a particular (not immoral J) investment on the stock market would be sure to yield a huge return. With a small investment, all the material problems of the students would be solved. The students could afford good food, apartments and all the time they needed to study. So, the professor would tell the students when and how to buy. If they followed his advice, their study environment would in time improve, without undue risk or waste of time.

In the same way, the Buddha gave his disciples a relatively easy way to create the platform necessary for mental development. Hungry, sick, exhausted, worried circumstances do not lend themselves to the realization of the deathless. Overworked, strung-out ghetto moms don’t feature as a majority among enlightened beings[15]. It is, however, definitely in the context of students seeking enlightenment that the Buddha teaches generosity – never for the sake of having a comfortable life. He himself chose not to become a world-ruling emperor who could have made countless people rich and happy for many rebirths[16]. Why? Because samsarically it’s pointless. After those hundred thousands or millions of years, everybody would be just where they had left off[17]. 

Risks

“A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.” Grace Murray Hopper

 

Could there be danger from the mundane results of dana – such as wealth, beauty or influence – for those who are not serious about their practice? Certainly. Everything that increases delight in samsara is dangerous. More suffering is generated by people who have a lot of resources. Great wars, great corruption and atrocities of all manner are committed by those who command wealth or wield other influence. Negligence is another danger. The teams of the affluent football nations are famous for being full of players from developing countries. The generally acknowledged reason is that the locals are just not desperate enough to get to the top.

Overall, though, poverty creates more misery than wealth. Even within one town, sometimes within one street, it can be seen that violence, substance abuse and all kinds of crime increase with poverty, while education, health, hygiene and life expectancy go down[18].

Continuing the previous analogy, the professor is ultimately concerned only with the enlightenment of his students; that some students may just use their new affluence to drink, gamble and waste their time wouldn’t overly concern him. In our case of spiritual enlightenment, though, one student becoming a master of his field would likely generate more good than all the damage of misuse could create.

 

There is, however, also something else. Some people who may give initially out of greed for money may get an affinity to the teaching of the Buddha that may serve them later. The Buddha’s half-brother Nanda was an example of this principle, here in the field of renunciation (Ud 3.2; also A 8.9). The Buddha had intimidated him into consenting to ordination on his wedding day but, perhaps understandably, Nanda’s heart was still with his girl. When he told other monks that he was unhappy with the monks’ life and considered returning to the lay life, the Buddha showed him beautiful female deities and guaranteed Nanda five hundred of them if he promised to live as a monk for life[19]. Nanda agreed. Later when other monks heard about his deal, they ridiculed him for being so cheap[20]. This brought him to his senses and he became not only an arahant but one of the elect group of forty-one foremost monks. So too, somebody may be interested in dana initially only out of greed. Through gradual assimilation, though, he or she may become closer to the teaching and eventually develop well, with a good foundation already in place.

The way the Buddha teaches dana, it has the typical characteristics of the Dhamma: It is articulated clearly, immediate, timeless, self-evident, leading onwards inwards, to be realized personally by the wise. In this case, especially the opanayiko effect of leading onwards on the path inwards is important. Someone interested in mastering the art of dana to maximize profit will get to hear that the result will be more powerful when keeping precepts and only in combination with keeping precepts the future rebirth can be designed (A 8.35).

Any letting go of selfishness enhances the result, so the initially just greedy person will become involved in character purification before long. He or she may practice giving with faith, with respect, with consideration, with less greed for lower quality objects. These character changes may affect his or her circle of friends, the atmosphere at home or work, maybe even the job itself. A different person inside always translates into a different outside. Soon values quite different from the earlier ones will make much more sense. As old habits dry up and new ones blossom, some of the good kamma from proactive, contemplative giving may already ripen. When the mind is open and generous, teachings and meditation fall onto fertile ground. Liberation becomes possible.

 

Another risk that needs to be addressed concerns receiving. The Buddha created his order of monks, nuns and novices to be dependent entirely on the day-to-day offerings of lay people. Many other orders of monks or recluses generate livelihood differently. Christian orders, for example, often bake bread, cook food or even brew beer, wine and other strong drink [21]; some farm and were instrumental in an early revolution of the farming system in the 12^th century. The Cistercians developed an international metal manufacturing and distributions system. Like the success secret of modern McDonalds, they had identical monasteries all over Europe that were obliged to meet and visit to maintain even standards, which enabled them to invent modern marketing. The Order of the Knight’s Templars the was one of their outgrowths, practically inventing the modern banking system[22] as well as providing powerful armies to fight the Crusades and protect pilgrims on the way to the Holy Places in Jerusalem [23]. Weapons manufacture, trading, security systems and fortifications was natural business to these orders. Christian monks and priests were behind most important developments at least until the age of enlightenment[24].

Also in India at the time of the Buddha there were plenty of other options for orders to make a living. Brahmins provided all kinds of services as well as engaging in farming (see for example Sn 1.2; in fact, there was and is little that Brahmins don’t do, so long as they don’t have to touch any outcasts J). Many of the services were due to the Brahmins education and self-proclaimed monopoly on religious lore close to the royal courts and thus their influence was substantial.

This digression into the dubious means of religious orders’ livelihood is included here just to show how the Buddha could have designed the order to be possibly more rich and influential as well as secluded and independent, had he so desired. With his royal connections, the order could even have subsisted on grants. 

There are also other ascetic options; not all recluses go on almsround in India. Many ascetics used to live of the land in various ways, usually of roots or fallen fruit, even cow dung of suckling calves is mentioned as diet (M 12). Some ascetics lived of things that were thrown away, much in the way many homeless people in big cities do [25].

The Buddha chose almsround as the primary means of obtaining food for monks, forfeited by severe restrictions on storing and cooking food or accepting money. ‘Chose’ is almost too much a word: All Buddhas seem to use this means of livelihood (M 50, M 81) – it is ‘the way.’ The advantages to this system are numerous and no doubt play a role in the survival of the order to the present day.

As for the monks’ health and comfort, it’s sometimes good, sometimes not. Hygiene is obviously compromised and eludes control, leading to frequent diarrhea and food poisoning, which even the Buddha was subject to (D 16). Sometimes monks have to suffer hardships[26]; now as at the time of the Buddha, dependence on alms can be a highly humiliating experience (It 91, S 22.80, Thag 1118 (Talaputta)). In exceedingly generous countries, monks popular with the laity are sometimes spoiled to their detriment. Truth be told, most monks would probably prefer to arrange everything themselves, as can be seen in other orders or wherever the order degenerates. Independence, i.e. control, is a great human need but this desire-nourishing illusion is one of the targets of spiritual development. Another problem with this system is that a substantial number of talented monks are disrobing because they feel for one reason or another that they are not worthy of the lay people’s generosity, even when many beggars in the world would be better off then them. Both, contemporary teachers as well as the Buddha himself, do not tire to make the point that eating almsfood as a negligent monk is depriving the lay people of a good source of merit (A 3.124, M 39, M 40) or positively dangerous (It 91, verse also 48 & Dhp 308; A 7.68, Pj 4; these texts are not for the fainthearted). Nonetheless, the advantages of the system are outstanding. Here are some:

 

]Lay people are offered unparalleled proximity to the monks. There are still a lot of Christian monasteries in the west but few people even know about them, let alone know the monks. Almsround gives lay people a monastic presence on a daily basis. For many lay people this provides them with a spiritual start in their day and a hands-on way to educating their children about spiritual matters, all without obligations or substantial investment of time.

]Local lay people have a powerfully encouraging and correcting influence on the order. In the most extreme case of a degenerate or quarrelling order, they can refuse the monks food and thus help to bring them to their senses. This happened at the time of the Buddha in Kosambi (M 128, MV 10). Even the Buddha was unable to pacify quarrelling parties of monks but simple refusal to feed them ended their stand-off in no time.

]The lay people acquire a definite feeling of ‘owning’ a significant share in the order or the local monastery, which strengthens their affinity to and identification with the order. This ‘our boys’-feeling in turn makes it easy and comfortable to take advantage of the support available from the order, whenever desired. For countless lay people – some to become monks later on – the dependency of the monks provided entry and access to Dhamma and Sangha in a non-committal, meaningful way (A 9.19).

]The lay people have an opportunity to make enormous merit often by just stepping in front of their door. Giving food to the monks is as easy as picking up the mail from the mailbox yet the profits promised by the Buddha are greater by far than those of the most complex and shrewd business transactions.

]The burden of supporting the monks is spread out and every small offering visibly counts. The health of the monks sometimes visibly changes from season to season dependent on where they go on almsround (intro to Pj 4).

]The type of merit the lay people get is powerful as it is respectful, compassionate and includes direct handing. Much generosity today is great in quantity and intention but there is often little feeling or imagery involved in writing a cheque. Even less wholesome may be the deduction of church taxes or standing orders where the intention to give is exceedingly rare.

Ø  Benefits for the monks are first of all the immediate gratitude felt for the support of the lay people. This plays a great role in opening the mind for meditation. The lay peoples’ support sometimes moves monks to tears and not rarely a bond is felt to supporting lay people similar to family relationships. The spiritually developed mind is very sensitive to this relationship factor (see, for example, DhA 2.104ff., Ven. Radha’s ordination).

Ø  The tangibility of lay peoples’ generosity encourages monks in their mission. The large number of monks who disrobe show how widespread doubt in this profession is. 

Ø  The obvious obligation incurred provides motivation for purification, especially in the context of the Buddha’s teaching that the purity of the receiver is a dominant determinant for the result of the receiver (M 39, M 40).

Ø  The symbiotic dependency keeps the monks in spite of their ecclesiastical teacher status humble.

Ø  Humility, occasionally humiliation, of the monks’ beggar status also functions as wakeup call to seek happiness inside rather than in the world.

Ø  Monks do not need to engage in business activity to obtain food. This prevents numerous defilements from arising.

Ø  Monks do not need to cook. Again, endless possibilities for entanglements are prevented. These advantages help to simplify the monastic life significantly.  

Ø  The uncertainty experienced on real almsround keeps the monks from becoming too comfortable. The choice of food is determined by the lay people, i.e. from outside. Since lay people normally sign no obligation to give on a particular day, the element of chance is a tangible factor. Inclement weather or holidays, for example, can significantly affect the diet of monks.

On balance, these benefits make the alms system the best way to maintain an order for everybody involved. 

 

A reasonable question is whether this dependency on the laity might not create an excessive burden on the lay people, especially within India – but also other Buddhist countries – which are often subject to famines or other forms of poverty. The order extracts a work force of often several hundred thousand mostly young and able men from the market and yet lives off offerings, often from the poorest people[27]. Fortunately, the Buddha was asked this question at S 42.9, so we can here repeat his strong reply. During a famine, Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, instructed a disciple, Asibandhakaputta, to confront the Buddha with this very question. Asibandhakaputta then went to see the Buddha and asked him:

“Venerable sir, doesn’t the Blessed One in many ways praise kindliness towards families, the protection of families, compassion towards families?”

“Yes, headman, the Tathagata in many ways praises kindliness towards families, the protection of families, compassion towards families.”

“Then why, venerable sir, is the Blessed One wandering on tour with a large Sangha of bhikkhus at a time of famine, a time of scarcity, when crops are blighted and have turned to straw? The Blessed One is practicing for the annihilation of families, for the calamity of families, for the destruction of families.”

“I recollect ninety-one aeons back, headman, but I do not recall a single family that has been damaged in the least by offering almsfood. Rather, whatever families there are that are rich, with much wealth and property, with abundant gold and silver, with abundant possessions and means of subsistence, with abundant wealth and grain, they have all become so from giving, from truthfulness, and from self-control.

“There are, headman, eight causes and conditions for the destruction of families. 

·       Families come to destruction on account of the king, or

·       on account of thieves, or

·       on account of fire, or

·       on account of water; or

·        they do not find what they have put away; or

·       mismanaged undertakings fail; or

·       there arises within a family a wastrel who squanders, dissipates, and fritters away its wealth; and

·       impermanence is the eighth.

These are the eight causes and conditions for the damaging of families. But while these eight causes and conditions for the damaging of families exist, if anyone speaks thus of me: ‘The Blessed One is practicing for the annihilation of families, for the calamity of families, for the damaging of families;’ if he does not abandon that assertion and that state of mind, and if he does not relinquish that view, then just as if he had been dragged and dropped off there (he will wind up) in hell.”

When this was said, Asibandhakaputta the headman said to the Blessed One: “Magnificent, venerable sir!… From today let the Blessed One remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.”

This passage is remarkable in several ways. One is simply the way in which it shows how commonsense and the wisdom of a Buddha can at times be very different, a reminder not to be overconfident, especially when opposing a Buddha. The Buddha says ‘all families’ who are very wealthy have become so through generosity, as though chance, diligence, intelligence or crook provide merely the surface to the deeper kammic reality of these small communities. The reasons given for losing wealth, in turn, are entirely commonsensical[28].

 

It is perhaps noteworthy that the monastic code features a rule concerning the same question: A monk is not allowed to accept food from a family that has been officially decreed poor and attained  (Patidesaniya 3). The rule cautions monks to be considerate in receiving alms. At the same time, it profoundly underscores the principle of the above admonition. If lay people are not at least streamenterers – and by official Sangha decree declared so – their generosity is so useful to them from the point of a Buddha that monks may accept alms from them even if it seems to ruin the lay people[29].

The Art

“I do not believe in the kind of art which has not forced its way out through man's need to open his heart—all art … must be created with one's heart's blood.” Edvard Munch

“No art is acquired easily or without much diligent study and practice. Could it be otherwise with the greatest art of all – the art of arts – the spiritual life…” Starets Macarius

 

The English word ‘art’ derives from the Latin ‘ars’ meaning ‘skill.’[30] Genuine (as opposed to ‘modern’ J) art requires mastery of a set of individual skills which are then merged in the creative process called mastery. While talent plays a debated role, consensus is that without diligent ‘deliberate practice,’ mastery is impossible. Professor K. Anders Ericcson of Florida State University showed that of selected violinists at an elite music school in Berlin, Germany, those considered best had trained ten thousand hours by the age of twenty, those of lesser ability around seven thousand five hundred and the least able ‘only’ five thousand hours. In the study of expert performance it is agreed that at least ten years of intense ‘deliberate practice,’ i.e. an aggressively challenging practice, are necessary to get to the top of the field. While in some disciplines – like piano playing – this period may exceed twenty years, the relative consistency of the finding led to the coining of the term ‘ten-year rule.’

Similarly, in traditional artisan training in countries such as Germany or Japan, a three year apprenticeship is followed by a less definite journeyman period, while mastery requires several additional years of training, resulting in comparable timeframes. Higher university degrees such as PhDs that could be considered ‘mastery,’ also require around ten years training for most students. 

The training of Buddhist monks and, even more detailed, of nuns, also employs a system of ten years. At least five are to be spent under daily supervision of a teacher, followed by a journeyman period. A monk of ten years standing – a nun of twelve – may take on formal teaching roles if the requisite skills have been mastered.

These figures provide a useful paradigm for those interested in mastery of dana as an art. They suggest that progressive development is possible in a field only too easily considered simple. Cooking or driving are also considered simple by some but even lay people (in the field of cooking or driving) can tell that those who take their practice seriously produce different results, let alone experts. If this is true for manual skills, how much more will it be the case for a psychological or spiritual art where the holding of a thought, mind state or attitude can make a world of difference?

The psychological expertise in giving by those who are involved in professional or seductive giving has already been touched upon in the introductory pages. The detail given by the Buddha on generosity makes clear how complex and rich the process of giving is and how disparate results an identical seeming act can manifest.

 

Aspects of Parting

“Leaving reminds us what we can part with and what we can't,

then offers us something new to look forward to, to dream about.” Richard Ford

 

The Buddha’s most basic ordering distinction with regard to the giving process is that into donor, gift and receiver. Similarly, in business we have sales, product and customer; in politics the politician, his message or program and the voter or lobby he is working for. It’s a basic model of transaction, each part of which has to be taken into account for obtaining optimal results. The businessman who only thinks of the quality of his product underestimates psychology. If he neglects product information, focusing only on manipulating the customer, he forgets that business is about a product. With these blind spots, he will not master his art.

Giving can be done profitably in any way one feels like but for acquiring overall mastery of the art, it is necessary to pay attention to all aspects. The Buddha has quite a lot to say about them.

The Donor

“Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.” Albert Camus 

 

The donor – i.e. the mind-state of the donor – is the natural focus of the spiritual person. All mental development requires sacrifice, letting go, emptying out. Giving material objects is one aspect of this practice:

“At a time, brothers, when the noble disciple contemplates his generosity, his mind is bound neither by greed, nor hatred or delusion. His mind is well-directed at such a time, escaped, emancipated from, lifted out of greed. Greed, brothers, is a designation for the five pleasures of the senses. This noble disciple, bothers, abides with a mind like open space, wide, high, boundless, free of hatred and grudges. By practicing this contemplation, brothers, many beings become purified.” (A 6.26 [31]) 

The practice of empathy or compassion forms a subset of giving, a way of seeing the other being as stuck with pain, neediness, ignorance, while desiring happiness, just like oneself.

“Those […] things, student, that the Brahmins prescribe for the performance of merit, for the accomplishing the wholesome, I call equipment of the mind, that is, for developing a mind that is without hostility and ill will. […] Here, student, a bhikkhu engages in generosity. Thinking, ‘I am one who engages in generosity,’ he gains inspiration in the meaning, gains inspiration in the Dhamma, gains gladness connected with the Dhamma. It is that gladness connected with the wholesome that I call an equipment of the mind.”(M 99 [32])

Generosity (caga) is here one of a group of five brahmanic virtues, the others are ‘being a speaker of truth’ (sacca vadi); ‘being ascetic’ (tapo); ‘being celibate’ (brahmacari); ‘being one who engages in study’ (ajjhena). The set seems to describe standard sub-specializations of spiritual practice. The Buddha tries to shift the attitude from a kammic piggy bank mentality to one of contemplatively remodeling one’s identity.

This is the contemplative aspect of Buddhism that comes through with regard to any practice in the suttas, but has been almost lost in the world of single-solution meditation techniques or academic discussion of scripture [33]. These passages are examples of cases in which the practice of generosity is recommended for remodeling identity in order to facilitate understanding of ‘the way things are,’ i.e. truth or Dhamma.

Generosity, however, can also be used for more mundane maintenance of samsaric well-being and the Buddha teaches specific effects of the donor’s mental states.  

At A 5.148, he says that giving with faith results in wealth (as result of the giving) and beauty (as result of the faith aspect). An interesting question is what kind of faith is meant here. Normally, the Pali word ‘saddha’ describes faith in the Buddha’s awakening (A 5.14) or the trinity of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha (D 33.5). This is not mentioned here, though, and one would expect that a person who gives with faith in another religion or secular way also would reap this reward. The humble opening and devotion of the heart that the word ‘faith’ describes is both beautiful and beautifying and that would appear to generate the result. This being so, it could be faith in the receiver, faith in generosity, faith in kamma, faith in mental development or faith in one of the many other qualities or subsets of Buddha, Dhamma or Sangha. Somebody working on mastery of generosity who is experimenting with different perceptions at the time of giving will notice that the way the heart opens is subtly different depending on the object. Having faith in the receiving person, for example, carries quite a different, more intense, more dependent feel to it than giving with faith in the whole Sangha. Individual preferences play an important role here.

In one sutta, S 3.24, King Pasenadi asks the Buddha when one should give. The Buddha answers him that one should give when the heart delights in it[34]. This implies that character development is spiritually more valuable than the mathematical return obtained by reserving offerings for the highest field of merit. We will look at this passage further below in the section on the recipient but here the important point is that wholesome faith should always be responded to. If one, for example, feels like spoiling a kid or a beggar, one would harm oneself, if one were to let that impulse atrophy. One might end up overlooked oneself or feel regrets about having neglected that opportunity, that being. In case of secondary concerns, it is not difficult to modify the act with some wisdom.  

Beauty, studies suggest, is as important as the clichéd vain man or woman imagines. Most beings seem to feel like Greek poet Sappho that “who is beautiful is also good.” People of all genders treat beautiful people better. They like to help them more and make all kinds of flattering assumptions about their intelligence, health, virtue, sex lives etc. that have little to do with reality – only their modesty is generally doubted J[35]. The arrogance of the pretty is also in Buddhist cosmology a key component to degeneration of humanity (D 27).

Beautiful people get jobs easier as already Aristotle noticed: “Beauty is better than any introduction.” When children of superior talent are overlooked by educational systems, it is typically because they are ugly. In court, those with a ‘babyface’ are more likely to convicted for crimes of negligence but get lighter sentences for serious crimes. If facial disfiguration of criminals is surgically corrected, their rate of recidivism drops significantly.

Women and men who make excellent friends often end up without partner, simply because their looks do not conform to current beauty standards. One study with college students attempted to find out what people found attractive in potential partners, including large numbers of variables like interests, family background etc. The shocking result: only beauty counted. Children who do not look like other kids often become victims of mobbing. This can scar them for life. It may drive them into isolation and abuse of one kind or another. All this seems terribly unfair and it is, unless there is such a thing as kamma and rebirth.

The bold, ego-strong giver gives from a safe base. He is the one who gives and that makes him powerful. For many people, that feeling of power gives them the kick when giving. Especially people who give to beggars often have no faith or comparable emotion when giving. Faith is a kind of trust and goodness, a willingness to expose oneself, to give of oneself. A lot with regard to faith is about giving up something very personal, namely one’s pride or ego. Faith risks abuse. In M 135 the Buddha says that not responding angrily to provocation is a cause for beauty. At A 11.16, the tenth of eleven benefits of the practice of loving-kindness is having a beautiful, calm complexion[36].

The theme is the same in all these statements. The person who has faith trusts privately and silently. He or she endures, finds excuses for other peoples bad behavior and moods – this is a lot of what loving-kindness practice comes down to J – and imagines the other in the best possible, often unrealistic, light. For illustrative purposes, it could be speculated that many women go through periods of adolescent beauty because they may have had opportunity to practice this unadulterated adulation when tending their babies and children with their oxytocin-drenched blood in past lives [37]. The Buddha famously compared the practice of unconditional love to that of a (baby-crazy[38]) mother towards her only son (Sn 1.8).

The faithful donor will reap an appearance visible to the entire world that generates different kinds of trust, goodwill, love, benevolent excuses and exaggerated presumptions about virtues. And also material gain. The angry person typically gets something for his or her anger. Intimidated, scared or simply preferring peace, others give in. Often it will only be about being right but people also use anger to get material things. Some brag how they kicked up a stink at the airline counter and finally got a seat on a flight that was supposed to have been booked up. Others may be able to get a shop to take back a product by displaying anger. The meek person who gives up and in on such occasions reaps the miraculous ability of beautiful people to attract help as well as material benefits. ‘The meek will inherit the world,’ as Jesus is supposed to have said in the Sermon of the Mount[39]. The sacrificed or given objects return on their own many thousandfold as will be shown below.

 

Giving with respect, the second factor in A 5.148, kammically obtains the respect from one’s family and workers when it ripens. Respect is not so different from faith. Respect also implies a willingness to sacrifice one’s pride and to honor superior virtue, usually somewhat on trust. Giving with respect is difficult in a culture where almost all giving is in charity for the poor or those in need. In those cases, the donor is decidedly in the superior position. He is the one to be respected. Current western culture has hardly any poor people that are considered worthy of respect. Even to the church, people often give out of fear, coercion, as patrons or out of pity rather than with respect. Being worthy of respect often means automatically that one is not in need of material help, probably rich.

The Buddha gives as result of giving respectfully that one’s wife and children, one’s servants and workers, are respectful; they listening carefully and intend to oblige. One emanates respectability, i.e. dignity. The importance of this benefit becomes apparent when visualizing the opposite. Somebody may be rich and powerful but his wife and children contempt him and do not care what he says. His workers laugh about him behind his back, work as little as possible and cheat him.

Many men are suffering this fate in the West now, divorce rates being around 40-50%. Approximately 75% of divorces are filed for by the women, often for the most trifling reasons, such as not being interested in cleaning the bathroom for him anymore. Many of these men feel that they have done everything right and cannot understand what happened to them. The simple truth is usually that the women just do not love and respect them any longer. They are fed up with him, consider him a failure and think they can do better. Many more couples do not get divorced but also do not feel respect for each other. Nagging, arguments, verbal and physical abuse may continue for decades, not rarely leading directly into promiscuity and alcohol abuse which further erode the harmony of the relationship.

If this is a kammic result, we may think this as punishment a little bit harsh. It is important to remember, though, that what we perceive as a purely material exchange is in truth predominantly mental (M 56). Everything around us that is made by humans has been an idea before it became an object. Where we are in space-time, our bodies, clothes, style, preferences, what we do for a living, the language and concepts we use to navigate through our lives, all have been just ideas at one point. When acquiring a certain strength, they became speech or physical actions, which gradually developed into physical realities. A gift, too, is such an idea. Giving is an idea. If we give condescendingly, manipulatively, or even without thinking anything much, a big part of that for which giving is a symbol is missing. When we give to loved ones, we intend the gift to show our love, respect, devotion to them. What the gift is, we sometimes consider secondary. It functions as symbol for our thoughts and feelings.

A gift given without respect, however, can even be used to humiliate a person or to make the donor feel bigger, perhaps disregarding the other person. What he justly reaps then is wealth for giving, but humiliation and disregard for having given exactly that.

To be respected and attended to willingly, on the other hand, makes life incredibly easy. It makes it natural and easy to be good, to do good, to delegate, to trust and respect. Perhaps most important from a spiritual point of view, it makes it possible to think about other things than one’s relationships, appearance and respect. One can turn one’s back to the world without worry and focus on problems which really matter.

 

Giving at the right time, the next factor of this sutta, also belongs into the category of the donor’s mind. The knowledge of the right time is a wisdom aspect, as the etymology of the Pali word kal-aññuta[40] well preserves. ‘Declaring ‘añña’’ is in the suttas a way to tell that one has realized arahantship[41]. Here just the right time for giving is mentioned. The opposite of this term, ‘vikala’ (‘the wrong time’), is known to those keeping the eight precepts on weekly observance days as the time after noon, the wrong time for eating[42].

There is a lot that can be cultivated in knowing the right time and timing in giving. This ability appears to be self-evident or luck to outsiders but to be consistent, a lot of careful observation, inquiry and empathy are necessary. In the worst case, a gift at the wrong time can be disastrous as for example in history’s horror stories of maids’ burning irrecoverable manuscripts while cleaning[43]. Most of the time it is just a little inconvenient, such as if the receiver is kept waiting or ineffectual if the gift cannot be used at that time. In most cases, the donor will not notice this if the recipient is socially adroit.

Good timing, however, can give a magical quality to an experience, sometimes surpassing the value of the gift itself. Great butlers or waiters are the true masters of this art. Occasionally, timing might become a life- or health-saver. This is the fruit of sensibility and wisdom with regard to the gift, an understanding that a gift is an almost four-dimensional object, i.e. its value stems substantially from its appearance at the right time.

The result, the Buddha, says, of giving at the right time is getting things when one needs them. The commentary thinks this means that one obtains wealth when still young rather then when already old. This may be one aspect but really the result reflects that needs, i.e. pain, have been relieved without delay and this should hold true independent of age, dependent only on the ripening of the kamma. One would expect it to happen instant by instant of need. We have no record of the Buddha going into this but it appears that kamma ripens for different people at different times in their lives. Perhaps this reflects the time in their lives when they were particularly good or bad [44], as though there are several lives within a lifespan. It seems also that at times the previous life or death still echoes for a while in the next one before the current kamma can unfold. 

 

The next factor in this sutta is giving with the empathetic intention to give joy[45]. This factor, too, is not as self-evident as it seems and can be mastered on many levels. Bad intentions aside, gifts can be made with many kinds of good intentions. Here, the Buddha points out that the empathetic wish to create joy for the receiver has a special reward: The senses of the giver delight in sense-objects when this kamma ripens. In other words, the person has a special ability to enjoy music, food, nature and other sensual experiences. Life is more fun for them.

This boon is more internal than the previous ones. Most people will just give what they themselves like and often that is a great formula to keep things simple [46]. Some donors, however, really try to imagine how the other person might feel, different as they or their situation may be. They try to get under the skin of the receiver, as it were, which is also the heart of meditations on loving-kindness, compassion and appreciative joy. In addition, they are really interested in the joy-giving factor. They care. They are not just in for providing a need but that extra chunk of pain relief that comes from really liking something.

We may think joy is optional, but is it? All of us seem to need at least so much joy to remain sane. Babies who are kept clean and fed, but are never touched, cuddled with or talked to, simply die. As mentioned above, isolating prisoners from contact with other prisoners, even if they have books and radios in their cells, leaves them damaged even decades after their release and is internationally considered torture. Similarly, parents who merely provide necessities for their children but no emotional support or interest are seriously damaging their children and the phenomenon is recognized as ‘emotional abuse.’

It can seem almost a little strange, though, that the Buddha should advertise something that leads to making sense-objects more enticing. Is not the enticing nature of sense-objects the whole problem in samsara? Actually, the Buddha does this in other places, too. All practices that lead to heaven, so commonly mentioned in the texts, are leading to enhanced sensual experiences. Most results of good kamma enhance samsaric sensual experience.

As has been said above, every worldly achievement in samsara carries a certain kind of danger. The pleasure one experiences, though, is only a small part of being fettered. More significant is the ability to break these fetters. At M 66, the Buddha gives the simile of the quail: this little bird may be fettered with a mere rotten piece of string and still die from this weak fetter. An elephant, on the other hand, may be fettered with stout leather robes but just a little shaking of the legs will set it free. It is true that the leather robes are a stronger fetter but the superior strength of the elephant makes it almost irrelevant whether it is bound by a rotten tether or a leather robe.

Furthermore, it is not at all necessary, that a person be fettered by pleasant experiences, especially not more than by not having them. Many poor people are just as avaricious or possessive as some rich people are, only they don’t have the money to act out their wishes. Some poor people, of course are not avaricious but then some rich people aren’t. Spiritual development plays a great role in this and these teachings are meant for people who are involved in such a process. Everybody else is living dangerous anyway.

Overall, it would appear, though, that obtaining joy easily is a little less dangerous than not being able to obtain it. The frustration, sometimes rage, of people who seem to have everything but just can’t enjoy anything is well known to people who professionally deal with rich people. This frustration can lead to many unwholesome forms of compensation, such as substance abuse, aggression against others or themselves. As with afflictions like insomnia, infertility or impotence, the pain that people with this kamma experience is hard to imagine for those who think that they are not ‘real’ problems.

Abundant joy also has also particular benefits for the person who is doing spiritual practices. A little sense experience for them goes a long way. A glass of water tastes so good. The way the light breaks through the trees in the morning makes their day. Socrates puts it perfectly: ‘He who eats with the most pleasure is he who least requires sauce.’ Tribulations are easy to endure because there are so many good things in life.

A lot of the satisfaction needed to remain sane can be had for them while living a very simple life. Such a person might feel more happy with tight monastic sense-restraints than many a millionaire hedonist who is spending fortunes to keep abreast of suffering[47]. In this case, this is not from the joy of the ascetic minimalism but from a kamma that gives the real joy of renunciation time to ripen. Monks or nuns who have too little of this often disrobe in spite of right view and other talents.

 

A small subset of this giving joy is paying attention to making it easy to receive, occasionally even easy to refuse. With this skill, too, getting into the perspective of the receiver is the art. Being a receiver can be awkward in many ways, so much so that many people categorically try to avoid it. Since there is no such thing as a free lunch, there are always obligations and expectations just beneath the surface. Not everybody finds it easy to respond gracefully to an offer. Donors who empathize well and are sensitive to possible tight spots are incredible to see in action for those interested in this art. They too give joy in this way and that, plus all the class and discretion they exercise, is what they will reap in abundance.

 

The last factor adding an extra quality to the rewards of generosity is giving without harming others or oneself. By giving in a way that harms others is meant, for example, the offering of stolen things or giving meat of animals killed for the purpose of offering their meat[48]. Also, if one gives to outsiders at the expense of one’s obligations to one’s family, one might harm others. Harming oneself, one would imagine to be giving to the point of having to experience serious deprivation, perhaps becoming a burden to others.

The kammic fruit of not harming others in the way one gives is that the wealth one acquires as kammic fruit of giving cannot be lost through fire, water, kings, robbers or hostile heirs. This curious group of catastrophes and beings is often mentioned in the suttas in conjunction with losses. It points to tragic events having roots in our own past actions. The person who has been considerate to prevent collateral damage of giving has protected others from the frustrating loss experience. Now, they are safe from it. They can leave their Cadillac El Dorado [49] top down and keys in the ignition in the heart of the South Bronx; nobody will take it.    

Often when we want things, we do not consider how vulnerable these objects are to having their lifespan cut short. Once having them, the fear of losing prized objects can make the entire possession a sour experience. This is especially the case if someone had a bad experience already. All of a sudden, it seems possible to lose everything they own. That is one reason the social cost of crime is so high. It destroys an atmosphere of safety and mutual trust. The Buddha says at A 8.40 that the most minimal kammic result of stealing – the exact opposite of giving without harming – is loss of wealth[50], in which case this continual tension will be felt most intensely.

D 30, in discussing the kammic origin of the Buddha’s physiognomy, states that the inability to lose things may also extend to spiritual qualities. In his previous lives, the Buddha used to expend extraordinary interest and care for people’s physical, mental and spiritual development, comfort and security. As a result, he is unable to lose people and objects if he chooses to be a world ruler; in a Buddha, the same kamma ripens as inability to lose the spiritual faculties of faith, virtue, learning, generosity or giving up and wisdom [51]. Just as material status or objects can become the identity of somebody, so – and even more so – will mental and spiritual qualities. Their stability is half, maybe more than half the fun of having them. 

Human beings are much more interested in not losing something than obtaining something new, just as they would be more concerned about losing a limp than covet a shape augmentation. Many of the things we seem to just play with hold a scary power over our well-being. Toys R us.

With these fears, insurances make their fabled fortunes. People are willing to pay for insurance, i.e. assurance. Frequently this leads to the curiosity that, where previously churches had been the tallest buildings in a skyline, now insurance buildings take that distinction.

Those who have never experienced sudden intrusive losses like that have quite a different life experience. They more likely feel a childlike safety with regard to other beings and nature that gives their entire life a certain buoyancy. In child development, not having substantial scary or rejection experiences until age three is considered determining whether a person will feel that the world is safe. This is considered determining their lifelong approach to challenges and other people as optimistic, confident, outgoing or paranoid and defeatist. ‘Civilized’ people marvel at pockets of culture where people don’t lock doors or cars as though they are some kind of blissful Arcadia – what does that tell us about the emotional tone of the world we live in and are accustomed to?  

 

Buddhist monks’ almsround looks after developing these qualities quite automatically. Almost all who give alms to monks do so with faith and respect. The time is perfect. Many donors try hard to give monks what they think they enjoy. Nobody could or would consider him- or herself harmed through these offerings. It is the near perfect system to create huge, well-rounded merit.

 

There is a further donor quality of tremendous importance in development. At A 8.35, the Buddha says that people may give things with a view that the existence of a certain type of being is more desirable than their current one. They would like to have such a kind of existence. The Buddha continues to say that acquiring such a rebirth as result of an offering to ascetics or Brahmins is possible, provided that the virtue of the donor is good. If it is not good, the owner will still reap much kammic reward, only the power of direction is lost. This is like being a prisoner or a pet dog in a civilized modern country, both of whom may live with substantial comfort and security compared to most people in the world. Their choices, however, are severely limited – they are made for them. The kammic reward for restraining oneself voluntarily is the increased freedom on this and other transcendent levels. 

If the wish is to be reborn in the Brahma realm where happiness is coming, unlike in the sensual heavens, from within, such a gift to ascetics can also do it. This is rather remarkable, as life in the lowest of these realms is said to be a whole eon. The length of an eon is famously compared to a solid cube of rock sixteen kilometers high, wide, and long, said to be worn a way by centenary swiping with cloth before the eon is over (S 15.5). The additional condition for this attainment is that the donor is free from sense-desire, presumably on a semi-permanent basis. Maybe this is meant from the time of the gift to the time of death, perhaps the time of death in conjunction with recollection of gifts plus the wish suffice.

 

The purity of the donor directly affects the result of giving in ways hard to fathom by mere commonsense. It makes some sense, though, for those who have personal experience with the purification process. Establishing virtues, restraints, heart qualities and wisdom constitute a painstakingly slow process but once acquired, virtue becomes a stable undercurrent to the entire being, reportedly over lifespans. Giving a gift with such virtue is therefore not just a question of choice but an intermediate endpoint in a demanding, protracted development. Reading ‘The Financial Times’ for a senior investment analyst has an entirely different value than for a child who has just learned to spell.

Good giving is always an expression of some kind of purity. For those interested in affecting their spiritual future through this medium it is therefore of paramount importance to understand and practice it in a context of holistic purification. The key paradigm shift is understanding generosity – like everything else – as being dominantly mental, rather than dominantly physical, manifestation rather than isolated product of will. Intention is always at the root of activity but the most powerful one is that of the intention for shedding greed, hatred and delusion. At A 10.76 the Buddha says that birth, ageing and death can not be overcome without abandoning the three inclinations and at A 6.39 that all action from greed, hatred and delusion leads to painful existences below the human realm, all action without them to the comparatively happy and, more importantly, improvable realms of gods and men.

 

Describing a large number of qualities of a ‘true man’ (sappurisa[52]) or worthy person (M 110, p. 895), the Buddha also goes into his or her style of giving:

“Here a worthy person gives a gift respectfully (sakacca), personally (sahattha), considerately (cittikaroti), gives a quality gift (anapaviddho), gives with the view that something will come of it (aggamanaditthi)…”

All these qualities describe aspects of understanding the process of giving as spiritually weighty. The value of respect has already been dealt with above. Giving in person, rather than by delegation shows concern for the process and the recipient, it is an aspect of respect. Often this involves time and the travails of travel but, especially with offerings to ascetics or other wise people, it also creates the possibility for secondary inspiration or instruction. Consideration includes all forms of sensibility, from giving pleasure to being unimposing. The quality of the gift also is a factor expressing respect for the transaction and will be dealt with below.

Giving with the view that something (kammic) will come of it is the most challenging item on this list. At A 7.49 the Buddha discusses the question whether different people can get different results for making the same offering. The motivation of the lower quality offering, the Buddha describes as follows:

“Here, Sariputta, somebody gives from desire (sapekkho), with a fettered heart (patibaddhacitto), addicted to profit (sannidhipekkho) and in the hope that he will enjoy the benefits after death…”

He gives various things to ascetics and really is reborn in heaven. Once the power of that deed is exhausted, though, he returns to this world. The sutta continues to say that although someone else may not give with that lower motivation, he may give thinking that giving is good or that it is a family tradition or for social reasons (“I am cooking, they are not; it is not proper for me not to give to those who don’t cook”). They may make offerings in emulation of past sages or because of the joy of giving. In all cases, the donor goes to heaven and returns after the power of the deeds has been exhausted.

The only dana that is different in motivation and result is called ‘cittaparikkhara, cittalankara dana’ (‘giving as equipment and adornment for the heart,’ also A 8.31/33). In M 99, the mechanics of the relevant contemplative process are explained. “(Truthfulness (sacca), asceticism (tapo), celibacy (brahmacari), learning (ajjhenam), generosity or giving up (cago))…I call equipment of the mind (cittassa parikkhara), that is for developing a mind that is without hostility and ill will. Here, student, a monk is (…) generous. Thinking, ‘I am generous,’ he gains inspiration in the meaning, inspiration in the Dhamma, he gains a sense of euphoria (pamojja) connected with the Dhamma. It is that sense of euphoria connected with the wholesome that I call an equipment of the mind.” 

The logic is the same as that in the above mentioned reflection on generosity to his cousin Mahanama. This is the type of dana singled out as being able to take one to the Brahma world beyond sense gratification. Not only that, though: The Buddha says that the person performing this type of generosity does not return to this world after the exhaustion of the deed. What seems to happen here is that the donor as it were sacrifices the sensual returns for his generosity, offering them on the altar of peace. Seeing the danger in sensuality, he or she gives merely gives in order to equip and adorn the mind, i.e. to create the workspace for further purification. In this ultimate form of giving, the entire environment of the exchange-interaction is seen as perennially inadequate, painful and unworthy of improvement attempts. The wisdom that is expressed, one could almost say celebrated, by this act of giving, is enlightened wisdom.

In this context, the Buddha considers the desire for a sensual result an inferior one. Sometimes this passage is understood to indicate that it is better to give without any expectation or awareness of a result. This does not entirely seem to do justice to the text. The intention to use an act of generosity for empowering and purifying the mind also presupposes an extremely refined awareness of the causalities involved with intentional or kammic activity.

One person may use his or her money to buy furniture for his or her apartment. Somebody else may use his or her money to remove furniture or even walls from his or her apartment. This may come from a refined understanding of the role of space in interior design. The results are very different. Both, though, understand the power of money to improve the living quarters. This understanding is the factor of ‘giving with the understanding that something will come of it,’ that is characteristic of a worthy person’s gift.

 

The Art of Regret

“How do you think it feels

when all you can say is ‘if only’ –

And when do you think it stops…”

Lou Reed

 

Regret – like divorce, failure, waste, dentist, or ABBA – is one of these words that are unpleasant to read, write and think about. There seems nothing uplifting here. But warnings – negative reinforcement or aversive conditioning as they are called by learning psychologists – play an important role in acquiring behavior. They make one learn faster and more deeply than any other way. For this type of learning process to be wholesome, it is essential that warnings are balanced by positive reinforcement and that negative reinforcements are reliable. The Buddha uses them quite frequently, though much more commonly with monastics than with lay people[53]. In general, negative reinforcement works best with strong and committed learners.  

 

Subjunctive modal auxiliaries such as ‘should have’ or ‘could have,’ not to mention ‘shouldn’t have,’ can drag a person into hell (S 42.7: if one believes that this is the inevitable destiny for an evil deed) as well as protracted and pointless misery in this world. Meditation teachers and psychologists would generally discourage unwholesome brooding and recommend moving on. But might one nourish the thought “I should have given more…” in the hope of encouraging the more prudent use of future opportunities? Or is beating oneself up about things past itself unwholesome, an act of self-hatred, as it were?

Fairly lucky are those who still have a choice in the matter. Dramatic are the Buddha’s descriptions of people who are haunted by unwholesome actions. They worry being discussed in public, they worry in face of the law, their deeds may cast a shadow of darkness over their minds when they are all by themselves (all M 129[54]). Abortion trauma syndrome as well as many other kinds of post traumatic stress disorder and depression are some psychiatrically recognized versions of this experience. The symptoms vary widely from not being able to sleep or being scared to get near sleep because of the nightmares, to being unable to concentrate on anything, compensation through substance abuse and inability to function in relationships and/or employment.

However, also celestial beings may experience remorse about not having done enough. In A 9.19 the Buddha tells of heavenly beings visiting him. Those who did not fully use their opportunity to respect, support, question ascetics and put received teachings into practice felt remorseful. They ended up in heavenly realms but, having seen the results of kamma, they felt sorry about having wasted precious opportunities. Those who had no regrets said to the Buddha:

“Formerly, Blessed One, when we were human beings, ascetics came to our houses. We attended to them, greeted them respectfully, offered them seats, gave according to ability, sat down with them to hear the teaching, listened attentively, retained the teaching, explored the meaning and, having understood, practiced accordingly.” Those who did only part of these, had remorse about those factors which they omitted. How central this sequence is to the realization of truth becomes clear in M 95 (also M 70 end), where the remaining factors for realizing the teaching to the end are given in full. Almsround is such a common feature in the dominantly Buddhist countries of South East Asia that it is easy to overlook the opportunities that come with this institution.

This sutta on the remorseful deities is given not to lay people but monks, concluding in a strong admonition to be serious about their meditation practice:

“There are these roots of trees, these empty huts. Meditate, bhikkhus, do not delay or else you will regret it later.” [55]

Perhaps the Buddha would encourage a sober self-admonition that one could and should have given more in the same way that professional athletes push themselves: “Give everything,” or in a way that one encourages a child: “That was good but you can do better.” Important with such an approach to self-coaching would be that there is no element of self-loathing and that the process is consciously designed to inspire the development of further wholesome states. Even a competitive, judging attitude – often criticized by modern meditation teachers – is actually encouraged by the Buddha if used skillfully[56]. In fact, much of noble friendship is precisely about this kind of mutual push effect (e.g. S 14, last chapter). At M 68, the Buddha tells monks that the reason he declares disciples’ attainments is that others, who knew them, can take them as an example in an “if they can do it, so can I”-model of competition. Giving up or generosity (caga) is mentioned as one of these objects of comparison. In this way, urging oneself on to greater generosity is explicitly a factor, not only in merit making, but awakening itself.     

The Buddha says that joyous reflection on giving before during and after the offering is highly meritorious (A 6.37), as is delighting in somebody else’s offering. M 99 teaches how to inspire oneself with one’s own generosity to abandon ‘negativity’ such as hatred and ill will.

 

Many South East Asian Buddhists believe that giving together leads to having wealth and many friends when the offering ripens (DhpA xxx). This is quite likely. The Buddha says to Nandapita that couples may be reborn in the same place if their virtue is similar and it is their wish (A 4.55).

Under no circumstances should one regret having given something as one loses the ability to enjoy the kammic results of the gift. An incidence from the time of the Buddha illustrates this point. One day King Pasenadi told the Buddha that an extremely wealthy guild master had just died without an heir, so his entire estate fell to the king (S 3.20). He had been known to live extremely cheap, dressing badly, eating the worst food and driving a dilapidated cart. The Buddha told the king that this guild master had, in a previous rebirth been born as a landlord. One day he had someone give food to a Pacceka-Buddha[57]. Later he regretted his good deed, thinking that he should have better kept the food for the workers. He was reborn seven times in heaven and seven times as a rich guild master but he was not able to enjoy any of his wealth. The regret essentially took the wish to give joy away from the offering, so that is what the guild master inherited: wealth without joy. This seems to happen frequently, as stories from the world of the frustrated rich document.

 

The Gift

“I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.” Antonio Porchia 

 

In many cases, the gift will be a material. As we noted above, human beings continually need objects to survive: food, drink, clothes and large amounts of other objects are required or desired to keep the body reasonably pain free, many more to make it a source of comfort or pride. The mind and the other senses have their own needs, for knowledge, security, beauty, choice, love, respect etc. All these objects have to come from somewhere and usually their flow in the human realm is somewhat ill-apportioned. Everybody is lacking something some of the time but many also have extra resources and thus we get trade and giving. 

Of key importance in both trade and the art of giving is knowing what the other person wants or needs. One way of finding out is asking but occasionally the needy being cannot or does not want to say what he or she wants. Often they may not even know or they may not know the nomenclature. Sometimes, they do not even know that they have use or need for something but something may exist that would improve their lives substantially[58]. This vacuity is a great field of practice for the artist.

Careful listening to clues, sensible direct or indirect inquiry, empathy, creative imagination and even plain product information all make substantial differences.

 

Not only the above-mentioned timing but also time itself, is a great part of this offering: time for investigation, time for acquiring, time for delivering. Sometimes time spend being with somebody or being available for someone is a great gift. Much of psychotherapy manages to sell just this product at hundred, two hundred dollar or more for a 50-minute hour [59].

Furthermore, no matter how independent we may be, getting things we do not need can be a stress factor, while timely help or acquisition can provide tremendous relief. Many of these skills are part of the detailed Buddhist monks’, nuns’ and novices’ training when they learn how to attend on their teachers, senior monks or visiting monks (Cv 8).

 

A curious modern form of gift is found in something that might be termed ‘anarchist giving[60].’ Motivated originally by political and philosophical views about ownership and requisitioning according to needs (“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” as Karl Marx said), it has become a widespread virtue in western alternative circles. While almost nobody – except some Buddhists J – maintains any longer that ‘property is theft’ (Proudhon) in any practical sense[61], many in the alternative spectrum have private philosophies about society and ownership that put them unostentatiously among the most generous people around. Often these people are extremely openhanded to let others help themselves to their property, live at their places or use their skills in the most matter of fact way. They may perform high quality work for free, occasionally creating powerful institutions or attractive living conditions with alternative economies in the process. Squatter movements, free food kitchens, successful alternative educational institutions or the internet with its ubiquitous free quality help, free programs and file sharing world are more visible manifestations of this culture of generosity. The usually local systems are at times of great sophistication, as they attract interest from some of the most intelligent people in western society. Most of this generosity is practiced by individuals in their own way. At the core of this elegant type of gift giving is a quest for character formation and high personal standards and this appears to be achieved frequently. Certainly the groups and initiatives that emerged from this generosity have been attractive enough to engender much corporate envy and style emulation.

 

A similar, less politically motivated subset of offerings are repair and maintenance jobs, a field in which many rarely recognized master givers are found. With humble joy, these amateurs and experts spend endless hours in finding and fixing the numerous problems of a constantly ageing and dying object world. Just having a person like that around can substantially reduce stress levels for many people. While spending time with manual labor is constantly discouraged for monks[62], the Buddha praises a monk who is dedicated to this form of generosity (A 5.234) which indicates the careful respect for the offerings from the laity the Buddha emphasized.

 

A gift will often be a material object but it may also be a teaching. Universities sell knowledge with spectacular profits as do bookshops, TV stations and many kinds of lecturers. Many people consider a thousand or two thousand dollars for a weekend seminar a good investment. If the teacher is good, that will often demonstrably be the case. Hundred to two hundred thousand dollars teaching fees for a bachelors degree in a top university is considered by so many people a reliably profitable investment that these places can accept only a tiny fraction of applicants[63].

The material learned in these universities affect only part of this short lifespan as a human being. The lifespan of the heavenly realm closest to the human, however, is already nine million years. For comparison, the currently held view of the palaeoanthropologists community is that the earliest creature that can be considered having anything in common with human beings is Sahelanthropus tchadensis, around seven or eight million years ago. These scientists, however, are not even certain whether this creature was terrestrial. The somewhat malleable term ‘homo sapiens’ that describes our species is, if used for creatures who have the same anatomical features as modern human beings, no more than a 130 000 years old, the earliest hominids who use shelters clock in around 300 000 years ago. The Buddha with his psychic powers might possibly have a quite different view of evolution – paleontology itself changes its views still regularly according to new findings – but these comparisons show of how much greater value a teaching leading to a profitable rebirth can be, let alone one leading to the end of all suffering. The Buddha expresses this in the famous line ‘sabbadanam dhammadanam jinati,’ ‘the gift of the Dhamma exceeds all other gifts’ (Dhp 354).

 

Important for empowering the factor of the gift is that the offering, whether large or small, is perceived to be of quality (A 8.37; A 5.147). The opposite would be something that is discarded or to be discarded, giving away while clearing out. Again, this perception is reflective of the value a noble person assigns to the act of giving, expressed in empathy for the recipient and by the purifying power of the act.

While this factor is dominantly one of perception, it is remarkable how consistent perception can be. It is often pointed out how different people like different things, as though perceptions were entirely individual. If there were not widespread agreement as to what beauty, taste and quality are, however, there would not be such exorbitant price tags attached to those people, performances or products commonly perceived to be excellent. It is true that these preferences change with time, culture etc. so it is perhaps not so much the absolute truth of beauty that manifests itself, as the power of certain creations – namely those of people with a lot of good kamma – to attract interest. Corporate trend-creation and -prophesy has been quite an unsuccessful ‘science,’ as though these things are not that easy to predict, other than in retrospect J. Advertising, on the other hand, i.e. the association with what is already considered attractive, is much more successful. In other words, we seem to be unable to change how something feels to us, but what new products we will like seems too complex to predict[64] – possibly because of the kammic factor. This is also suggested by the fact that many of the great inventors or discoverers are hardly known; sometimes their contributions are attributed to others or valued only after they are long dead. 

 

Occasionally the Buddha mentions that gifts can have specific results. Rather than providing amorphous, convertible wealth – i.e. money – returns can also be in the particular area one has supplied. When, how exclusively or consistently this is so, the texts don’t give away. Perhaps one could compare the situation to somebody who always likes to invite people for dinner. Apart from enjoying the developing friendships, he may become popular and people will be inclined to help out in any way. Nonetheless, there will be a tendency for people to invite him for food or to bring food along. Somebody making their offerings in another way may attract favors more in that field. This makes sense also in so far as we usually support those things that we are interested in ourselves. In case one gives purely what someone else wants or needs, one would expect that the result is that one will be supported in whatever one’s interest is in.

The Buddha suggests or presents results in different forms.

S 42.9 states on request that

• one who gives food gives strength,
• one who gives clothes gives beauty,
• one who gives a vehicles gives happiness,
• one who gives a lamp gives vision (cakkhu),
• one who gives a dwelling gives everything and
• one who teaches the Dhamma, gives the deathless.

To some degree these may be just examples to illustrate the point of giving instructions towards the deathless. In addition, as will be discussed below, somebody who gives food, for example, gives also happiness. Intention may further accentuate aspects. But the sequence indicates the inclination of acts as ripening towards their tangible effect, something that is further illustrated in the following suttas.

A 5.37 says that one who offers almsfood, gives long life, beauty, happiness, strength and wit (patibhana). Making others happiness results in happiness, the text continues, and fame and long life await him or her, wherever they may be reborn.

In A 4.58, the Buddha says to Anathapindika that by offering alms one gives long life and therefore, that is what one receives. Offering alms, one gives beauty and so one will become beautiful. Offering alms, one gives happiness and strength and therefore one reaps happiness and strength, whether that kamma ripens in the human or heavenly realms.

Occasionally this list is, as it were boosted up by mentioning that the experience of each of the five senses is enhanced through the acts of generosity (e.g. A 8.36; D 30). In other words, what one gets to see is dependent on what one provided. As with many kammic results this is a curious consideration when one feels repelled by countryside, overawed by cityscape, or if one feels entitled to critique current cinema or TV. This causality also suggests that giving up sights, sounds etc. in other ways, for example through sense-restraint, is creating a directly proportional effect on future perception[65].

 

It seems that the resultant experience of giving is always one of general happiness but slanted slightly towards the area one gave the most weight to. In other words, giving food with an emphasis on health would create a slightly different experience to giving food with the intention to providing an indulgence. The mention of ‘wit’ as a result points to the necessity of being adequately fed before one can accomplish anything much with the mind. Perhaps an emphasis on ‘brain-foods’ would highlight that return.

The Buddha says that kamma is intention[66], because based on intention one acts (A 6.63). With regard to the result, the effect or benefit one creates, seems to play a kind of independent role, though. Most people would not consider that offering food is giving beauty or wit. Still, they create those effects and consequently reap the results for them.

D 30, the Lakkhana Sutta, explains the kammic origin of the somewhat obscure marks of a great man that Buddhas and world-ruling emperors have in common. There, the Buddha says that because of offering fine food he was reborn in heaven; on return to this world he received excellent food and ‘seven convex surfaces of the body,’ presumably meaning that he was  strong, good-looking and able-bodied rather than haggard. Obviously, this is because that is what the given food resulted in.

In the physical mark following this, he was also giving but with the intention to create friendship and harmony or win people for a good cause. In this case, the result is that his following is well disposed towards him, i.e. they like and respect him, much like the result of giving with respect discussed above (from A 5.148). As physical marks, he receives soft, tender and ‘netted’ hands and feet. These marks must have some benefit, so they may give a cultured or otherwise attractive and competent air to their owner. The symbolism implied seems to be that giving with the hand or walking, ‘going’ to help, results in the particular attractiveness of those subconsciously highly suggestive body parts.

In an elusive combination of traits, another aspect of giving in that sutta was not becoming angry and giving of clothes. Dr. Hecker, in discussing the text, ingeniously suggests that this meant bestowing clothes as signs of honor, i.e. uniforms or other kinds of apparel, especially as an act of diplomacy, to curb feeling of anger towards the donor. Whatever the situation may have been, the result was heaven and, on return, obtaining excellent clothing and, as physical characteristic, golden skin. The skin is our natural clothing, so the symbolism is not difficult to follow. It is interesting in this context to consider how desperate a concern for many people the color and tone of their skin is. In Asia, where one would expect people to naturally have a perfect middle ground between dark and light skin, seventy percent of cosmetics are said to be or contain whiteners. The amount of money spend on tanning the skin in northern countries is likely similar.

 

These examples introduce a further level of specifics, those of manifestation of deeds in the physical appearance. While D 30 explains only the extreme manifestations of physiognomy, it is safe to assume that physical effects will occur to lesser degrees with all intentional deeds. This result is given as ‘beauty’ but it is remarkable to which degree it is specific and to what extend our bodies are symbolic.

Evolutionary science has spent much energy trying to decipher body language and attributes in mating behavior and has come to the same conclusion. For example, a peacock can be deprived of a mating season, simply by trimming a few of the decorative ‘eyes’ out of his plumes, i.e. even if the size is the same. The decoration makes him vulnerable to attack from predators and taking this risk demonstrates his self-confidence in his strength, something that has been termed ‘the handicap principle.’ Size really matters here to the peahens, in spite the fact that the peacock in question did nothing in this life to grow his particular hairstyle – it’s hard to know whether he has even a clue what it looks like – nor did the hen do anything to cultivate her preference. In fact, it is surprising that a creature with such a small brain can so rapidly count the eyes in the plumes during their brief display.

Endless combinations of desirable traits and ‘imaginative’ symbolisms make up the colorful variety of the world we inhabit. Most of it is not playful fun but bitterly serious survival strategy. With every detail of their appearance, people tell us a story about their past character that something in our subconscious is able to decipher and respond to in varying specialized fields. In this way, we get the odd abilities of some people to always find partners who later turn out violent, alcoholic or childishly dependent, others who attract opportunity and luck wherever they go[67]. All this, even though this changing influence is mixed up with the their ageing process, current character influences, cultural fads and to varying degrees attempts at correction.        

 

The most psychological specificity mentioned with regard to giving is that of providing protection – that is from oneself. A 8.39 lists the five virtuous abstentions from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication as gifts uncontroversially appraised by sages. Three specific psychological reciprocities are mentioned for each of these five ‘great gifts,’ considered to be given to countless beings.

• Giving fearlessness, one obtains fearlessness. By no means all fear is unwholesome. Fear of wrongdoing, fear of bad rebirth, fear of samsara are all wholesome as they powerfully motivate one to be careful and good. Most fears, however, are unwholesome and to frightening degrees at that. Phobias of endless variety, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, hypochondriasis, anorexia and bulimia are a sample of extremely serious psychiatric disorders that will typically debilitate and stigmatize a person, often also his or her family, not rarely for life. In all these cases, unreasonable fear has gotten out of control. In many more cases, fear is sublimated into aggression, depression, schizoid withdrawal from society or substance abuse. This is only the tail end of the darkness that fear spreads. People who experience war, ghettos, violent relationships, slavery, totalitarian governments, serious or dubious diseases, those lacking adequate health care or anybody else living in unsafe circumstances, all experience frequently reasonable, though hardly wholesome fears. The damage done by fear to economies and quality of life is hard to quantify but it will be astronomical: The military, police, insurances, a huge amount of medicine, all industries dealing with locks and security and many others focus their entire resources on the management of fear. To remove types of fear, e.g. that of being intentionally killed transforms the entire sense of being, sometimes of a whole nation. If human beings were to agree to just abstain from killing, likely all economic problems of the world would be solved at once.
• Giving freedom from hostility, one obtains freedom from hostility. Hostility must be the most unpleasant aspect of relationships. The fear to do something wrong that the hostile person may come to know and take advantage of, the constant potential for escalation and the uncertainty of the status quo, all can ruin an otherwise pastoral or exciting life experience. Almost always the perceived need to defend oneself will result in unwholesome thought, speech, and action. Unwholesome thoughts about a foe and suspicions in even marginally reminiscent situations may recur for decades after the hostile person or group has disappeared from the horizon. To cut out causes for hostilities creates the trust that is necessary for so many kinds of exploration and development.
• Giving freedom from oppression, one obtains freedom from oppression. The generalized term ‘oppression’ broadly covers remaining forms of tense situations. Oppressive governments, oppressive church policies such as inquisition, oppressive educational systems all refer to hostile limitations on free, wholesome development of ideas. As can be seen in the mentality of people under totalitarian governments, sometimes long after their rule has been terminated, the effects of oppression are not only painful but deeply unwholesome. Distrust, lack of taking responsibility and compensatory behavior of all kinds are some typical results, that appear sometimes to be like a crippling of character[68]. 

These are kammic results, i.e. they belong to that mysterious, invisible force ripening quietly in the subconscious mind to attract specifically multiplied pleasant or unpleasant circumstances. In other words, the (absent) fear, hostility and oppression mentioned are not just due to the absence of conflict as one abstains from unwholesome conduct now.

The psychological causality shows how also many other kinds of abstention and renunciation, to be discussed below, create specific baseline feelings for a life. Especially in the case of virtuous restraint this is of central importance in the teaching of the Buddha, as the result is requisite for the development of unification of mind. The mind has to withdraw into itself, away from interest in the senses. Internally and externally harmonious circumstances – freedom from fear, hostility, oppression – are the most important foundation for this collecting or sinking in of the heart (e.g. D 2[69], D 16: the repeated talks). Unification or samadhi in turn is the indispensable foundation for the liberating vision of unbiased wisdom as all other wisdom is fleeting and colored by preference. All necessary happiness must be coming from inside to judge the world and the perception of self accurately.

The refined appreciation for these far reaching results of the crude seeming restraints is the core of the highest attainments beings are capable of (e.g. D 16; D 33/4 [70]).   

The Recipient

“Give gifts to those who should know love...” Ntozake Shange

 

The recipient is the factor of giving most elusive to common sense. We understand that different intentions or the quality of a gift make for different results. That the invisible virtue of the recipient should affect the destination of the donor, though, does not seem fair. It would appear that this is a factor largely determined by chance, mostly imperceptible at the time of the offering.

Although the Buddha encourages generosity of many kinds, rebirth affecting donations are explained always as being those to samanas and brahmanas, i.e. religious people who have made a deliberate commitment to purifying restraint by exposing themselves to dependency on generosity, often to poverty.

One problem with this focus is that it can give rise to selfish speculation and rumors about different peoples’ virtue. This in turn may lead to a lack of compassion to those in need of generosity. Social projects may receive insufficient funding because the recipients – poor, sick, persecuted people – are considered to be of little merit, as monks reputed to be enlightened amass vast fortunes. All the while, nearby monasteries, in some cases monks within the same monastery, may suffer genuine deprivation. Some monks may even be tempted to misrepresent their own or fellow monks attainments to encourage support (Pj 4). For a monk or nun it is one of the very few transgressions meriting immediate, irrevocable expulsion from the order to lie about having higher attainments. In the origin story to the rule this happened because there was a shortage of food. The Buddha commented that those monks would have been better off by cutting open their stomach with a butchers knife and die than to lie about higher monastic attainments[71].

 

While this is really happening, it needs to be said that the trickledown effect works on the whole fine where this understanding is dominant. Begging and hunger in Buddhist countries are rare; it is easy to obtain free food, education and accommodation from monasteries.

At S 3.24 King Pasenadi asks the Buddha when one should give. The Buddha replies that one should give when the heart delights in it (cittam pasidati). The king asks further, when generosity bears great fruit. The Buddha replies that this is a different matter altogether; generosity bears fruit dependent on the purity of the recipient.

‘Fruit’ here is a technical term, similar to ‘returns.’ While returns on an investment are the raison d’etre for business transactions, no moderately well-informed person would maintain that they are the only concern in business. The welfare and happiness of employees is important and lucrative for businesses. Many businesses take up roles in social projects or in society, such as buying supplies from local, more expensive suppliers or producing within their home country rather than in cheaper developing countries. This is not bad but good business; it is an investment into the identity of the corporation. While sinister motives are easy to attribute to wholesome initiatives from businesses – not least because many make hardly a secret of them – it is also important to remember that executives are human beings who somehow have to live with their conscience or may be looking for a legacy.

Similarly, giving should be done as an expression of a mature character, be that compassion, delight in making people happy or expressing gratitude. Not to do so would be stingy. Stinginess is one manifestation of ‘poverty consciousness’: a fear-based aggressive response to one’s fellow beings, rooted in overestimation of material security and ignorance about the ways of obtaining it. Dhanapala, a hungry ghost quoted in the Petavatthu put it like this:

“I don’t know either food or drink.

As is the withholding, so will be the destruction,

As is the destruction, so has been the withholding;

Hungry ghosts know this well:

As is the withholding, so will be the destruction.”(Pv 2.7/237[72])

Stinginess is the most important purpose of giving and it shares it’s specificity of results with giving and other intentional deeds. Excessive attachment to ‘financial’ result is giving undue importance to material objects and too little to character, the result being fear, isolation, pain. The results of overcoming stinginess is profound joy (A 6.10), as if heavy load were lifted that prevents one from flying.

 

The Buddha is the teacher providing the most detailed instruction on the law of kamma. The word kamma or karma is often translated as ‘action’ and explained as commonsensical causality. This obscures the fact, though, that this causality is hidden, in its entirety even from some of the most powerful mystics (M 136). Even those with a good feeling for kammic causality may misjudge it, just as many expert mathematicians misjudge probability. One of the more strange aspects of this law is that of returns on giving.

Since it is necessary and useful to have good practice conditions, the Buddha teaches this[73]. Replying to King Pasenadi’s question, the Buddha gives him a simile: Suppose, faced with the prospect of war, he were recruiting men to the military in order to defend his country. Would he choose feeble, timid cowards? Of course not. One should help wherever one can but in order to create a stronghold in samsara, it is wise to invest some of one’s resources into good returns. This also enables one to give abundantly to every cause one wishes to support in the future. Overall, the logic is very similar to that of running a successful business. Striking the right balance is the key to well-rounded success.

Consequently, the way different gifts bear fruit depending on the recipient is given in M 142 in tangible figures:

”…by giving a gift to an animal, the offering may be expected to repay a hundredfold. By giving to an immoral person, the offering may be expected to repay a thousandfold. By giving to a virtuous person, the offering may be expected to repay a hundred-thousandfold. By giving to one outside (Buddhism) who is free from lust for sensual pleasures, the offering may be expected to repay a hundred-thousand times a hundred-thousandfold. By giving to one who has entered upon the way to the realization of the fruit of streamentry, the offering may be expected to repay incalculably, immeasurably. What then, should be said about giving to a streamenterer?”

The discourse continues through higher attainments in this way. At the top of the hierarchy are gifts to the monastic community in various constellations. The Buddha concludes:

“In future times, Ananda, there will be members of the clan who are ‘yellow-necks,’ immoral, of evil character. People will give gifts to those immoral persons for the sake of the Sangha. Even then, I say, an offering made to the Sangha is incalculable, immeasurable. And I say that in no way does a gift to a person individually ever have greater fruit than an offering made to the Sangha.”

In other words, to give to degenerate Bangkok drug addicts with an ordination, may bear greater results than giving to a fully enlightened Buddha. Strange as that sounds, it makes some kind of sense. Giving to a person tends to be guided by personality traits, as awakening itself cannot be perceived, especially by those of lesser attainment. This can create a kind of dependency on a particular teacher, with all the dangers of a personality cult. Often the donor will be excessively focused on how the gift is received or on being known to and liked by the guru, all of which are attachments to an assumed personality. When the teacher dies or falls from grace, these disciples are often left without refuge, sometimes they turn away from development altogether (A 5.250). There have been many such instances in the recent past alone.

On the other hand, the mind that wishes to support a ‘faceless’ order of monastics is much more open. It recognizes the value of the organization as a platform for liberation. This function can be found, albeit impaired, even in somewhat degenerate monasteries. The teaching is usually there, the possibility to live a renunciant’s lifestyle according to the Buddha’s prescription is there and the monastery may provide a place for lay people to practice. It is remarkable, how many people – lay or monastic – manage to do good, serious practice in degenerate monasteries. Also, many monastics may be degenerate in their lifestyle but nonetheless have a reasonably good understanding of the teaching and respect for good practice. Revivals of the dispensation, some to giddy heights, have inevitably come out of these low quality institutions[74]. Without them, these revivals would not have happened. 

This teaching is also practical in another, very economical way. Many resources are wasted by centralization, i.e. people’s desire to give to monks they consider most virtuous. Having often spend their lives by themselves in forests, these monks are often not good managers. As a result the wealth of some of these monasteries spoils the monks and the practice situation, for example, by generating noisy and dirty building projects, often for buildings that attract tourism to the monastery. If people understood that they can make the same or more merit if they were to support small, poor monasteries with the right kind of intention, support for the cause of awakening might be allocated much more wisely.

 

The Velama Sutta

“… what to say of food and drink, hard and soft, dainties and delicacies; me thinks they flowed like rivers.”

“… far greater is it to cultivate even a momentary whiff of loving-kindness; far greater than that is the realization of impermanence, even if just for the time of a finger snap.”(A 9.20)

 

The sutta that deals most comprehensively with the kammic results of giving, especially the transformative power of great recipients and it’s place in the hierarchy of good deeds, is the Velama Sutta (A 9.20).

Anathapindika, the banker foremost among Buddhist lay men in generosity, had ended up in deep financial dire straights and was disappointed at being unable to support the Sangha in grand style as he used to. So the Buddha asked him, whether alms were given at his house. Anathapindika answered that coarse red rice and a soup were served. The Buddha replied that, independent of what one may have to give, if it is offered without respect and politeness, not in person, mere scraps and without faith in the kammic result, the donor will not find enjoyment in sensual pleasures when the result ripens. Furthermore, his women, children and employees will not respect him. One who offers whatever he has attentively and with respect, however, will have  senses that incline to enjoyment and he or she will be respected. These results were already discussed above with under various aspects of parting (A 5.148). Here, the teaching serves the purpose of cheering Anathapindika up by diverting the focus from the object (he didn’t have much to give) to the attitude with which it is given. – Note that the Buddha does not make the point of proportional result (e.g. giving ten percent), as though more giving does generate more result independent of proportion (this will be discussed in more detail below).

The Buddha continues to tell the story of a great offering during a previous rebirth of his as a Brahmin by the name of Velama:

“Once upon a time, householder, lived a Brahmin by the name of Velama. He made the following offering, an enormous offering.” He gave away

• 84 000 golden vessels filled with silver;
• 84 000 silver vessels filled with gold;
• 84 000 bronze vessels filled with jewels;
• 84 000 elephants adorned, flagged and netted in golden nets;
• 84 000 carts covered in lion, tiger and panther skins, yellow wooly covers, and covered with golden nets like the elephants;
• 84 000 cows, covered in silk and hung with bronze milk vessels;
• 84 000 virgins adorned with jeweled earrings;
• 84 000 beds, with white woolen, antelope skins, luxury coverlets and crimson pillows at both ends;
• 84 000 sets of clothes [75] from finest linen, silk, wool and cotton.
• Delicious food and drinks in quantities comparable to rivers.

 

As a slightly frivolous indulgence – and out of respect for the great gift – it is interesting to try to assess what this kind of offering would be worth in modern day currency. Nothing in the text indicates what period in history this offering took place or what any of the items were worth at the time.

Numbers such as 84 000 seem to be sometimes used as rough equivalents, in the way we use ‘thousands’ or ‘millions.’ In a ceremonial offering such as this, it would appear likely, though, that it represents a real figure. If one were to assume conservatively and broadly that each single item was worth between ten and twenty thousand dollars that would amount to $11 340 000 000 (eleven billion, three hundred forty million dollars) without food and other logistic expenses[76].

Only few modern sports stadiums are able to hold 84 000 people. Demonstrations with around fifty thousand people take at least half an hour to pass, beginning and end never being both in sight; numbers of demonstrations with hundred thousand participants are very difficult to guess from the ground. Streets and side streets are all clogged up, movements are erratic, beginnings and endings elusive. How 84 000 elephants with their volatile tempers and need for two hundred fifty kilogram of food daily could be handled in a single event is hard to imagine. Almost certainly, each one would need his own mahout. Cows may be more docile but the sheer numbers, the complex adornment and simultaneity of the events makes imagining these offerings a feat on its own. Vast open areas with access to water etc. and near enough to the bleachers for presentation would be required. Preparations for this kind of offering very likely took several years.

That the virgins are described as bejeweled indicates that they were meant to be wives. If they had to be coached for the event or their virginity needed to be ascertained, a large hospital or similar facility would be required with those numbers. Since these girls are listed as treasures here, it can safely be assumed that they did not come on their own. Attendants, relatives, friends would likely make up several times their numbers, possibly comparable to a wedding party each. Add spectators, workers and recipients and a million people at the event would appear to be a conservative guess, two million could be possible. The Olympics at Atlanta cost 2.3 billion dollars and if one were to take this as some kind of guiding figure, the entire offering could be broadly estimated to come to somewhere between ten and twenty billion dollars.

 

In recent times donations of over ten billion dollars have been made for the first time in modern history. One was by Bill Gates to his own charity, and more recently, in 2006, the largest donation ever (roug forty billion dollars, depending on the fluctuation of share prices) by Warren Buffet who managed in this way to exceed all donations of Carnegie, Rockefeller and Gates Foundations combined. His offering is a pledge to be given annually over twenty years, though, and since he was born in 1930, i.e. is in his late seventies, it likely takes almost the form of a bequest. Given these modifiers, it is likely that the Brahmin Velama’s offering may be the greatest offering at a single event known to mankind.

May this playful digression serve to illustrate the almost shocking points that the Buddha makes next: because there was no worthy recipient, the merit obtained was comparatively modest: by far more meritorious than the entire offering of Velama is it to feed a single streamenterer[77]. Far more meritorious than even that is it to feed a hundred streamenterers. Again, far more meritorious is it to feed only one once-returner. The text continues this pattern through all possible attainments, the highest merit with regard to food being obtained by offering food to a Sangha with the Buddha at it’s head (as in M 142).

A small question on the side here is whether the amount of food offered to one streamenterer or a hundred is meant to be the same to obtain the higher result; or whether it is simply the greater amount of food that makes for the greater merit. Certainly, it is remarkable enough, that feeding one once-returner should be more meritorious than feeding a hundred streamenterers. The defiling factor of even moderate differences in greed and hatred is shown to be truly enormous here. Also, however, the logic of Sanghadana, i.e. the perception of offering to a quasi faceless group rather than an individual would appear to account for the difference. This might not have been meant here, though, because in that case an offering to a hundred streamenterers would be greater than that to one once-returner: “In no case does an offering made to an individual ever have greater fruit than one made to a Sangha.“(M 142). 

 

How truly commonsense-defying the results of kamma are is the theme of the remainder of the sutta. Describing these realities is a theme that runs like a thread through the Buddha’s instruction, whether in teachings on kamma (M 142), the rebuke of monks who take it easy (see the origin stories of most monastic rules; A 7.68), rebukes of those who think they can judge others (A 10.75/A 6.44, A 10.89/S 6.10; A 10.88/A 11.6) or lightheartedly profess wrong views (M 22, M 38, M 136). Much of this mission has been lost, both in countries in which Buddhism is quasi state-religion as well as in the sanitized Buddhism of ever-smiling Buddhas that appeals to psychologically oriented Westerners in touch with their feelings. The already mentioned downplaying, distortion or abandoning of the rebirth theme of the teaching, the loss of the contemplative aspect of formal meditation (M 19, A 5.26) the watering down of ideological discrepancy or monastic restraints and consequent manufacture of loopholes are some results of this descent. Since even experienced and attained followers of the Buddha repeatedly underestimate these causalities, we presumably all have a sense of disbelief with regard to them; if not, our progress would be ever so rapid. Analysis of the occurrences shows that it is particularly the wisdom aspect that goes undetected (see especially A 10.75; for remedy see especially M 70 end) but also the nature of purity (see especially A 6.39).   

 

The Buddha says that far greater than this feeding of the Sangha with the Buddha at it’s head is building a monastery – the word ‘vihara’ can also mean dwelling – available for the entire Sangha (rather than a specific monk or group of monks). Perhaps the greater commitment and vision account for this difference. Food may be given with much more short-term perception and less responsibility attached. In a building project, a lot can go wrong that might be hard to redress. The faith in the institution, i.e. the Sanghadana effect, would therefore typically be more pronounced.

 

The next jump to a far more meritorious result in this sutta is even more elusive: Taking refuge in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha with a faithful heart[78] makes for a lot more merit than the great gift. It is hard to assess how this ripening happiness will play out in real lives. This is the first kamma in the list that actually opens the doors to realizing the deathless and in this it is truly immeasurable. Whether experienced happiness independent of this highest result – which many who do take refuge will in no related time or even ever experience – is superior to that of freedom and independence of mature wealth or heaven is open to conjecture. Possibly this is especially so because it is so relatively hard to fathom. A passage at the end of the Alagaddupama Sutta (M 22) suggests that this might just be so:

“Bhikkhus, the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus is clear, open, evident, and free of patchwork. In the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus… those bhikkhus who have sufficient faith in me, sufficient love for me, are all headed for heaven” (as though the faith would be able to dilute or override the many unwholesome deeds that those monks may have performed at varying times[79].)

 

Another open point is whether this taking refuge is meant to be the point of conversion or every instance of the contemplative reaffirmation that many Buddhists do daily in their recitations or weekly during the requesting of precepts. One could expect it to refer to the point of conversion, though contemplation of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha are said often to transcendent and liberating experiences. Taking refuges might just be the meritorious groundwork for these transforming meditations. Probably the experience, the elated feeling of the commitment carries the merit and this just tends to be more pronounced at the initial turning point. 

 

The next jump to far greater merit poses again more questions. The Buddha says that taking the five precepts of abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxicants with a confident heart results in this greater benefit. As mentioned above, A 8.39 describes this commitment as generating immeasurable amounts of freedom from fear, hostility and oppression, as one provides these forms of happiness to being by adhering to those inspired restraints.

Questions remain, though: Again, is the first commitment or every contemplative effort meant? Would beings be able to get these result if the restraints are accepted in the context of a non-Buddhist teaching, i.e. without the liberation aspect? Or are these high-end results promised only in the context of acquired understanding of the noble eightfold path, i.e. in the context of understanding virtue as foundation for the unified mind (samadhi) that forms the basis for liberating wisdom? Or at least in the context of having taken refuges? In these cases, the miraculous results would appear to be really the result of wisdom. Similar or higher wisdom, however, may also be at work when building a monastery.

 

The next two and final jumps to far greater merit carry similar problems. Far greater than taking precepts is generating universal loving-kindness (metta-citta), even if it were only for a moment (gandhúhanamattam, i.e. for the time of a fleeting scent). Following the logic of protection from A 8.39, one would expect it to be more meritorious to keep precepts for life than generating a fleeting moment of loving-kindness on a romantic full moon night but to live recklessly otherwise. Furthermore, one would expect that much of the previously mentioned merit making would be accomplished by some degree of universal loving-kindness, so what degree exactly is required to fulfill this factor?

 

Far more meritorious than this whiff of true love is a snap of a finger’s worth of contemplation of impermanence[80]. Again, the main questions about this would be those as to the degree of contemplation or insight. Taking refuge in the Dhamma, for example, would commonly constitute basically an insight into impermanence.

 

While these questions are left here to ponder, the important point of the hierarchy is that greater internal formation bears greater fruit. While giving can be done from a large variety of motives and mainly works on the givers attitude to material possessions, taking refuge implies an act of reverence, humility and commitment to internal development.

Taking precepts is an even greater dedication to internal formation. One voluntarily transforms one’s entire life into a minefield of possible transgressions for the purpose of internal change; this is totally different from an armchair commitment to Buddhism, not uncommon in academic circles. Even many meditators shy away from making such a commitment. Both oneself and other beings are taken seriously into consideration in the remaking of oneself, not on one’s own terms but on an external prescription – and all that at some sacrifice of personality, not just possession or affiliation.

In the practice of loving-kindness a further categorical transformation of self-perception takes place. Precepts are essentially a protection of beings from the escalation of one’s own unwholesome thoughts; not the quality of one’s thoughts but the quality of the ‘censorship’ or control over their impact is the measure of success in this practice. The full experience of loving-kindness, however, is the abandoning of separation-perception and thereby the abandoning of all aversion. All beings are experienced here as equally lovable, equally easy to identify with in their desire for happiness and potential for growth; usually this means also their potential for error, which is why so much of loving-kindness practice basically boils down to finding (sometimes unlikely J) excuses for beings peculiar behaviors. When the mind truly accepts this perception, a deeply internal transformation, a transcendence, takes place. A large part of the personality obsession that is the fuel of the samsaric hell ride is overcome, the overwhelmingly dominant experience is not that of separate personalities but unity.

The step to perception of impermanence is again categorically more ‘internal.’ Internal is put in parenthesis here because all forms of experience are perceived as always foreign, empty, painful (M 109, M 112, M 147), in other words ‘external.’ Only this type of experience can liberate from repeated rebirth, since it is perfectly possible to crave (impermanent) existences in which one experiences oneself as one with others (M 1).   

Even the sutta’s strong point of exulting the recipient may ultimately or at least commonly be a kammic reflection of earlier attraction to enlightened company, i.e. some profound internalization of the existential situation. All this bears remembering in a discussion of power-dana because it drives home the always applicable principle that greater ‘taking to task’ the fatal self-attraction is resulting in often bewilderingly increased merit, i.e. resultant happiness. Characteristic of Dhamma as refuge is that it is always leading onward and onward means always inward (opanayiko).

 

Suffice it to assume that the Buddha succeeded in convincing Anathapindika that – having masterly executed the entire course of merit making described here – he was doing comparably well, even without providing prodigious banquets to monks on a daily basis. Shortly after, by the way, the banker recovered his wealth, so even that problem was impermanent.

Donation vs. Sacrifice

“Vajasravasa gave away all his possessions at a sacrifice; but it was out of desire for heaven. He had a son called Nachiketas who, although he was only a boy, had a vision of faith when the offerings were given and thus he thought: ‘This poor offering of cows that are too old to give milk and too weak to eat grass or drink water must lead to a world of sorrow.’” Katha Upanishad

 

Religious sacrifice is a subset of giving in that it relinquishes objects out of faith in a spiritual response or causality. It is different from giving in that the offering is not purified by the recipient – in commonsensical terms, the offering is useless to other beings. In the Buddha’s definition of right view the word ‘yañña’ describes this activity so important in Brahmanic culture: “There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed (yañña)” (e.g. M 117). In other words, sacrifice is a valid form of acquiring merit. 

This point is of little importance to most giving that Westerners engage in but it is very important in Asia. Huge amounts of offerings go each morning to ‘the Buddha,’ in the hope that the merit will be particularly great. This perception is based on the understanding that the Buddha – being perfectly pure and extremely virtuous – will be the perfect recipient to purify the offering. Unfortunately, he is dead, so these offerings are sacrifices that have no one to purify them and are eaten either by those who offer them, stray animals or simply thrown away.

So what will the merit of these offerings come to? On the positive side they are an expression of faith in and respect for the Buddha. They often go along with recitations, vows or prayers and support a devotional, contemplative moment of reverence and humility. These are aspects of religious life that most religions have in common and they satisfy deep human needs for creating a sense of guidance or belonging into some higher form of order. In this way, sacrifices like these are generally wholesome. The downside of this practice is that it may be the expression and consolidation of critical misunderstandings, i.e. wrong views.

Noteworthy, there is no format in the Pali for this kind of practice and the Buddha does not encourage offerings exclusively to him. In M 142 he downright rejects an offering of a robe from his foster mom, encouraging her to offer it instead to the Sangha for greater merit: “In no case does an offering made to an individual ever have greater fruit than one made to a Sangha.“

This is also in keeping with the definition of the refuges in which the Sangha – not the Buddha or the Dhamma – is described as being ‘the incomparable field of merit for the world’ (e.g. D 33/4). This ‘Sangha’ is sometimes explicitly called ‘Bhikkhusangha’ to distinguish it from the ‘Ariyasangha,’ or group of partly and fully awakened beings across human and divine statuses and M 142 shows that this Bhikkhusangha is what is meant with regard to purifying offerings. Canonically it is defined as being ‘of the four directions, present and yet to come.’ The commentary adds the dimension of the past (i.e. dead monks and nuns) but this is one of the wrong view that the formulation is meant to counter. Holy beings, especially Buddhas and the Sangha, tend to inflate to enormous numbers the later the Buddhism gets, as does the possibility to communicate with and request things from them; in the apocryphal Pure Land ‘Buddhism,’ the most extreme version of this degeneration, a so-called Buddha Amitabha even comes to take those who recite his name to a blissful heaven, from where they attain Nibbana automatically. Ten thousand Buddhas are small numbers in these circles, whereas the maximum number talked about by the Buddha himself is a modest seven over a staggering ninety-one eons.

In the teaching of the Buddha himself, Buddhas and their Sangha are extremely rare phenomena, which is why they need to be protected and taken advantage of with such urgency. In other words, the delusion (and loss) that those who offer food to the Buddha are subject to, is not due to some deep human need only: it has been put there by the often misleading authority of the monks who wrote the commentaries.

 

Jatilas, members of a groups of ascetics at the time of the Buddha who wore dreadlocks and who sacrificially tended fires are one of only two groups[81] to be allowed entering the monkhood from another religion without a three month probation, because they believe in kamma (Mv 1.38 end). In other words, their sacrificial tending of permanent fires as an aid to purification (“All is on fire” S 35.28), was in line with causalities that actually exist, rather than a superstitious waste of time[82]. No recipient is expected to receive anything and therefore there is no wrong view. Those ascetics who make offerings to a deceased Buddha or Sangha, however, just might have to do a probationary penance if they were to come from their beliefs into the true Buddha Sasana.

 

Ancestor Worship

“My grandfather explained about the spirit world, how the souls of our ancestors continue to need love and attention and devotion. Given these things, they will share in our lives and they will bless us and even warn us about disasters in our dreams. But if we neglect the souls of our ancestors, they will become lost and lonely and will wander around in the kingdom of the dead no better off than a warrior killed by his enemy and left unburied in a rice paddy to be eaten by blackbirds of prey.”

Robert Olen Butler

“We are not free, separate, and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way.” Thomas Mann

 

Sacrifices to deities are praised as engendering their blessings as are sacrifices to for dead relatives (A 5.58). The only beings who are said to be able to receive the merit of offerings in some material way, rather than by merely appreciating the gesture (and responding with ‘blessings’), are petas or ‘hungry ghosts’ (A 10.177). Equivalents to this realm are reported by visionaries of most religions. Ancestor worship seems to be all about this; in Greek and Roman Catholic Christianity they constitute the well-known teaching of the purgatory which also teach that these ‘souls’ can receive offerings made in this realm to the church, the controversial ‘indulgences’ that were a key factor in the Protestant schism [83].

The canonical Petavatthu reports these offerings to be of tremendous benefit to the hungry ghosts and if the presentation and the portrayed dominance of this form of rebirth are correct (see A 10.177; A 1.29), it makes sense that this should be encouraged.

A question that arises is why of all beings in dozens of other realms only these petas should be able to receive this kind of offering. There is no answer to this problem within the canon as for many similar curiosities, for example, why humans and animals share the same platform or what interference from or to other realms are possible.

Perhaps this phenomenon has something to do with the fact that a primary cause for birth in the ghost realm is the inability to let go of the previous human existence. Many of these beings do not seem to even know that they are dead and identify strongly with their previous existence[84]. One could imagine this to be similar to a situation in which a relative is in some form of want, need or distress in a foreign country. So long as there is some relatively good connection and the distress is of a certain type, one may be of tremendous help by sending a cheque. Once the connection is torn, money is not the problem because, for example, the relative has gone insane, or where he or she is no banking or postal service exists, a cheque is of no use and can not be received. It may be send, though, and, especially if there is some uncertainty, the sacrificial gesture may be much appreciated if it comes to attention. The giver him- or herself may feel a wholesome, meritorious sense of pride in their willingness to care and share.

The ‘prior connection’ aspect also sheds a different light on ancestor worship. Originally, this might not necessarily have been dominantly about the great virtues of relatives. Various sages etc. may have been known to have greater virtue than some deceased granddad who used to be drinking, complaining or emotionally absent. The granddad may, however, likely look for or expect support from those he used to  support (or should have supported J). Thereby he may be open and receptive to the support from relatives, which at the same time will put him at ease, that they have not forgotten him in spite the fact that they do not react to him as they used to (in case he doesn’t realize that he is dead). A potential bitterness is thus released and the being can move on more easily.

There is a curious correlation between the way many Asians take serious their obligations to deceased relatives and the way families form mutually supportive economies within this life. Neither is typically important in western culture: parents finance their children normally in a unilateral way, the next economic connection is the inheritance. As a child of an Asian family one is expected to bring money back into the family, normally far beyond supporting ageing parents. Financing costly weddings, education, health care of sometimes remote relatives is considered a duty. Offerings to dead relatives are just one more duty on the long list of family obligations. Westerners often stand in awe of the dedication Asians display in these relationships, so long as they are not the milk cow for financing the family, for example through marriage. Advantages and disadvantages of this system are mixed. Much of the famous Asian corruption and even prostitution is due to this pressure; marriages may be strained by the wife’s felt need to give to her family. A child is often perceived as cash cow and career paths or marriages – let alone any alternative ‘self-explorations’ – that don’t pay the bill may be frowned upon, even forbidden. Much of the creative and contemplative energy that characterizes western society, however, originates precisely in this freedom to follow hunches and experiment, independent of financial concerns and obligations. 

On the upside, alienated families where people are not communicating for years and leave members lonely because of that, may be rare. In spite of being without a welfare society’s hammock to retreat to, people in general will feel that they will be supported should need arise – some relatives will step in to prevent the worst.

From a Buddhist perspective, one downside is that monastic ordinations are often prevented by the family because of the financial loss and the desire for heirs. This is strangely reinforced by the Buddha through the mandatory requirement for parental consent to ordination (Mv 1: Rahula’s ordination). Presumably the political pressure on the order would have become too great if the parents did not at least give a grudging consent. The rule, and case histories confirm this (M 82), puts no limits on the way this consent is obtained and the regulation stands next to the need to be free from having to provide military service which is obviously purely political.

There are many spiritually valuable aspects to this system, though. All the caring and obligations are given freely. Westerners may also pay for their parents or other relatives support, education etc. through the dreaded tax system, but there is neither joy nor appreciation in this giving and usually no gratitude in the recipient. Kammically taxation is not that valuable, essentially it is abstention of lying and stealing rather than giving.

Also, many of the difficult situations that families in the human realm face can be diffused by a wholesome group process in which sharing resources is the norm, where similar cases end up in faceless institutions in the West. Quite a few of the neurotic complaints that lonely western housewives suffer from are not possible to entertain in the open houses of large eastern families. Finally, the spiritually most important aspect may be the support that Asian relatives provide and can receive when they end up in a difficult rebirth where no western social system can reach. This may be the most important benefit because the suffering may be a lot more intense, a lot longer but also a lot more powerfully relieved on the other side. 

       

Promises and Success in Business

 “A promise made is a debt unpaid.” Robert W. Service

 

When former German football player Franz Beckenbauer[85] obtained against all odds – and many would say fairness – the right to host the coveted Soccer World Cup for Germany in 2006, manager and former teammate [86]”

Beckenbauer was European football player of the year, captain of the first team to win three consecutive championships, national champion with three different teams [87], and only one of two men who won the World Cup both as player and coach[88]. He won a seemingly endless number of all kinds of cups, both as player and coach, and is president, vice-president and holder of all kinds of distinctions in some of the most prestigious organizations of the football world. In addition, he also is a scratch golfer with a handicap approaching single digits. Yet Beckenbauer hardly strikes one as charismatic or intimidatingly bright. Less flattering assessments of the Bavarian’s presence would not be hard to come by. In fact, goalie Uli Stein was the first ever player dismissed during a World Cup when he called Beckenbauer a ‘Suppenkasper,’ a highly derogative term for a laughable figure in a Punch and Judy show[89]. Germans as a nation love him, though, and the descriptive epithet ‘Kaiser,’ ‘emperor,’ stands unquestioned; not uncommon is also the description “‘Lichtgestalt’ of German soccer” meaning something like ‘light bringer’ or ‘messiah,’ resplendent with religious connotation. – Kamma works weird wonders…

 

On the other hand, most of us also know people who fail at everything, in spite of doing at least a lot right. The world does not seem fair. Religion and all kinds of superstitious pseudo-sciences make a lucrative business out of this apparent incongruity. The Buddha, too, was asked why this is the case; the mystery eluded even his chief disciple Venerable Sariputta:

“What, Lord, is the cause, what is the reason that a business fails if managed by one person, does not go according to plan when managed by another, goes according to plan when managed by yet another or even exceeds the plan?” (A 4.79)

The Buddha replied that someone may have offered ‘ascetics or Brahmins,’ i.e. religious seekers who voluntarily live on donations, to supply their needs. What he offers, though, he does not give according to his intention. Should he return to the human world in a future life, every business he engages in fails. If he gives, but does not meet his original intention, his business does not go according to his wishes. Should he meet his intentions, his business goes according to plan and if he even exceeds his original intention, all his businesses will go better than expected.

 

Self-help literature likes to emphasize the importance of ‘Thinking Big’ in attaining great things. Great goals, great inspiration, great performance is the logic behind the advice. This is deduced from analysis of successes by people who have attained objectives that would appear to be beyond their reach by standard assessment. The sutta cited here seems to suggest that the expectation or the self-confidence to credibly expect a certain outcome is a kammic result rather than merely an act of will, though, because the expectation in the harvest life obviously must be in proportion to the promise made in the previous life. A promise to supply matches or let somebody pass over one’s property is not the same as a pledge to finance a building. The person who creates great expectations in others by making promises, reaps the result of great expectations, powerfully magnified by the purified recipient group. Whatever the eventual business may be like, just having a sense that grand achievements are imminent lends a spacious, often generous quality full of vibrant energy to a life. This would presumably be the result for someone who made an offer that was never requisitioned.

A promise is an assurance, that functions often as insurance, especially when there is a tangible need, a vulnerability. In making a promise or pledge, one not only gives a gift, one gives something quite a lot more, namely a sense of security. Insurances and banks sell these assurances with exorbitant profits.

When not fulfilling a promise, what one actually gives is disappointment, not rarely disappointment and doubt regarding humanity and the world in general. Cynicism, distrust, bitterness, a variety of mental illnesses and, more rarely, mass murder come into being in this way. Stock market crashes and receding economies are typically the result of diminishing ‘consumer confidence’ in the promises of the markets or specific companies[90].

When exceeding a promise, on the other hand, one gives a pleasant surprise. Such surprises are balm to the exposed minds of beings who are continually threatened by loss, degeneration, frustration and disappointment. They provide hope and breathing space and often inspire directly increased generosity in the receiver and even his or her sphere of influence. The great surprises of our lives are the great memories of it. ‘Making an effect’ means surprising someone. A big surprise – good or bad – is so powerful a learning experience that it is, among such things as one’s name, parents and home, one of the most difficult imagery to delete from consciousness.

 

As is often the case, the Buddha answers in this sutta only the questions put to him. The specific nature of the causality presented permits further going speculation, though. A canonical story reports one of the Buddha’s foremost disciples[91], Venerable Pilindavaccha, being offered a monastery attendant by King Bimbisara, one of the power patrons of incipient Buddhism. The king, however, forgot his promise and only remembered it five hundred days later. To make up, he provided five hundred attendants whom he settled in a village established for the purpose and named it after Venerable Pilindavaccha who, from then on, depended on it for his almsround. It seems safe to assume that this ‘forgetting cum making up’ results in moderate expectations with efforts frustrated by lack of expected help that are eventually, and to total surprise, surpassed and transcended by several quantum leaps[92].       

 

The message of the Buddha’s revelation concerning the power of promises is not that one should not promise anything. Many people do not make promises because they feel it is impossible to guarantee with absolute certainty something in an uncertain future. With this reasoning carried through, however, one would not be able to survive. All acquisition of skills, holding down a job, even a trip to the shopping-mall and all other commitments require faith in the future and the ability to roughly forecast it.

The morale of the Buddha’s explanation is that one should make and keep promises carefully and conscientiously as opposed to casually. What may appear to be just a nicety inspired at the spur of the moment is actually something another human being factors into his or her plans. Not rarely, people reject other offers because of a promise they have been given.

If one has already failed or delayed (one could perhaps say ‘half failed’) substantial promises, it is wise to meet or exceed them retrospectively, like King Bimbisara in the above footnoted story (FN 92). Further kept promises, and especially the turning away from treating promises carelessly, may overshadow one or several failures[93]. Probably nobody will have a perfect record of meeting all their targets, least those who accept many obligations. Likely, these are the true stories behind the inspiring tales of people who succeed big time after repeated failure. The energy to continue in spite of failure might be the result of – or at least supported by – the kept promises, an aspect of the fruit of power (‘bala’) that the Buddha gives as result of giving alms (A 4.56/9; A 5.37; Mv 6).

Where that option is for some reason not feasible, the best of all solutions is still open: the relinquishing of all attachment to worldly possessions. Disappointments will then still occur – which in one way or another they will anyway – but they will not cause injury. In M 119, the Buddha compares the unawakened person’s exposure to a pebble thrown into a mound of clay: it penetrates deeply and lastingly. The awakened one’s mind, however, is compared to a doorpost made of heartwood against which a piece of cotton wool is thrown: contact is negligible and there is no penetration whatsoever. In a well-developing practitioner, disappointments fuel disenchantment with the world, whereas they lead ordinary people to despair and unwholesome compensation as they take refuge in ephemeral worlds and self-concepts, rife with empty promise.

Expected Generosity

“To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year.” E. B. White

 

“For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds:
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”

William Shakespeare 

 

Something like the opposite of a promise is the generosity that is expected in many cultural settings. In the US, waiters enjoy social status and remuneration for their services that are unparalleled in other countries, sometimes exceeding the pay of restaurant managers. The natural result is pride and excellent quality service as the men and women in the profession treat their craft as serious art. These waiters income consists mostly of tips, though – their wages are as low as in any other country in the world. The tip of fifteen percent or more is voluntary but it is strongly expected. Failure to adequately tip may result in protest of variable vehemence.

Christmas-, anniversary- and birthday-presents, three-month salary wedding rings and ‘(recommended) donations for the teacher’ at meditation retreats are expressions of generosity but they are only barely voluntary. The social pressure to give quite precisely quantified sums is considered by many too great to be considered ‘free,’ as in ‘freely given.’ Children will cry and ruin Christmases or birthdays when presents do not meet their expectations; a frustrated under-tipped waiter may cause embarrassment and make it impossible to return to the location.

Tragically, much of Western Buddhism is no better in applying the thumbscrews here. Spiritual pressure to be good and grateful as well as superstitions regarding the student-teacher relationship make generously encouraged ‘dana for the teacher’ a moral must for meditators. Interestingly, this system to enable lay meditation teachers to live middle class lifestyles seems to have been invented in the US where tipping works such wonders. Although, meditation teachers always claim the Dana principle to be of Buddhist canonical origin (in their ‘Dana talks’), no lay teachers are mentioned to have received remuneration in the canon and monastics are expressly forbidden to accept money. Now – and even more at the time of the Buddha – large donations of the type meditators are expected to make to their lay teachers, tend to go into the support of monasteries that are open to spiritually serve all.

In some sad cases, even Buddhist monasteries have now smelled blood and make strong recommendations for substantial daily donations or even charge fees similar to hotels. There is no canonical precedence for this, nor are these monasteries usually in dire need for more contributions than they receive without solicitations by their monastics. It is even questionable how much more ‘profit’ they are making in this way. Certainly, though, they destroy much of the joy, pride and identity forming value of the generosity that has supported the monastic Sangha throughout two and a half millenniums, and mutilate and obliterate vast amounts of their faithful supporters’ merit.

Because of the implied pressure, many people do not consider these required donations part of their generosity portfolio. Often they resent the phoniness of the procedure. As a result, they meet these obligations coldly and cynically.

From the point of Buddhism, this is a shame. Understandably or not, the result is a gift given without faith, respect or the wish to give happiness. The kammic result according to A 5.148 will be a barren wealth without physical beauty, being respected or the ability to find fulfillment in the sensual things that surround one.

However obligated a donation may be, it is still a donation and therewith full of potential for merit making. Because many Americans recognize this, non-profit organizations of many kinds as well as for-profit industries (i.e. wedding and Christmas businesses or the service professions) thrive on this system. If not all, still many people give with joy, pride and respect. They learn to from a young age to form an identity around their style of giving on an every day level.  

The more commonsense oriented European system fears phoniness and bans many service charges into prices and taxes. Social services are provided dominantly via high taxes, not voluntary contributions. In some countries, established Christian churches may rely on the state to collect their sheeps’ membership fees together with their income tax [94]. Whether a service is poor or excellent plays almost no role in the remuneration of a waiter or pastor. Because of this, giving is rare in the lives of many people in these societies. Generosity becomes much less part of social identity formation, so that it is done often clumsily and consequently uncomfortably when called for.

From the Buddhist perspective, though, the most tragic aspect of this kind of ‘commonsense’ is the huge loss of merit that people suffer through this system. As was mentioned in the chapter on the recipient, an offering to a human being may yield thousand- to a hundred thousandfold returns, depending on the recipients virtue (M 142). If a person spends three thousand dollars a year in tips, presents etc. that is as much as many middle class people expend in a life (three million to three hundred hundred million dollar).

Understanding obligations in this way also leads on to a further point. Taxes and prices for wares purchased on a daily basis are not voluntary and thus they appear not to belong under the heading of generosity. The people who are receiving the money, however, are human beings who will react to the way they are paid. It makes all the difference whether a salesperson is paid gracefully, cheerfully and gratefully or condescendingly, arrogantly and grudgingly. The spirit of the payment directly affects the way the clerk receiving the money will respond to the next person(s) in line. Similarly, money can be received gracefully, cheerfully and gratefully or condescendingly, arrogantly and grudgingly, affecting the days of many people domino style. While this generosity seems to come in small chunks, it powerfully affects entire cultures because there are so many of these chunks in a normal day. Countries under socialist or communist rule used to be notorious for the grumpiness pervading every part of daily intercourse while, on the other spectrum, countries with strong generosity expectations like the US are well known for their pervasive friendliness. This generosity of words, attitudes and thoughts – even if it is expected by the employer from the employee – is not only the soil from which much tangible giving springs, it is also well under way on the road to real loving kindness practice with its powerful aspects of non-judgment and forgiveness. Much of social support and psychological therapy consists dominantly in little more than this kind of friendliness.

The vast quantity of these transactions in most peoples’ lives make this seemingly small adjustment of attitude perhaps one of the richest fields for increasing the spirit of generosity. Anybody interested in mastering the art of giving should make it his or her obligation to see these obligations as real gifts.

Controversial Generosity

Bribery, Seduction, Spoiling, Begging, Helper Syndrome

 

“You won the elections, but I won the count.”

Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1925 - 1980) Nicaraguan dictator. Replying to allegations of ballot-rigging.

 

 “Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

Liberal Westerners who are living in developed countries often think that the poverty of developing countries is due to the ruthlessness of the Western capitalist investments into those countries. Almost anybody living in these poorer countries knows, though, that the main problem with their poverty is incompetence exacerbated by massive corruption. It is actually the lack of capitalism, in this case fair competition, that is one of their main problems. Bribery, i.e. the giving of gifts, destroys in this case whatever vestiges of democracy, legal systems and free markets these places have nominally acquired. Assuming everybody is corrupt, work in the police, military and other public sectors is so underpaid, that it practically forces those working in these profession to accept bribes. This is proven by the simple fact, that corruption massively decreases once wages are increased to reasonable levels. Outsiders trying to do business in those places have concluded occasionally that corruption is just a different way of running an economy, as this is often the general sense in these countries: “It will, I believe, be generally agreed that eradication of corruption from any society is not just a difficult task: it is without dispute, an impossible objective.” (Obafemi Awolowo; Nigerian lawyer and politician)

Following this line of reasoning, in Germany, companies that had to pay bribes to run their businesses in developing countries, were for a period allowed to deduct them from their taxes.

Of course, bribery is also practiced in rich, developed countries. Most of the humiliating illegality is elegantly removed and great care is taken to make recipients comfortable with being influenced in this way. Much of this is done subtly through excessive gratuities or attractive settings for conferences: “Usually it is the accumulation of small gratuities rather than any direct bribe that gradually obligates the people in power” Harrison W. Fox, Jr. (Doing Business in Washington).

Gifts carry an inherent obligation and skilled seducers can use them to create magical returns financially, sexually or politically. A classic form of this is the proverbially non-existent free lunch. The obligations incurred by eating out with somebody are typically too much for indebted self-respect to leave unreciprocated in one way or another. Much of diplomacy and business, inclusive of fundraising for charities, is conducted through these luncheon and party programs.

The problem is where to draw the line, both in giving and receiving. Offering or accepting outright bribery should be beyond dignified people under most circumstances, though few would hesitate to get their child bribed out of some kangaroo court’s dishing out sharia law. Entertaining the negotiators with indoor plumbing and all manner of other degenerate luxuries would be part of trying ‘to come to an understanding’ as a matter of course.

It does not appear to be immoral to offer a sensually appealing shopping experience, rebates or incentives. Unfriendly and barren business atmospheres in former Eastern Block countries, dating where each party pays for its own lunch or a world where every nicety is suspected to be foul play have nothing appealing to them. But is inviting the kid’s piano teacher for lunch out of line, even if the hope is to benefit the climate of instruction in this way?

From the most important kammic perspective, intention is the decisive factor. Most genuine bribery is remarkably obvious. Nobody slips the caseworker in charge of his application fifty dollars innocently. Real bribery is not even meant to be secret from the parties; it is really just an illegal purchase, like a drug or contraband deal. Even goodie bags, lunch invitations or the free samples, seminars and toys that doctors receive from pharmaceutical companies are obvious attempts at manipulation.   

While not all of this is criminal, none of this giving would appear to be meritorious, just like the display of an attractive person’s body or wealth may be delightful but never meritorious. It is born of greed and need and in that way it is intended to mislead, most often by generating more greed or delusion[95]. Whenever possible, it is better to stay aloof from both giving and receiving such gifts. This avoids contaminating and blurring the distinction between good and evil. Perhaps one could conjecture that this kind of giving generates kammically a world of heightened stimulation and delusion with great vicinity to darkness, like bringing up a child in a brothel.

In purely practical terms of running a society, conscientious atmospheres in uncorrupt Western societies have found a good line. Police officers would be incensed at being offered money or flashed fancy titled name cards to evade tickets. Goods, contracts and services have fixed prices or are competed for in transparent ways. Lunch invitations, goodie bags etc. are not criminalized but the public has few delusions about their purpose. An important factor in the negotiation of this line play independent media and self-organization of citizens, which can easily rouse a powerful atmosphere against legal manipulation, as seen, for example, in the campaign against smoking. Manipulative advertising of all kinds is still big business but regulating a lot more would result in a repressive atmosphere that could stifle all kinds of creativity and self-expression. Even though some manipulation is permitted,  children are also comprehensively educated by parents and the school system to be aware of these influences. 

 

A special subset of manipulative giving is sexual seduction. Wealth is sexually attractive as is generosity. Furthermore, all kinds of affection should be accompanied by a heightened will to give everything of oneself. More critical is calculated giving for seductive purposes as well as calculated skimming, i.e. accepting generosity, archetypically drinks, by suggesting sexual opportunities when there is the clear intention not to deliver. The pretentious relationships fostered in this way are both deceptive and essentially hostile. Both, in the case of fun girls, toy boys, gigolos etc. who are so spoiled but also in the supporting ‘sugar dadies,’ the ability to form relationships independent of financial considerations may be damaged or destroyed. They live in a tug-of-war world where the validation of their being depends on how much revenue they can attract for how little service in relationships that should be the expression of selfless friendship. The inevitable ageing process becomes a horrible, often intensely lonely and depressing humiliation as cultivated charms turn out to be worthless in a seasoned body, when even lowering of the price for affections looses its power.

The unwholesome, often pathetic helplessness of this kind of giving is often blatantly obvious to onlookers. People from this kind of world should be studiously avoided. Interestingly, also many skilled seducers look down on this way of persuasion, decrying it as particularly ineffective. A charmingly innocent description of this view can be found in Nobel Laureate Professor Feynman’s memoir where he tells his story of buying girls drinks without ever ‘getting anything.’ Finally, a married couple of entertainers shows him how it is done (be rude, never buy them anything) with downright spectacular predictions and results, and shown to work also with ‘normal’ girls not from the bars [96].

Perhaps it is not the giving that is unwholesome but the baseness of communication goals. Not the giving, but what people give, the primitive way in which they expect fruition and what they are looking for is destructive. Actually, it is not that people (men) who are cheated here are ‘getting nothing;’ they are getting friendly affection that they would not be able to get without their buying drinks in this setting. It is just that they expect a bargain that is laughable to the professionally bargain-hunting shopping population.

 

There are also less aggressive forms of gift giving that are dominantly destructive. Children from wealthy homes are often incapable of enduring the most ordinary inconveniences because of the way they were spoiled by parents, grandparents etc. Many of these kids are damaged for life, becoming dependent on others or developing neurotic disorders to cope with their dark mix of self-indulgence and weakness.

Spoiling a child is not just giving something. Often, giving a child everything it wants is done to compensate for a lack of interest in the child or the inability to address its problems. Sometimes parents or grandparents cannot stand the child’s pestering or crying or they are trying to buy approval from the child that they cannot obtain otherwise. It is known in pedagogy that spoiling a child with too much love – which may also be expressed with profuse generosity – is impossible, so long as the teaching of values and the sometimes necessary confrontations are also attended to. The fault is not with the giving, but with the avoiding of the task of education. – That does not mean that parents should give a child everything it wants. The Buddha did not let his monks have all that they wanted either. Contentment, patience and endurance of moderate hardship are good to teach by well-reasoned refusals or delays of childrens’ requests. In the end, though, the real problem is the spirit of love and wisdom, as well as the ability to communicate meaningfully with the child, which matter most.

 

Sometimes, but not only with children, a similar even more bitter-flavored generosity seems to do more good than harm. People with destructive habits like gambling, substance abuse or occasionally simply bad fund management resulting in scary debt are often in pitiful circumstances. Whether the visible pains of cold turkey, the imagined breaking of legs for gambling debts or the persuasive promises of a well-practiced debtor, well-meaning people are often moved to give in such circumstances. Even cynics find it difficult to feel hard about such generosity but disinterested observation tends to conclude that it fuels rather than relieves a sad situation. In the worst cases, bad habits appear actually to be empowered because a feeling of invulnerability is suggested to the spoiled character of the victim.

A related form of generosity is that towards beggars. While most good people will be moved by their plight, giving money to begging alcoholic dossers or polytoxic punks is perennially controversial. In developing countries, children are sometimes trained or even mutilated to support the family through begging, sometimes allegedly at the sacrifice of school attendance. International organizations are often warning against giving to these children, encouraging instead giving to charities who work on helping children from poor circumstances in more wholesome ways (i.e. themselves).

In several of these cases, Buddhist kammic insight would part from conventional wisdom. From the point of kammic psychology, the purity of the receiver is a significant factor in the kammic result of the gift, though it should not be for the instance of giving (S 3.24, see The Recepient). What a person does with a gift, is not something that the donor is responsible for. All circumstances of a person’s predicament can never be known in detail nor can all the outcomes of a donation. Acting on a feeling of compassion is extremely wholesome. It dominantly affects the result of the act (see The Donor) and is recommended by the Buddha. The real name of Anathapindika, the famous disciple of the Buddha foremost in generosity (A 1.13), was Sudatta. Almost all, though, only knew him as Anathapindika, meaning ‘the feeder of the homeless[97],’ i.e. his reputation came from giving to the poor not merely calculated merit making. And as has been already stated above, when asked by King Pasenadi when one should give the Buddha simply replies: “When the heart delights in it.” (S 3.24)

Not all people who are dependent on drugs or alcohol are necessarily doing the worst thing possible. In many cases, the substance abuse is a form of (often temporary) self-medication that prevents worse abuse, insanity or suicide. This is also the studied logic behind the now widespread methadone programs. Contrary to cynic speculation, none of these people are getting rich the easy way. Begging is hard, humiliating work, often in a harsh climate and with many dangers. Substantial numbers of homeless people are homeless simply because they are schizophrenic or otherwise mentally ill and have slipped through the net. A bit of friendliness and generosity from strangers is in itself balm to their injured souls.

Even more pronounced these truths play out in begging children in developing countries. These kids come from poor homes in non-welfare communities where everybody has to help with the survival of the family. Begging is actually one of the better ways to earn a living for these kids. Realistic alternatives are being trafficked, prostitution, exploited as domestic servant or outright slave work in sweatshops to the tune of twelve to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Many of the begging kids have their family close by and take care of each other. What they get, they give to their mom, who is often meticulous with her small finances. Micro-credits of ten, twenty dollars, given to these women to do business in the market have payback rates around 95%, well above normal credit transactions. Quite a few of the kids also go to school and beg only before or after, although schools in these locations often offer little in education. In tourist areas, these children sometimes learn to speak better English while begging than the children of the wealthy in private universities.

What is actually the worst part of these childrens’ job is the constant rejection, being treated as annoyance and trash by strangers. Ideally, a child should experience no rejection of its person at all to build a healthy self-image; all confrontation from adults should be in response to known moral transgressions. These kids, however, are doing nothing bad at all, in fact, they are doing something really good – they are helping their parents – and yet they are treated like pestilent insects by the general population. A little kindness and generosity from some of this towering, hostile mass will likely do more educational good to the kids than what they learn in their overcrowded schools. Occasional friendliness and generosity slows developing the bitter and destructive generalizations these children are taught about human beings by their fellow men. 

From a Buddhist point of view there is also something else. The reason why these children are poor is because they have forgotten to develop generosity in previous existences. Unlike the general begging population, many of the kids are clever, pretty, helpful and socially adept, which shows that they have substantial merit in other areas. The Buddha states repeatedly and emphatically that parents are an extremely good field of merit and that helping parents is greatly and universally praised by the wise. In quite precisely the way described as wholesome, though, these children spend their day, some quite remarkably joyful.

Begging is not considered unwholesome livelihood in Buddhism. What monks do is but an elegant, unintrusive form of it. Brahmins at the time of the Buddha and long before, used to raise the fee for their instruction (i.e. like university fees) by begging. Also now, what churches, charities and political parties do for a living is often just institutionalized begging. Many people who like to cultivate generosity are actually grateful for having beggars as a constant small field of merit and spiritual elevation. Beggars are repulsive mainly to those who do not like to give to them, forcing them to face their own contracted hearts.  

 

On the other side of the fence, as it were, we have another example of controversial giving: that of the social worker. In pop-psych terminology he is regularly considered ‘suffering’ from the helper-syndrome. The idea is that much altruism, especially in the field of social work, is in reality an immature or neurotic way to deal with feelings of shame, guilt or inferiority. The good person is considered using other people’s suffering to make him- or herself feel better about themselves, sometimes implying callous disregard to the plight of the now doubly disenfranchised victims.

Helping people in a way that looks unselfish will always have some admixtures of selfishness. This is inherent in the inevitable delusion of the unenlightened person. Perceiving oneself to be a separate person means that one has to act in the interest of that impression. One can commiserate with people or share in their joys vicariously, but one needs to eat in order to survive and one has to protect one’s perceived self from a vast spectrum of pains. The unwholesomeness of the perceived self-identity is tremendous. From substance abuse to quarrels, crime and warfare, the perceived self’s needs are always at the center of drama.

Practically all the wholesome giving described in this paper is somehow tainted by reality distorting self-interest. Nonetheless, most giving also contains a powerful element of non-greed, recognizing that the perceived self’s happiness can be increased by giving up things that belong into its mine-sphere. Most generosity implies a strong aspect of non-hatred, a warm empathy for other’s needs and difficulties. Finally, there is also the element of non-delusion, a recognition that the perceived self is strongly conditioned by outside forces of all kinds, i.e. that its boundaries and continuity are far less defined than impression suggests.

People are motivated to become socially active for many reasons. The term ‘helper syndrome’ provides a useful starting point for reflections on residual unwholesome tendencies in such pursuits. It tends to overshadow the fact, though, that all good deeds are tainted by whatever self-view the person performing them has. In that the term ‘helper-syndrome’ is sometimes unwholesome, because it gives the impression that people who are trying to help others are particularly selfish, when more likely the opposite is the case. These are the relatively better and more reflective people one can meet. Burnout and secondary interests may take their toll. And there will also be some truly dark or disturbed figures but likely not too many because this is by nature a world of constant interaction and suspicious assessment of motives by experts in the field.

Whatever the total count, giving and helping are never the problem. They may want fine-tuning but the direction is correct. This is important to understand, so that the target of criticism is always what is unwholesome and never what is wholesome and the just born, fragile baby does not go where the bathwater goes: into the sewage.

 

Giving can be done to intimidate, ridicule, manipulate, scare, brag, deceive, exploit, provoke or annoy. All these states are harmful and unwholesome. Much suffering is caused by such intentions. The Buddha calls intention kamma (A 6.63[98]). It is the degree of greed, hatred, delusion or non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion that determine the kammic result of intentional activity by body, speech and mind (A 6.39).

But although every single deed has its own mix of wholesome and unwholesome intention, some activities are singled out as being consistently unwholesome. Killing is always unwholesome, even in the case of ‘putting down’ a suffering animal or the rare but much discussed abortion to save the mother’s life. Lying is always unwholesome, even if it saves embarrassment or protects a persecuted person from torture by a ruthless dictator’s secret police.

In these borderline cases, the unwholesome component is not readily comprehensible, the aspect of delusion about kamma’s working being hidden underneath the drama of the (kammic) occasion. There can be no doubt, though, that the Buddha would disapprove of such sometimes well-intended transgression of precepts. A monk who recommends an abortion under any circumstance commits the worst possible transgression and is expelled from the order for good (Pj 3). Robinhood-style stealing to give to the poor or one’s dying mother would get a Buddhist monastic expelled like any other thief (Pj 2). Lying is considered evil, even to save one’s own (S 17.19) or another’s life (S 17.37-43) and should not even be done as a joke (M 61). An arahant, free from delusion, is declared incapable of all such actions (A 9.7/8).

 

Giving is on the opposite spectrum of activities that are always described as good. In order to understand this, a dissection of action-complexes is necessary. With bribery, the important point is to separate different aspects and intentions. To create a generous, friendly atmosphere by providing a pleasant setting when doing business is not unwholesome. When people pay extra for a superior shopping experience, they are actually buying a product, which may be the identity or story line to the product or the sensuality of the shop itself. Generosity can be the kind of friendliness during all intercourse that makes life pleasant and safe, as described in the previous chapter. Giving to the police or a university in the right context is not wrong. It is the concealment, injustice, lying, intimidation, pressure, exclusion and blackmail that make corruption the evil it is.

The reason that the Buddha does not teach giving to be a morally highly ambiguous venture of vastly varying outcomes is likely that generosity does so much good that it needs careful protection. When asked whether couples are better off viewing each other realistically or idealistically, most people think it is better to view each other realistically, to prevent disappointments. Studies show the opposite, though. It is those couples’ marriages who idealize each other out of all proportion, that last best and longest. Evolution takes at least initially for most people care of this with the hormone cocktail that we call ‘falling in love’ (and which suggests lasting forever, while the maximum is somewhere between one and two years, often much less), and which is often considered ‘blind’ or even insane. The effect at work is that the idealization makes it possible to downplay or overlook apparently inevitable frustrations, while emphasizing all that is good. Evolutionary theory reasonably consumes that this design is meant to keep people long and strong enough attached to procreate and that they then will stay together because of the kids. 

Most people will have some dubious or dark experiences with giving. Recipients will be ungrateful at times, donors may feel used or cheated. Everybody will also come to hear of tragic cases and scandals where generosity has been taken advantage of. The sum of these experiences is often what stops people from giving, which is a most natural way of giving one’s self-image a little massage. As a result, they become stiff and spiritually emaciated by their having to continuously affirm to themselves how bad the place is that they live in, so that their not-giving is right. Like the litanies of those stuck in a bad marriage, the downwards spiral of this analysis leads nowhere good.

To counterbalance this tragic effect, the Buddha focuses entirely on the life-giving and profound kammic good that giving offers, a truth that is hidden to those without deep meditative insight into the law of kamma.

”If beings knew the result of giving as I do, they would enjoy nothing without having given and the taint of stinginess would not fetter their heart. Even the last morsel, the last bite, they would not enjoy without having given…” (It 26) “Even if somebody empties his plate or bowl into a pond or lake with the wish that the beings in there may eat from it, he has already done good; how much more so, if he gave to a human being…” (A 3.58)  

This way of instruction frees the giver from having to know and care about little beyond the immediate state of his heart at the time of transaction.

Steady Trickle vs. Grand Occasion

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

“I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

One classic mode of giving is that of ‘the steady trickle.’ Giving almsfood to monks, sweets to kids and nickels to beggars whenever opportunity presents, all belong into this group. Many of the great forms of looking out to help in daily life are this kind of dana. The other type is ‘the grand occasion.’ Birthday gifts, dowries and all other major donations fall into this category. These two types of giving have different advantages and results.

The steady trickle can turn over large quantities of aid without hurting much. It can provide ample joy and exercise through the large number of occasions. Intimate relationships can be formed on the basis of this type of generosity. Certain life forms such as that of the mendicant or the beggar and even that of the child can only exist through this constant mothering generosity. And it’s humble. Haughty showing off is not typically a danger with this kind of generosity.

The grand occasion has the advantage that it’s emotionally intense. The consideration and involvement may be great. The sacrifice may be tangible and possibly risky. Projects of magnitude are possible that the steady trickle can not accomplish. Years of almsround will not likely be able to even finance a hut, let alone a monastery car or a major building. Substantial parts of what we are looking at in the modern world from sculptures to libraries come from such magnanimous moves.

From the dhammic point of dana art, the memory the grand occasion creates is a major boon. At the last moment of our lives, memories force themselves onto our mind, the last one creating a mental image that determines the next birth. Often it is possible to induce this image by deliberately bringing up wholesome events. One of the most easy and common images to lead people to a good existence is that of an offering. Sometimes the offerings remembered are small but carry a memory of intense aspiration or purity. It is of great help to have a number of distinct, easy to remember events to bring up, right on top of one’s mind for the grand occasion of dying.

Neither of these two types of generosity are superior. Many factors are more important than the type of giving in either of the two ways. They do provide a useful distinction, though, that can help to bring extra value to a dana lifestyle by changing the focus. Like sprint vs. marathon, they train different muscles, require development of different qualities, attitudes and masteries.   

Proportions

“Thy need is greater than mine.” Philip Sidney (1554-1586), giving a water bottle to a dying soldier after he had himself been wounded at the Battle of Zutphen; he died shortly after.

 

A good question is whether the return on giving will be proportional to the sacrifice, i.e. the percentage, or to the real value. This question is not addressed in the suttas. Instinct would suggest that percentage is the basis on which return is calculated, since an amount, such as a thousand dollars, is at least dominantly a percept. The sum may represent somebody’s entire life savings or a mere pittance.

A simple stratification about rebirth according to virtue and generosity in absence of deep meditation appears to support this (A 8.36[99]). If generosity and virtue are poorly developed, rebirth will be human in difficult circumstances; if they are developed to a moderate degree, a happy human rebirth will be the result; if they are strong, rebirth in one of the six sensual heavens is predicted. Giving some would likely obtain something, while giving everything would likely obtain ‘everything.’

At A 5.44, the Buddha says to Ugga of Vesali about quality:

“Who gives what good is, he receives good, too,

Who gives the highest, he receives the best.

Sublime is what attains who gives such things,

Who gives the best goes to the highest place.” And

“A person who is good and gives what’s hard to give

Gets back the good which so he gave away.”

 

On the other hand, at S 1.33 a number of deities visit the Buddha to present some verses on giving. Five of six deities make the point that giving is of great value especially if one has little. At the end of the text the deities ask who has spoken well. The Buddha says that they have all spoken well but in giving his own verse he makes conspicuously no reference to the particular usefulness of giving from little – the same omission as in the Velama sutta discussed above.

Possibly the situation is more complex than a simple mathematical percentage calculation. If Bill Gates were to offer a fifty thousand dollar minivan to a monastery, his abundant wealth would make this offering similar to somebody else offering a box of matches. Nonetheless, the value he creates for the monastery is as great as anybody else’s offering a minivan. Perhaps it is even greater, because the reputation of his status may be considered an endorsement which engenders further donations or because follow-up costs may be easy to provide. Offering fifty million dollars to a village monastery would also be more likely destructive than a boon, as nobody there would have the experience to handle such amounts of money.

Conceivably, several causalities are involved simultaneously, each creating its own reward. The faithful sacrifice, the value produced, understanding appropriate amounts and procedure of the transaction may all contribute to the resulting picture, just as a painting is a composite of artistic ability, equipment and understanding of time and cultural references.

When a three year old reads a non-fiction book without pictures, we are justly impressed. If a Harvard graduate reads the same volume, even in half the time and with twice the comprehension, it’s not worth mentioning. The Harvard graduate may get a lot more out of the book due to many cultivated abilities but the promise of the child’s performance keeps everyone spellbound. We tend to underrate that the graduate put in an impressive amount of work at other times. In the same way, dana may in some ways work like compound interest. The person who gave a lot in the past is now able to give a lot more because of those sacrifices. The returns are appropriately tall but they are now what we have come to expect. The person who gives a lot from a little, however, is doing something that is spiritually great, even transforming. Like a recovering addict or a nation breaking free from dictatorship, the liberating and turning around carry grandeur and merit hard to equal ever after.

Rich Christians vs. Poor Buddhists

“Superstition sets the whole world a flame; philosophy quenches them.” Voltaire

 

A further open problem that is frequently raised by Christian missionaries is that of rich versus poor countries. Missionaries like to make the point that their God or Christianity favors it’s own (Buddhist would probably make the same point, only they can’t J). Frequently the zealots harm their own cause because people dislike the materialism and condescension of their argument. At other times, pro-Buddhists counter the argument with reference to rich Japan and Korea who are based in Buddhist cultures.

Polemics aside, a valuable question can be raised about the situation from a Buddhist point of view: Supposing that substantial numbers of people tend to be reborn in the same countries they have lived before and assuming the phenomenal returns of Sanghadana are real, shouldn’t one expect Buddhist countries to be the richest?

Again, we need to make due with speculations. One such speculation is that possibly many more generous people from Buddhist countries go to heaven, while those from more secular religions would more likely reap their rewards in the human realm. This is suggested by a passage in M 71 where the Buddha says that, when recollecting ninety-one aeons, he saw only one Ajivaka go to heaven, and this one believed in kamma, which their doctrine denies. Belief in kammically based rebirth as well as reasonably realistic information on cosmology of other realms appears to form the basis of divine rebirth.

Most of today’s main religions are rather old and consequently a confusing variety of beliefs can be found among their followers. There are some trends, though. Judaism, in particular, seems to focus little on heavenly rewards; Jewish scripture mentions only two prophets who have gone to heaven. People of Jewish faith, however, have been very active in generosity. Their fragile guest status in many hostile countries has led them to highlight education as their central survival skill. On average, Jewish communities feature twice as many geniuses than comparable cultures. One reason given for this is that they typically start intelligent and intensive education at age two or three. Together with their generosity, especially powerful within their groups, this has led to many extremely valuable contributions. This combination of secularism and goodness could explain human affluence kammically, as virtuous people ‘entitled’ to heaven by their merit seek human incarnations.

Christian culture is more variegated but, perhaps due to it’s intermingling with Greek and Roman philosophies which encourage political participation, Christians also look dominantly to this world for justice and happiness. As a result, most forms of modernization – whether in science, art, philosophy, psychology, politics or other fields – originated in Christian cultures. Even if the actual contributions came from atheists or people of other faiths, and even though the church itself was often hostile to progress, the culture in which these changes are happening is originally Christian.

The cross-fertilization between cultures is notoriously difficult to disentangle, not least because arguments for or against dominant influences are often loaded with vested interests while historical facts may be hazy. Especially regarding Christianity, people tend to have strong views for or against it. Whatever the origins of modern Christianity – Jewish, Roman, Indian and others have been suggested – it is perhaps fair to say that positive characteristics of Christianity include a compassionate charity towards the disadvantaged in a way that suggested cultures of origin such as India or ancient Rome do not. Also the emphasis on humility, the confession format and open concern about ‘sin’ are quite uniquely Christian.

Origins being what they may, several aspects of Christian cultures appear to justify their affluence. Perhaps most importantly, these cultures appear to be often the most moral ones. True, monstrous injustice and evil has emerged from them, too – usually by misguided moralism. The crusades and inquisitions are the most infamous examples[100]. But whether it is the invention of the prison-system in lieu of the death penalty[101], the abolishment of the death penalty and slavery, lack of corruption, welfare systems, gender and other equalities, ecology and free speech movements, interest in human or animal rights – in the discussion of moral issues and the implementation of changes, Christian societies are leading. Not rarely, they have been the only ones engaged. Christian generosity often comes from genuine compassion, especially for the poor and disenfranchised. For example, in spite the fact that Christianity is not a dominant religion in India, by far the most aid comes from Christian organizations. Consequently, Christian nun Mother Theresa is the most popular Indian, ahead of even Gandhi. The Buddha mentions that the first benefit of keeping precepts, i.e. moral restraint, is accumulation of wealth (D 33.5; D 16.1).

Tithing – giving ten percent of everything one gets before taxes to the Church – is the Christian version of Sanghadana. It requires a solid commitment to generosity but is apparently widely practiced and inspiringly communicated. Christians are good with education, words and concepts, which is reflected in the wide variety of professional quality services they provide for all kinds of specific problems. What other religions have to offer with regard to ageing, addictions, marital troubles etc. is not even worth inquiring, pathetic or absent as it may be.

Furthermore, many Christian cultures are famous for their ‘protestant work ethos.’ This originates in a Calvinist desire to prove being predeterministically favored, i.e. God’s chosen people, and later developed to support more reasonable attitudes such as gratitude. While other cultures may encourage rest or idling, many people in Christian cultures work incredibly hard, both with regard to quality and quantity. This factor explains the origin of some current wealth (A 10.73). Not only do Christians tend to make a lot of money, they are also conservative spenders and prudent investors, where others who make money become childish or (self-)destructive. Protestant frugality, in combination with libido-hostile restraints, is proverbial. Some Christians, especially in North America, hold that going into debt is immoral and consequently look out to help each other by giving money to those who could use it for starting or expanding a business. The Buddha makes the point that while some produce wealth in this life, others dominantly use kammically created one, while again others mix the two (A 4.134); such a dynamic may well be at work here.[102] 

There seems to be also a trend for countries in cold climates to do better economically than those in tropical climates. The most simple explanation for this phenomenon is that it’s just necessary to work hard in cold climates because survival is more difficult. This would explain why cold Japan and Korea are economically in more similar circumstances to Christian culture based European and American countries. On the other hand, there are exceptions to this; for example, Singapore or Australia have dominantly warm climates and are clearly wealthy. Also it appears that this was historically not always the case. India, Egypt, Persia, Greece or Rome all have been leading cultures from subtropical or tropical zones when people in Northern Europe or America had barely come down from the trees. Perhaps the rise of Northern countries commenced since technology has made living in these harsher climates comfortable, enabling enjoyment of the surpassing natural beauty these places hold.

These factors would go some way to explain why Christian cultures are deservedly wealthy. What they don’t explain is why Buddhist cultures are often relatively more poor and also less moral. That we see only a tiny fraction of realms may explain where previously good people may have gone. Why, though, do Buddhist cultures attract so much immorality? Burma is one of the biggest suppliers of heroin and other drugs to the world; Thailand of prostitutes; Cambodia has made a name for child prostitution and human trafficking; Sri Lanka is best known for the persecution of and warfare with Tamils. All these countries, many of whom are bitterly hostile to each other, have suffered nefarious dictatorships and corruption in recent decades with massacres reminiscent of dark age mentalities.

While none of this is to denigrate their peoples’ resilience, progress, contribution and many other great qualities that were sustained often throughout their darkest days, one wonders how they could stray so far. One persuasive reason is that Buddhism is largely degenerate in these countries. In fact, what the Buddha had to say about, even issues such as Buddhism, is normally the least concern of anybody in these places. Leading monks are likely to blame most but much of it may have also to do with a combination of being established and uncontested religion. At the time of the Buddha, Buddhism was counter-cultural and controversial within the counter-culture of religious ascetics. It was much more leading edge psychology and philosophy than parish religion concerned with ceremonial support of the laity, let alone secular involvement in education or politics. Being Buddhist was a statement that had to be backed up by conduct and understanding to be tested under hostile questioning. Even then, the order degenerated with increasing fame (S 16.13; Pj 1). Flourishing within an entirely anti-intellectual backdrop – frequently of animism or black magic – with little climate-based need for exertion, could not have been optimal for the sustaining of a singularly contemplative, highly intellectual, even elitist creed.

Asian Buddhist cultures produce a wealth of extraordinary meditators based on pious purity rooted in a phenomenal ability to simplify. Questioning and arguing points – essential for purifying doctrinal perception – is quite uncultivated as cultural trait, though, so deviation remains largely undetected and undiscussed[103]. In the West, though, the Buddhism attractive to Westerners is counter-cultural. Similar to it’s origins in ancient India, Western Buddhism thriving in a psychological, intellectually competitive environment. Consequently, we find that it inclines towards educated, affluent or affluence-renouncing segments of society with substantial concern about doctrinal integrity, not unlike Buddhism at the time of the Buddha in India[104].

Generosity versus Renunciation

 “Pale phosphorescence of renunciation.” Mary Austin on the Puritans

 “‘Against the current’ is a synonym for renunciation.” (Iti 109)

“Renunciation deems us an abyss” Tapussa (A 9.41)

 

Yet another unsolved problem is that of generosity versus renunciation. This is frequently of practical import: Is it more meritorious to refuse a gift or to accept it, possibly to pass it on? The teaching on dana is laid out in such a way that the attention is almost exclusively on the action and its kammic result. From this point of view, each act of releasing the hold on something considered ‘mine’ for the benefit of ‘another’ drops a specific amount into a kammic piggy bank in which one can’t have too much. Consequently, it would seem best to accept and acquire as much as possible, so that one can drop as much as possible into one’s money box – and have some fun on the way.

Some monks follow this logic and accept, even raise as much donations as they can, in order to then either build fancy monasteries or redistribute the acquired wealth. That the monasteries and fancy accommodations those monks build are typically a garish and wasteful affront to taste and modesty is of concern in itself. In these monks’ scheme of things it is important to show that one has ‘parami,[105]’ a lot of good kamma from past lives (Sn 2.4) to gain credibility – much like banks or insurance companies seek credibility with their ostentatious displays of wealth. Not rarely, abbots engage all available monks and novices as free labor in these projects; quite a few of them also enjoy working physically themselves. Concern for the scripturally obligatory renunciant training of these monks is hardly recognizable, not least because they are expected to disrobe in droves anyway. Delight in physical labor is often said to be of great disadvantage to monastics in the suttas as is the closely connected delight in company, talking, sleeping and avoidance of seclusion (A 5.89/90; A 6.21/2). A 6.14/5 even predicts a bad death for monks who delight in physical work and says that they have not overcome the personality structure and are actually delighting in it.

Their worth proven in this way, many senior monks then try to help their country in one way or another, curiously mostly in secular ways, be it building hospitals or, in extreme cases, directly in the political arena. The same sutta passages that criticize working, also criticize continued intimate contact with lay people as opposed to spending most time in solitude. This emphasis on seclusion is canonically by no means only for young monks (M 3); even the Buddha practiced it, no least as an example (M 4). Many abbots, however, are much closer to lay people than to any of the monks in their monasteries and spend a lot more time with them, typically in quite worldly pursuits.

For the counter-cultural ‘recluse’ (samana) monasticism the Buddha established his order in, all this does not feel quite right. The Buddha and his disciples would have had power and influence to become socially or politically active in style but they did not. From the detailed accounts of their lives, we get the impression that they lived in ascetic simplicity, accepting only necessities. The Buddha is mentioned to have refused offerings repeatedly (Cv 12.2), demonstrating that proper proportion in accepting was of greater concern than accepting things for the benefit of the lay people. Only in one single, particularly highlighted case, the Buddha is reported to have given his robe to another monk – note that the Buddha wore a torn rag robe at the time[106] – namely to the super-ascetic Venerable Maha Kassapa (S 16.11). In other words, the Buddha did not appear to receive things in order to pass them on, as is expected of monks now.

Possessing only three robes was monastic rule and it appears the Buddha did not accept any robes beyond that for whatever purpose. A monk was to travel only with bowl and robes, like a bird (e.g. D 2-13); slippers were prohibited initially in the village and the monastery unless ill and only gradually became allowable to be used in monastery grounds (Mv 5). Sleeping on frozen ground – occasionally in snow – was considered comfortable enough (A 3.35). The Buddha tested how many layers of cloth were needed to keep ‘warm’ in those temperatures and found a maximum of four layers sufficient even for the delicately raised (Mv 8.13[107]); many modern monks would likely perish from hypothermia under such a regimen [108]. The epitome of good food was ‘rice, with the black grains picked out.’ The Buddha strongly recommended eating only one meal as he did, though he did not make it mandatory (M 21; M 65; M 66; M 70).

Dhammic and kammic possibilities for the receiver of gifts are discussed at length in the training of monks. The tone of these exhortations is of an entirely different kind from the merit making discussion. Here, the Buddha instructs in character formation, which does not focus much on individual deeds. Objective of this training is building a person – an identity – that is able to penetrate existential truths. Great weight is given to being worthy of offerings, being a field of merit for the laity by virtue of one’s good character (M 6; M 39; M 40).

The Buddha encourages monks to be generous, though largely for reasons different from those given to lay people. A lot is made of duties from one kind of monk to another, like student to teacher, junior to senior or guest to host (Cv 8). Sharing everything with one’s fellow monks down to the contents of one’s bowl is listed as important factor for creating harmony in the monastery (M 48; M 104; D 34: bahukara, ‘very helpful’). In the simile of the cowherd, the acts of loving-kindness towards ‘the fathers and leaders of the monastic community’ that are compared to the cowherd’s attention to the leading bulls are dominantly acts of generosity (M 33). All these forms of generous behavior, however, are judged by whether the result makes one a better person in the process (A 3.79; M 96), not by how much is sacrificed or how much merit is acquired.

The simile of the cowherd also features another analogy pertinent to the question of renunciation versus generosity. A cowherd who milks his cows dry so that there is nothing left for the calf is said to be incapable of prospering. In the same way, a monk who does not know moderation in accepting requisites from householders who have offered him to take as much as he likes, is considered incapable of growth in the teaching. This is worryingly similar to the behavior of some monks who are operating as fundraisers.

In another passage of the monastic discipline, the Buddha temporarily forbade monks to give away something that was given to them for their own enjoyment after the lay people complained. When the monks said there was a surplus, the Buddha amended the legislation to allow things to be given to another order (i.e. another monastery or the nuns); when there was still an abundance, permission was given to give away what was given to an individual, rather than a community (Cv 10.15).

The feelings of the lay people and finding a mature way to deal with abundance were genuine concerns; the merit of the monks who give things away is not considered in any way. Why might this be the case?

In A 6.39 the Buddha points out that all actions by body, speech or mind[109] that are done with greed[110] lead to rebirth in lower realms; only actions without sense desire lead to the human realm and above (ditto hatred and delusion)[111]. This implies that the value of a deed is primarily its weight on the scale from greed to non-greed (hatred, delusion). Explanations on how generosity ripens in happiness deed by deed are just one good way to demonstrate this causality; lay people necessarily exist in a world of constant concern about material objects and their cognitive charge, so giving is an excellent vehicle for them to learn pars pro toto the law of kamma.

In other words, a limited ability for monks and nuns to distribute wealth does not mean that they will have to spend the remainder of their days in samsara in abject poverty. Their entire life is set up to generate states free from sense desire, hatred and delusion, many of which are said to be more meritorious than giving away material objects (A 9.20, the Velama Sutta discussed above).

If any kind of giving is profoundly inherent in the monastic occupation, it is that of Dhamma dana – explaining, coaching, training monastics and lay people in the teaching of the Buddha [112]. This Dhamma dana is declared to be the highest (Dhp 357), presumably because it leads to the greatest amount of total happiness. Real monks therefore do not need to behave like lay people in fear of poverty; there should be plenty of merit for them. Ultimately, the teaching to monks and nuns is not geared towards acquisition of merit. While some merit making is praised, on a rare occasion also to monks (It 22), the passage shows that the monks were wary of this approach, the ultimate purpose of the teaching being of course emancipation from designing the future. The type of merit making the Buddha praises to the monks in It 22, by the way, is that of developing loving kindness, not giving gifts.

As the teaching on generosity is dominantly geared towards the laity, the fact that acquiring, receiving and distributing objects typically carries both temptation and a restlessness with them that may contain greed, hatred and delusion, is not made much of – restlessness is the normal state of the lay life anyway. For the meditative lifestyle, however, this can be a substantial and inhibitive distraction. From this point of view, renunciation needs to be considered superior to accepting and giving. Also, the somewhat contemptuous approach to sensuality underlying the renunciation approach is superior to the typically sensual exchange program of standard generosity. The ‘cittaparikkhara, cittalankara dana,’ i.e. ‘generosity to equip and adorn the heart’ described above is a kind of giving that matches the nobility of genuine renunciation. The worldly equivalent to this type of giving is the ‘anarchist giving’ described above in the section on the gift. Dependent on an understanding of the dangers of materialism, personal possessions are pursued only cautiously and in wholesome ways, then distributed or communalized freely. Recognition and other material returns are of no interest while the character and/or community enhancing aspect is central.

The spiritual version (‘to equip the heart’) of the worldly saintliness of anarchist giving is categorically different in so far as it relinquishes any kind of hope or interest in sensual or even impermanent experiences – the trap that causes idealistic people so much pain and anger. The ‘generosity to equip and adorn the heart’ is renunciation of the world of sense contact and therefore it leads to the same kind of rebirth as any other practice leading to renunciation, namely the eon-lasting, gender-transcendent Brahma realm where all happiness comes from still, meditative clarity (A 7.49).

 

Another canonical grouping of terms that brings generosity and renunciation together is that of ‘dana, danta, sanyamo,’ ‘generosity, being tamed, guarding’ (e.g. It 22, D 17, D 30). This triad of qualities is the one the Buddha discovered in previous lives when contemplating where his phenomenal wealth or attainment of happiness came from. ‘Danta,’ from the same etymological root as the word ‘dana,’ means being tamed, much in the sense a wild animal is tamed. M 125, the Dantabhumi Sutta (‘Grade of the Tamed’) describes in detailed analogy the taming of an elephant. One quality of the Buddha is that he is ‘the unsurpassed tamer, charioteer’ of those who can be tamed (very often, e.g. M 91). ‘Sanyamo’ appears to describe the guarding of that result. An attack dog needs to be trained to be of use and no danger. Afterwards it needs to be maintained and protected, not least to do no harm. This important distinction is made in the definition of right effort, the sixth factor of the noble eightfold path. There ‘bhavana,’ ‘development’ and ‘anurakkhana,’ ‘maintaining,’ are separated into quite different practices. Development is in that context defined as the development of the ‘bojjhanga,’ ‘enlightenment factors’ or more beautifully ‘wings of awakening’ (Tan Geoff). It is the deepening of meditation from right mindfulness into right concentration. ‘Anurakkhana,’ is defined as maintaining or guarding a samadhi nimitta, a mental image generated by the purified mind, specifically images of corpses at various stages of decomposition are given as such images (A 4.14; D 33.4). Preventing the attack dog from doing harm is here meant to illustrate the common danger of misusing or at least wasting spiritual power.

Taming takes a confrontational, courageous mind, sensitized to risk taking under dramatically changing circumstances. Guarding requires a conservative mind with the ability to patiently and quietly observe, making occasionally minute adjustments. The two are a bit like archetypal father and mother roles. Developing societies normally need revolutionary leaders for transitioning from one form of rule to another but diplomatic leaders for subsequent harmonizing and compromising to unite factions. Developing people, too, need to be different characters at each stage of this process. – Intricacies of emphasis aside, these three types of cultivation (generosity, taming, guarding) are all dominantly forms of restraint.

By design, giving objects tends to incline more to the lay side of developing powerful merit, while sense-restraint and introspective purification are more monastic business. On the ground this is not necessarily so, with many monks being busy and some lay people living profoundly contemplative and restrained lives.

In summary, one could say that monks are highly recommended to be generous so long as it does not busy their lives, affect their meditation practice, risks the ascetic lifestyle or good relationships with the laity. This is important also for very generous lay people to consider when they enter intensive meditation practice, as it may help meditation to adjust the pace of generosity a bit under those circumstances. Only too often, saintly lay people find it difficult not to get involved during their sparse time for retreat. In addition, this understanding can be a guide in choosing wholesome monastic situations. Good monasteries, their leaders and students, should be dominantly interested in and practicing seclusion.

Aiding Generosity

“Virtually all economic activity in the contemporary world is carried out not by individuals but by organizations that require a high degree of social cooperation.” Francis Fukuyama

 

In the previous chapter it was mentioned that monks are acting in many ways as catalysts for giving. Their vocation is designed to facilitate merit making of the laity; they are instructors in the methods for optimizing spiritual as well as material returns from generosity. All the teachings we are discussing in this paper are coming from this activity of aiding, i.e. informing, facilitating and encouraging generosity, originating mostly in the Buddha himself.

There are many more ways to aid generosity, also for lay people. In several suttas (A 8.38; A 5.42) the Buddha mentions that a virtuous lay person is of great benefit to a large number of human and non-human beings, just as a strong rainfall brings the entire harvest to fruition. Teaching by example and encouragement will be the most dominant aspects of this effect. Little generosity is done by individuals, far more in groups. Usually, there are a number of key people who get merit making occasions going, as well as some quieter supporters who can always be relied upon to be enthusiastically of the party.

Direct forms of aiding generosity may range from talking to inform and instruct people to outright fundraising. But sometimes aiding generosity may be strategic rather than wordy, e.g. by inviting monks or staging benefit events. Offering of facilities, assistance in running meditation retreats, building and maintaining of monasteries or driving monks may come under this heading.

 

Frequently, people also give something to another person with the express purpose that the recipient may use it to make merit. Sometimes parents or grandparents give something to their children to offer to monks, a monastery, their church or beggars. In this way, the children learn the requisite kind of generosity. Sometimes children, especially Asian children, give money or goods to their ageing parents, so that the parents can make merit before they die.

An interesting technical question is what kind of kammic result this kind of activity procures. For this last case – giving something to somebody so they can give – we have a direct sutta reference. The passage is peculiar in so far, as it is given as a rather stern rebuke to Saccaka, an arrogant challenger of the Buddha. Saccaka had bragged that “…just as a strong man might seize a long-haired ram by the hair and drag him to and drag him fro and drag him round about, so in debate I will drag the recluse Gotama to and drag him fro and drag him round about. (M 35)” These nauseating insults go on a bit in the sutta but when the debate takes place, Saccaka is quickly defeated in front of a large crowd. Having recovered some of his better parts, he asks some good questions, decides to offer a meal to the Buddha and invites the lay people to assist him with the merit-making occasion. After the meal, Saccaka said to the Buddha: “Master Gotama, may the merit and the great meritorious fruits of this act of giving be for the happiness of the givers.” … to which the Buddha replied:

“Aggivesana [113], whatever comes about from giving to a recipient such as yourself – one who is not free from lust, not free from hate, not free from delusion – that will be for the givers. And whatever comes about from giving to a recipient such as myself – one who is free from lust, free from hate, free from delusion – that will be for you.”

The curtness of the Buddha’s reply needs to be understood in light of Saccaka’s arrogance and underhanded way of trying to reposition himself with the lay people in front of whom he had been so direly humiliated just prior. The confrontation was fortuitous for posterity, though; we owe to this explanation the clarification of an important point. The Buddha states that the actual merit goes directly to the person who is offering the gift. That merit cannot be transferred to human beings has already been mentioned under the heading of dedicating merit to departed ancestors above (A 10.177). This case is further remarkable, though, because the Licchavi lay people had brought the food (five hundred ceremonial dishes of milk rice) to Saccaka, expressly in order that it be offered to the Buddha and the Sangha; in fact, it seems unlikely that they would have brought them for Saccaka himself.

It would appear from this passage that if a mother who has her childishly imbecile toddler put food into a monks bowl, the toddler will get all the merit from the support of the monk, while the mother has to make due with what her toddler’s merit is worth. There must be limits to this, though, for a bank that transfers money to a monastery account or a postman who delivers the mail cannot possibly make the merit entailed in supporting the Sangha. Probably it is the intention to give so that the other person can make merit that is key to the fruition, i.e. where the merit goes. In that, this could be the closest one might be able to get to dedicating merit to another human being: give them something to give.

The way kamma works, one would expect, though, that the mother who gives her child something to offer, will also harvest opportunities for making merit as well as support from her children or parents, perhaps family in general. In addition, she should be able to obtain good hands-on instruction in merit making as part of her education in this or future lives. Trivial or cute as the moment may seem to an onlooker, there is substantial existential depth and vision to the mother’s educational stratagem. Perhaps most significantly, her action is an expression of whatever faith and confidence in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha she has. This faith itself is said to be a powerful source of merit in the suttas (e.g. A 4.52; A 8.39; A 9.20).

In D 23, the somewhat crude and cruel King Payasi is said to have instructed one of his employees to distribute offerings to people. When the Brahmin in charge complained of the poor quality of goods, King Payasi is said to have told him to then give better things. Although King Payasi is said to have been reborn in heaven, his rebirth was in the lowest heavenly realm. The Brahmin in charge of distribution, however, is said to have been reborn in one heaven higher. The commentary thinks that the King meant the Brahmin to give better things from his own possessions but the more commonsensical reading of the passage is that the care and engagement of the Brahmin as deliverer of the gifts carried him to the higher heaven, in spite of having not many things to offer himself. In practice, both these explanations probably come to a similar situation on the ground: The king will have had greater resources with lesser care, the employed Brahmin fewer objects but greater care.

A story in the Dhammapada commentary suggests that people who give together with others will have a lot of friends when their good kamma ripens. Canonical passages that could be interpreted to corroborate this reasonable assumption are A 4.191, where monks are said to be approached after death by those with whom they lived the holy life. Similar is A 4.55/6, where those who wish to be reunited after death are said to need compatible faith (saddha), virtue (sila), generosity (caga: also giving up) and wisdom (pañña)[114].

There is a decisive difference in Sri Lankan versus South East Asian gift giving with regard to this point. In Sri Lanka, an invitation to feed monks is typically expected and desired to be exclusive (merit is feared to suffer if shared), while South East Asian invitations are open to all, in a ‘the-more-the-merrier’-type system. Sri Lanka is perhaps still somewhat more similar to Buddhist India than South East Asian culture and so is the type of offering. Almsround aside, at the time of the Buddha invitations seem to have been exclusive, at least to a group of contributors to which one could be invited, as in Saccaka’s case above in M 35. In Mv 6.24 a Brahmin follows the Buddha for two months but is unable to get a slot to offer a meal; he fears that his household affairs will suffer from his absence. At Ud 2.8 a house invitation is traded at the instigation of the Buddha to celebrate a birth. The original host exchanges it somewhat unwillingly, asking Venerable Moggallana to be his surety for wealth, life and faith. Due to his psychic powers, the chief disciple accepts responsibility for wealth and life and asks the householder to be his own surety for his faith. It appears that the householder otherwise would perhaps not have given up his date. At any rate, the parties are clearly rivals with all the unwholesome possibilities that may entail. Curiously from the point of the South East Asian tradition, it doesn’t enter the discussion why the birth giving party can’t join the original invitation, perhaps in exchange for having the original party let them join later on. In this way, they would get twice the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha to see and hear, perhaps becoming Dhamma friends for long times to come.   

While exclusive invitation seems to have been the tradition in India, it appears to be less contracted[115] and more universally loving to let anybody who wants give whatever they like. The parties can rejoice in each other’s generosity, listen to Dhamma together and have a good time forming friendships through merit making occasions. One could speculate that the open system of the South East Asian tradition is one cause for the world-famous generosity in that region.

Whether the system employed is relevant, comes down to the question whether the full merit is obtained when food is accepted in the hand, into the bowl or only when it is eaten. The faithful intention, all preliminary activity and the giving up – i.e. all psychological components – are complete when the object is released. Seen in this way, also a parcel that does not arrive or offering something entirely useless would engender full merit. Passages like the Buddha’s statement: “Intention, monks, I call kamma” appear to fit that explanation (A 6.63).

If dominantly what is consumed engenders merit, it would seem to be better for poorer people, inferior chefs and insensitive givers to have exclusive invitations because wealthier or better clued in disciples would more easily be able to get their offering consumed on every merit making occasion. If this was true and taught thus, it might make supporters a little more careful in meeting actual needs than simply give anything, independent of its usefulness. One downside to this understanding might be that substantial pressure would be on the monks to consume as much as possible, rather than as moderately as possible. This is certainly not the way of the Buddha, who worked hard to cut monks down from three meals to one (M 66; M 65; M 70; M 21); who stated that hoarding is impossible for an arahant (A 9.7) and who established a tradition where monks refuse requisites when they have enough (e.g. NP 10) and are often prohibited to accept excessively (e.g. NP 1, 3, 7, 14, 21). Special merit for consumed goods, does seem to be the understanding in some canonical passages, though. In P 33, eating before an invitation is made an offence because a poor lay man feels slighted by the monks because they have eaten already before the meal. This sentiment would be alien to modern day South East Asian supporters who often expect monks to eat before their invitation and are largely indifferent to how much of the offered food the monks partake of, so long it is all accepted by the Sangha. The regulation might have been put in place to placate frustrated sentiments rather than reflect kammic realities. In that case, though, the rule could have been phrased differently to allow for multiple donors[116].

More directly to the point in question, in A 4.51/5.45, the Buddha says the merit of one whose offering of the four requisites (robes, food, shelter, medicine) is used by a monk who enters ‘boundless meditation’ (appamano cetosamadhi[117]) becomes boundless in turn. This suggests that, by enabling the body-mind to enter that state, one has a small share in that attainment, rather like one may acquire a share in a company and may become ‘lucky,’ should that company boom.

This rather technical consideration makes sense only if one assumes that the differences in merit are very substantial and care is taken not to let the mind drift towards unwholesome rivalry or possessiveness. To cover all eventualities one could perhaps formulate that maximum merit will always be obtained if one gives preference to the South East Asian system but tries to offer the most likely used items. This seems to be what many Buddhist lay people do who are seriously interested in merit making.

 

‘Dhamma dana,’ the giving of Dhamma has already been mentioned in the previous chapter to be said by the Buddha to be the highest form of giving (Dhp 357). This is of course primarily so because it enables other beings to make merit and liberate themselves from then on by themselves. Practicing thus, they are also likely to inspire others to do good or reorient themselves towards liberation. In M 44, the voice of another is given as one of two causes for the all-important acquisition of right view, the other being wise or deep reflection (yoniso manasikara).

Such Dhamma dana can especially nowadays be offered in many original ways. What used to require yearlong learning can be offered as books or other media. Huge is, and always was, the range of opportunity to facilitate learning, from arranging for talks all the way to offering computers. In all these cases, one would expect the kammic result to be good access and affinity to sound orientation in the Dhamma one has facilitated. Especially newcomers, though, need to heed the nuance (Dhamma) ‘that one has facilitated,’ as much disorientation can be caused down the road by attracting poor quality instruction.  

A curious open question is whether Dhamma dana also, like all other dana, leads to the acquisition of wealth, because objects are not necessarily sacrificed. Since heavenly worlds are by nature places of extreme wealth one would think this to be the case in some way. In the human realm, this might manifest through the offerings and assistance that frequent teaching obtains, although this support tends to happen dominantly in public teaching situations, not for example, in monastic coaching.

Another, not necessarily mutually exclusive possibility is that disseminating teachings which lead to the acquisition of wealth, generates the encouraged kind of prosperity if the teachings are accepted. Analogue, an instruction or encouragement to kill is considered a criminal offence if acted upon and the same logic holds in Buddhism. A monk who encourages specific killing of a human being (even abortion or suicide) is dealt with just like a monk who killed with his own hands according to monastic discipline (Pj 3); the same is true for acts of stealing (Pj 2).

 

In the age of the ‘dana-talk’ it is perhaps also in order to say a few things from a canonical point of view about contemporary western instruction in giving. Essentially the content falls into two main categories: dana opens the heart (Goenka version: diminishes the ego) and it is a parami(ta) that must be ‘fulfilled.’

The ‘opening of the heart’ teaching could be found canonically in the intention to give with delight (e.g. A 7.49; A 8.38; A 5.148) as well as in those teachings that show how contemplation of one’s own generosity can lead to forms of meditative liberation (e.g. M 99). Unfortunately, what is presented as the ‘opening the heart’ teaching is typically poorly aligned with what the Buddha had to say about mental development through the understanding and praxis of dana, so it’s hard to make a close comparison.

 

The term parami or paramita occurs only marginally in the canon and never with its commentarial meaning. As Buddhism degenerated over the centuries into a heavily mystified religion where the Buddha was six meters tall and emanated six colored rays after he meditated in a jeweled ‘hut,’ theories regarding the development towards Buddhahood became academic pets [118]. In the commentary to D 1, the idea (somewhat annoyingly bold presented as fact) is that somebody who wants to become a Buddha accumulates good qualities until he has the full range of canonically mentioned psychic powers and enough wisdom to become an arahant in one night. Then, in the presence of a Buddha, this super-meditator forms a resolution to relinquish the imminent attainment of arahantship in order to become a Buddha. When acknowledged by a Buddha at such a time, the resolution becomes irreversible. In the course of a very long, somewhat fixed samsaric journey, this so-called Bodhisatta[119] begins to accumulate the virtues that make the difference between an arahant and a Buddha. The timeframes introduced dwarf all canonical dimensions; in fact, they are inflated to such super-vastness, that no canonical terms exist to describe them, so the commentary invents them. What the Buddha recollected is tiny in comparison to the dimensions later commentators deal in matter-of-factly.

The qualities accumulated by a ‘Bodhisatta’ after the imagined acknowledgement from a Buddha – and only then – are called ‘paramita’ by the commentary, which is usually translated as ‘perfections.’ Similar to the canonical ‘indriya’ (faculties, see S 48.18), ordinary people do not have them. Nowadays, however, ‘parami’ are usually just a mushy umbrella term for virtues, often also in respect to those developed in previous lives. Monks who can raise a lot of money go plaster monasteries with buildings are said to have a lot of parami. People who do not progress well (along the lines of commentarial Buddhism) are often said to be lacking parami, a pedagogical logic that is almost absent in the instruction of the Buddha.

The first of these commentarial paramitas is dana and much is made of this fact by those who subscribe to commentarial teachings. Dana is said to be the beginning of spiritual practice (notice how that supersedes and ‘coarsifies’ right view) and the hardest of the parami to complete. The psychology of these paramitas is that they are filled up like piggy banks. Unless all of them are full – the term typically used is ‘fulfilled,’ as in a contract – attainment is said to be impossible[120]. Post canonical Buddhism invented all kinds of stories from ridiculous to downright cruel on how the Buddha accomplished this. The worst story is the Vessantara Jataka (comy to Jat 547), which supposedly was the last good deed needed to fulfill the paramita. The Buddha to be is said in the harrowing story to have given his children against their fears to a highly abusive Brahmin to fulfill his dana paramita. Other stories are about the commentarial Bodhisatta sacrificing his body to feed animals. Some of this tragic lore is more reminiscent of human sacrifice than Buddhist dana, where giving should not harm oneself or others and give joy to everybody involved (A 5.148).[121]

While possibly a good way to raise funds, this piggy bank type of spiritual materialism is not what the Buddha taught. It is dangerously close to the similarly mechanistic Jain position that all kamma needs to be worn away to attain cessation of rebirth, which the Buddha criticizes. In the Buddha’s teaching, awakening is a cognitive process of clarification. To obtain this clarification, it is necessary that one’s mind is powerful, stable, well oriented and well directed. A spiritual maturation process that has at its heart the development of spiritual faculties (indriya) is the Buddha’s own way of describing this. As has been mentioned above, dana is not part of these faculties or the noble eightfold path, which only requires an understanding into the kammic, i.e. spiritual aspect of generosity. Perhaps one could say analogue that being rich is not necessary to get a university degree or in becoming a top athlete. Such an idea may in fact become an obstruction. An understanding that money is involved in these processes is sufficient.

 

The question whether Buddhist lay teachers should live off – usually solicited – donations or sales of Buddhist books is complex. Ultimately, donations are gifts and that’s it; they carry the minimal obligations that received gifts always entail but can otherwise be accepted and used according to preference. For monastics, many forms of requesting donations are prohibited. For lay people this is not mentioned, although M 117 states “scheming, talking, hinting, belittling, pursuing gain with gain: this is wrong livelihood.”

In the case of lay teachers living off donations, many feel that the peer pressure and direct fundraising appeals of ‘dana-talks’ is excessive and ethically questionable. The ‘dana-talk’ is typically given at a psychologically vulnerable time to the student. When at the end of a retreat, euphoria over new understanding or merely having survived is mixed with gratitude, appeals for donations are highly effective. Every teacher knows that. As a result of this MO, attending retreats is often so costly that it has become a hobby mostly for the arrived middle class. This is reflected in the average age of retreatants being usually around fifty. Meditation institutions such as Goenka’s or forest monasteries that are financed by more truly voluntary contributions attract much younger audiences.

A further concern is that these teachers and the set up of the retreats supplicate consciously and subconsciously to the sensual and doctrinal preferences of potent(ial) donors. This can emasculate a teaching designed to confront defilements by seeing the danger in sensuality and existence as well as the renunciation thereof. Trends within western lay teachers’ instructions heighten these concerns.

Perhaps it should also be considered that this kind of livelihood for lay people was – as far as we know – non-existent at the time of the Buddha. Within Buddhism and the wider samana community, living off alms was the prerogative of renunciants, i.e. ordained monastics. In that, it is deceptive when lay teachers claim that the lucrative dana principle they endorse is Buddhist tradition. It is for monastics, not so that lay people can live middle class lifestyles. Even nowadays, where some monks and nuns live close to middle class lifestyles, the majority of good monks pass donations from retreats on to monasteries. Rather than paying mortgages and buying knick-knack for their kids, they thus preserve the spirit of Sanghadana, i.e. they support a universal platform for anybodies Buddhist development in the future.

At the time of the Buddha, Brahmins did at times live off donations, though it appears that this was usually the case in the context of renunciant parts of their lives. For example, at the end of their (renunciant) academic training, Brahmins would collect alms for tuition. In old age, they may have gone for alms when they pursued a renunciant lifestyle again. Brahmins may, however, also have received donations for conducting ceremonies and teaching at times when they lived as family men. So perhaps, if they wanted, these lay teachers could take themselves to be part of the Brahmanic or any other lay priest tradition, if being part of the ‘establishment’ that the Buddha took on is not conflicting their self-image. – The last word on this is that the Buddha himself is not on record to have objected to lay people’s living off donations or the sale of Buddhist teachings[122].  

The greater issue, therefore, is likely the skillful presentation of both the teaching and the desire for donations. As in the case of monastics, a desire for donations is better not expressed at all, and ideally abandoned altogether. Monasteries without donation boxes do well because those who wish to express their gratitude or support tend to easily enough find out how the system works. A little faith on the side of the recipient goes a long way here.

Even more significantly, it is necessary for all teachers of Buddhism to be thoroughly acquainted with what the Buddha had to say and present that teaching as meticulously accurate as possible. Stating inaccurately that the Buddha did or said things he didn’t do or say is said to create great demerit (e.g. A 2.42; A 2.115/6). Even worse, in Pj 2, the Buddha calls someone who attributes to himself a teaching of the Buddha without reference a ‘great thief,’ in a way that one doesn’t even want to think what the consequences might be. Both these teachings show how great the responsibility for any teacher in the vicinity of Buddhism is.

When making these critical considerations, it should for balance also be pointed out that many lay teachers have made great and selfless contributions to Buddhism in the west. Many of them cater far better than monastics to the needs of western lay people, while frequently maintaining an equal or higher quality of teaching. Quite a few lay teachers have tried to live a monastic life but were failed by the system, something that they most graciously never blame anybody for[123]. Their ‘institution’ is remarkably free of the scandals so typical of many Asian spiritual circles[124]. Furthermore, lay teaching is quite new but self-reflective – obviously, many of the teachers strive for awakening – so it should be considered a work in progress. On the whole, the positive qualities of the movement appear to outweigh concerns.

 

In summary it can be said that for those who are able to inspire others, aiding or catalyzing generosity appears to be a more effective way to create impact than giving out individual objects. The Buddha himself worked that way. Of course, effective teaching ability implies a need for charisma, courage, experience and, not least, a great deal of joy with the parting process so enabled. Perhaps, truly powerful aiding of generosity can be seen as structural advance in the practice of giving, the step into realization-based abstraction.

Role Modeling Power Donors

“Imitate him if you dare…” W.B Yeats

“The pleasure of imitation, as the ancients knew, is one of the most innate in the human spirit.” Umberto Eco

 

When sports coaches are paid millions of dollars annually to work wonders, they do not usually have to instruct the players how to play football or baseball. If they didn’t know that, they wouldn’t be where they are. What they are paid for is the ability to create a vision that is inspiring the players to break through their previous glass ceiling. One key tool in achieving these breakthroughs is the visualization of and identification with role models. The player is able to see and experience him- or herself in a brand-new way.

What separates human beings from animals according to evolutionary science are especially mirror genes. These genes help us to imitate or emulate other beings and to vicariously experience what they seem to feel. We often think of creativity and innovation as the great human attainments but much more significant is the ability to copy. More than anything, our perception of who we are and where we are going is created by stories, myths or mystified true stories in which a hero overcomes various challenges. Consciously and subconsciously, we identify with the hero and adopt part of his or her values, language or MO[125].

The idea of refuge in Sangha – as all systems of developing human aspiration – is based on this same psychological insight. Where people have real understanding and respect for what it means to be a Buddha, they justly cannot identify with being a Buddha themselves. The Sangha, however, are the role models that function as lodestars for those aspiring to liberation from all attachments. A huge diversity of tragic, funny, sad but ultimately glorious life stories offer guidance and inspiration to see and grow beyond current limitations.

Everybody considering their experience with generosity will find that some people stand out as givers. In the same way that we get images of people when we consider who is most smart, beautiful or rich, our mind collects perceptions of the superstars in the field of generosity.

On closer examination it turns out that these givers are not made equal. Each one has a leaning towards one or more specialties. With some it’s the speed and intelligence with which they recognize an opportunity to give. So called ‘angel investors’ part with ease from spectacular sums when they feel a risky project is worth it, long before it reaches the safe zone of a blue chip investment. In this way, they are giving it credibility even more then financial support. These pioneers are the backbones of the innovations that make up our world, secular or Buddhist.

Someone else may be extremely dependable as sponsor, a silent stabilizer to the existence of many institutions. Discretion is often central to their enormous virtue development. Another donor type may be so thrilled to give the absolute best quality that he will drive fifty kilometers, just to get to the very best breakfast restaurant in the state. Some people have particular facility or classiness in making the receiver feel at ease with receiving their offering. For others, again, their art is to deduce through intricate spy-operations what the hidden preferences of the receiver might be, where not discoverable by questioning or intuition. Occasionally it’s the sheer quantity or a special piousness that are the principle focus and expertise of the giver. With some, one stands in awe as they practically ruin themselves from time to time through their generosity.

The possibilities and combinations of specialization are as infinite – and necessary – as personalities themselves. Each specialization or combination provides its developer with a foundation and springboard for further development in a way that casual virtue can never provide. They provide an identity or sense of belonging into the Sangha that overrides challenges and typically determines future births. Just as no serious fan cares whether a national football star can spell properly, so too, a master of an art or virtue can withstand and battle challenges within him- or herself to entirely different degrees than normal people.

The Buddha himself introduces this concept of ‘the foremost disciple’ in the Etadagassa Vagga (‘The Thus-Highest Chapter’) A 1.14. It provides a much made-of sample of disciples who excel in one way or another. This list is not only an easy catalogue for highly recommended hours of joyous and profitable ‘Sanghanussati,’ a term that may perhaps be rendered as ‘inspiration from enlightened disciples.’ In a teaching which discourages unwholesome competition and personality cults, it serves as encouragement to seek distinction in wholesome qualities, providing a multitude of possibilities. Who would have considered distinction in fields such as ‘being able to expand on a brief explanation’ (Ven. Maha Kaccana), ‘avoiding arguments’ (Ven. Subhuti) or ‘getting faith from mere listening’ (a lay woman called Kali Kuraraghara)? Monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen are all represented, from famous to hardly known, in fields from obvious to obscure.

A substantial number of distinctions concern giving. Assembled are the superstars of sheer quantity: Visakha, the donor of the Pubbarama and numerous innovations in types of giving for the laywomen. The lay supporter Anathapindika is foremost in generosity among laymen. He famously covered a vast royal property with truckloads of gold in order to obtain it as grounds for the most important monastery in Buddhist history[126]. Suppiya and Mahanama[127], distinguished themselves as donors of haute cuisine almsfood. A little more broadly, the layman Ugga from Vesali is foremost in offering good things of all kinds and there is still another slot for another Ugga who was foremost as a supporter in general. The lay woman Suppiya, foremost in attending to the sick, made ‘headlines’ when she actually cut a piece of meat out of her thigh to offer meat broth to a recovering monk (Mv 6.23ff). This led to the laying down of the – usually superfluous J – rule that prohibits monks from eating human flesh. There are also more unusual distinctions with regard to generosity, such as being foremost in the distribution of lodgings (Ven. Dabba the Maller) or excelling among those worthy of receiving offerings, a distinction held by the unassuming Ven. Subhuti, who would briefly enter into deep absorption of universal love before receiving alms. Quite a number of expert instructors are mentioned. Teaching (or ‘reaching’) and the distribution of teaching are a unique way of combining generosity of heart and time with empathy, knowledge and wisdom acquired in earlier practice. This is so far-reaching and multiplicative in its effect, that the Buddha pronounced the gift of the teaching the highest of all (Dhp 357).

Also in our times, we have such superstars in the public arena. For example, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet made history with the donations in the previously unheard of twenty to forty billion dollar bracket[128]. Angelina Jolie gives away a staggering third of her income. The vast number of master givers, though, will be known only locally, occasionally not at all. In each case, some small or large, pretty or profound kind of selflessness has been mastered.

With this inspiration from grand masters and the factor analysis provided by the Buddha, we have a clear path to performance distinction for aspiring masters.

Important to utilizing this tool are several factors. The first is the powerfully meritorious one of appreciative joy, the ability to actually delight in, rather than denigrate or envy other’s virtue. Secondly, a good assessment of one’s own, typically underestimated potential, both as to quantity and area of specialization is necessary. Finally, the consistent effort and ability to visualize, hold and develop the image of the inspiring person and one’s own goal will create the effect. The powerful nature of this type of contemplation is attested to not only in spiritual literature or reflected in the paychecks of sport coaches. Countless scientific studies have corroborated the miraculous results reported. 

High End Dana

"The evidence we have surveyed ... does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts." Michael J. Howe, Jane W. Davidson and John A. Sluboda in conclusion of an extensive study.

“The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient.” Ericsson, Prietula, Cokely  ‘The Making of an Expert’

 

‘Deliberate practice,’ mentioned already above, is a technical term coined by Professor K. Anders Ericsson to describe the aggressive, challenging energy that master students practice with. This is in stark contrast to the often habituated, distracted, dull, listless and even lazy way in which many ordinary students practice their craft.

The talent finds a particular kind of joy now called ‘flow,’ a term coined by Chicago Professor Csikszentmihalyi to describe this peaceful euphoria experienced only during hard work[129]. The trick to obtain flow lies in challenging well-developed abilities with just the right amount of tension. It is important to avoid frustration but the challenge has to be difficult enough to demand all available attention and skill. In the flow state there is an exhilarated exclusion of surroundings, time seems to fly by and the skill pours out freely without thought intervention. Flow is the secret to many skilled peoples’ incredible output of quality work; often they are downright addicted to this exhilarated feeling and the results it leads them towards.

 

Frustration Zone

Challenge or Flow Zone

Comfort Zone

­­­_{Graph: The red line indicates effort during a practice session that results in flow.}

 

To enter the flow-state, the challenge has to lead one beyond the comfort zone so that full concentration is required but one does not end up over-challenged, exhausted and frustrated. Enthusiastic beginners often ask too much of their ability resulting in overwhelm. Ultimately, they get done less than the person who finds just the right measure.

The density pattern is decisive in all areas of great exertion. Even the most dedicated practitioners in high performance fields such as competitive sports do not practice all the time. This is not because they are lazy. The rest periods are necessary for the assimilation of the exercise. This is true for both physical and mental exercise. In some sports, for example, body building or weight lifting, these periods are so long that the body may take weeks to recover from the strain of the exercise and grow the new tissue. The body doesn’t actually grow muscle during a workout. It sends a message to the brain that more muscle needs to be grown and that will be done during the next days, mostly during sleep. Exercising again before that period will lead to substantially less growth than resting [130].

Also in the practice of generosity, the great givers do not give everything away all at once, nor do they continually threaten their own sense of safety. A lack of well-spaced continuity, of course, also prevents development. The important task lies in finding the personal sweet spot around an optimally patterned challenge of maximum effort towards maximum growth.

In power training, what athletes are looking for is something termed ‘progressive overload,’ which means that every time one is training the previous mark can be exceeded, sometimes by up to 10% consistently. Otherwise, how would one know that there has been any growth, they argue? This is quite a good way to benchmark easily measurable tasks in practice. Even if conditioning determinants are too many, it is well worth the experiment, though, as one learns a lot about various cycles and other contributing factors.

 

In the practice of mastering dana, the euphoric surge of flow can be of tremendous help to generate the all important joy-cum-sacrifice effect. It comes on most easily if the mindset of aspirations and attitudes one wishes to cultivate are well selected and established. If we were to compare it to playing an instrument, it would be like being familiar with the notes and the handling of the instrument. At the same time the offering itself should pose some real challenge. It might be the speed of giving on impulse or that the sacrifice hurts one a little so that one experiences a joyous kind of pride or surprise that one is able to part from something dear. Alternatively, if the receiver is slightly intimidating to one’s mind it can create this special kind of focus. Many great givers use the ecclesiastical status of monks to create this effect. The sacrosanct atmosphere of the offering atmosphere is also particularly designed to help generate these invaluable states[131]. Again, other people get flow of joy going simply by trying to be meticulous in every aspect contributing to the offering. In all these peak practices, it is important to pay attention not to get agitated or tense. Flow is a calm,  peaceful or exuberant mental state that emerges from focus, so when stress arises it is better to slow down and give up all rigid pacing for the time being. 

In glowing terms that leave nothing to desire, the Buddha himself describes the flow experience resulting from giving within the elevated context of the training. He recommends caganussati, the recollection of one’s ability to sacrifice or give, as a constant companion meditation object both for formal practice and during the course of the day.

“Here, Mahanama, a noble disciple contemplates his own generosity: ‘I am so fortunate! It is so good for me that I live the household life in the midst of a humanity entangled with the defilement of stinginess with a heart free from the defilement of stinginess, generous, with open hands, inclined to giving, caring for those in need, enjoying the giving of gifts!’

At a time, Mahanama, when a noble disciple contemplates his own generosity, his mind will not be caught up in greed, hatred or delusion. Through contemplating his own generosity his mind is well directed. With a well-directed mind, Mahanama, the noble disciple obtains enthusiasm for the goal and enthusiasm for the teaching, euphoria with the teaching. In the euphoric one, rapture arises; for the rapturous, the body calms down; in the calm, bliss arises; the mind of a blissful person unifies. Of this noble disciple, Mahanama, it is said that he lives among ill-directed humanity in possession of the truth, that he lives among suffering humanity free from suffering. Having entered the flow of the teaching, he develops the contemplation of his generosity.[132]” (A 6.10)

The text continues with the contemplation of the virtues of celestial beings. The noble disciple compares his own faith (saddha), virtue (sila), knowledge of the teaching (suta), generosity (caga), and wisdom (pañña) to those of devas, thinking that he or she too, possesses them.

Again the mind is filled with progressive states of joy towards unification and entry into the flow of the teaching, as above. The contemplation of heavenly realms in the context of giving has several powerful benefits. We become like the group of beings we identify with, be they animals or angels, in this world or the next. Only in the next world the effect is far more pronounced and lasting. This contemplation also extracts the mind from interests and consequent worries of this world[133]. It reminds one gently – rather than forcefully as for example in the direct contemplation of imminent death which is not palatable for everybody (A 8.73; A 8.74; A 7.46; A 7.70) – that life is short and only the actions cultivated here will accompany one.

Especially older people often live in misery by spending much time thinking about their past. This contemplation of future celestial rebirth is a powerful countermeasure to this affliction and actively fosters the lovely generous and detached quality of heart that everybody loves in wise old people.

 

Occasionally practitioners feel that it is somehow wrong to make merit or to aspire to heavenly worlds. Since all life is just suffering they feel that it’s best to focus only on observing impermanence. This was already at the time of the Buddha a view and certainly not one of the worst peoples’. The Buddha answered some of his monks on this issue:

“Don’t be afraid of merit! Merit is another word for happiness, that which one desires, wants, loves, and which is pleasing. I remember how merit made over a long time ripened into a long time of desired, wanted, loved, pleasing harvest.

 After I had developed a loving heart for seven years, I did not return to this world for seven eons. When an eon contracted I arose among the radiant Brahmas, when it unfolded I arose in an empty Brahma realm. There I was Brahma, the great Brahma, the Overlord, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, Self-Conquered. And thirty-six times I was Sakko, King of Devas and a few hundred times I was a world-ruling emperor, achieving safety for my realm, in possession of the seven treasures. What to say of normal kingship?

Then I thought: “Of which type of actions might it be the fruit and result that I am now so powerful and mighty?” And I thought: “For three types of actions is this the fruit and result that I am now so powerful and mighty, namely, giving (dana), taming (danta) and restraint (sanyamo).” (It 22) 

 

Appendix One: A Christian View on Giving

The Miracle of Tithing – by Mark Victor Hansen (as pdf file; if not found, please google).

[133] German philosopher Karl Marx had a point here when he called religion ‘opium for the masses.’ Directing the mind beyond this world is indeed a good analgesic for many kinds of suffering. Even hundred fifty years after Marx’s statement, opium is still one of the most useful medicines known to man, indispensable for its low toxicity and great analgesic property. It is also the only effective remedy for the common cold and relieves dangerous diarrhea. Its biggest problem is the powerful dependency it creates, and the attachment many religious people have to their views is certainly a major problem in the world. Nonetheless it’s a far better pain reliever than the communism Herr Marx fathered and the attachment communists have to their creed is no boon the world either.roperty. It is also the only effective remedy for the common cold and relieves dangerous diarrhea. Its biggest problem is the powerful dependency it creates, and the attachment many religious people have to their views is certainly a major problem in the world. Nonetheless it’s a far better pain reliever than the communism Herr Marx fathered and the attachment communists have to their creed is no boon the world either.