Trusting in Generosity: What it Means for Organizations To Run on Dāna

Mar 14

*Photo from Suraphat Nuea-on - publicly available from pexel.com*

Dāna 101:

When you hear dāna, what comes to mind? Pause and reflect on what gets stirred up. Are there memories, stories, sensations, or feelings that are coming up associated with this concept? Perhaps you are new to the word or would appreciate a refresher.

The simplest translation of dāna is generosity. Taken from Pali and Sanskrit, dāna is equal parts “practice, ideology, economic feature, ethical virtue and topic of intellectual inquiry across Buddhist traditions” (Oxford Bibliographies). There’s something powerful and unique about dāna when viewed broadly in this way: it’s a multidimensional concept! Dāna is not only a practice; It is a virtue and a fundamental part of human relationships and social structures, as it’s been the cornerstone of many cultures, particularly indigenous ones. To start, let’s explore a little bit about the use of the concept of dāna in the two major Buddhist traditions:

Dāna in the Classical tradition:

According to “Access to Insight” (1995), dāna includes: “Specifically, giving of any of the four requisites (food, clothing, shelter, and medicines) to the monastic order. More generally, the inclination to give, without expecting any form of repayment from the recipient.”

This system of mutual reciprocity between lay folks and monastics underpins the entirety of the Buddhist tradition. The monastics become a “field of merit” through their genuine practice. The lay community, in turn, receives meritorious karma, otherwise known as merit, for supporting monastics in proportion to the depth of their practice. This mutual reciprocity is a core feature of cultures of dāna; it is like a deep well of water at the center of a town – a well that all people are giving to and receiving from. Practicing generosity is the first of the ‘paramis’, or perfections, in Buddhism's Theravada and Mahayana schools.

Generosity is also emphasized as part of the seven treasures that a noble person embodies. It is said that if one has these treasures, they are never poor. It is worth noting that poverty here is about the inner quality of the citta (heart–mind), rather than the material goods and resources that one has. What a wonderful, even revolutionary, idea, that our wealth is tied to the quality of our heart-mind, not the size of our bank accounts. In fact, in one Sutta it is said that any gift, given with gladness of intention, gladness of giving, and gladness of having given, is considered a worthy, meaningful, and meritorious offering (A.iii,336). In effect, giving encompasses a whole cycle of generosity beyond the moment of “hand-off”. Dāna then plants the seed for other wholesome qualities to develop along the path.

If we return to a classical understanding found in the Pali canon, Gautama Buddha describes dāna as being foundational to the path. Furthermore, “dhamma-dāna” - the gift of the teachings - is said by the Buddha to be the ultimate expression of gift-giving (Dhammapada, 354). There are numerous stories of the Buddha in previous lifetimes perfecting the virtue of generosity (Cariyapitaka, 1975). In one lifetime as a hare, he willingly put his body in a pit of fire so a starved brahman could have something to eat. In this story, the flames do not hurt the hare because of the purity of his mind. In another lifetime as Prince Vessantara, he gave away the most precious and powerful elephant of the kingdom to the rival kingdom simply because they asked for it. And in yet another life as the emperor Maha-Sudassana, the Bodhisattva vowed to give away anything if someone came to him and asked for it. The Buddha even shared in the Alms Sutta that if people really knew the power of dāna, or generosity, they would never go a meal without sharing first, even if it were their last bite (Itivuttaka 26: 18-19 (tr. Ven. Bodhi)).

As a gift giver, the Buddha mentioned five qualities to cultivate in the Sappurisadana Sutta (“A Person of Integrity’s Gifts”). These qualities are giving with conviction, attentiveness, timeliness, an empathetic heart, and non-harm to oneself and others. With the energy of mindfulness, our gifts can be of true need at the moment. Furthermore, in the Anuguttara Nikaya (AN 5.35), the Buddha lists five benefits of giving:

One is dear and agreeable to many people.
Good people resort to one.
One acquires a good reputation.
One is not deficient in the layperson’s duties.
With the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in a good destination, in a heavenly world.

The Buddha even found ways to be generous while washing his bowl of food! In the Anguttara Nikaya (AN 3.57), the Buddha tells Vacha “I say that one acquires merit even if one throws away dishwashing water in a refuse dump or cesspit with the thought: ‘May the living beings here sustain themselves with this!’

It is important to emphasize, too, that one does not have to have much to be generous. In fact, in the Machiriyya Sutta (AN 5.254-271), the Buddha said, “Some provide from the little they have while others who are affluent don’t give. An offering given from what little has is worth a thousand times its value.”

One way to directly understand the power of dāna, and generosity, is to reflect on a time when you were generous. What happened in your inner being both before, during, and after giving something to someone? Pay attention to the qualities that arise in your mind as you reflect. To witness the wholesome effects of skillful actions in the mind and intentionally rejoicing can be a very effective way of reinforcing good habits. Rejoicing in generosity then becomes an effective antidote to the powerful forces in the world pushing us in the other direction, like consumption, excess, hedonism, and scarcity mindset.

Dāna Interpreted in the Mahayana Tradition:

In the Mahayana and contemporary adaptations of Buddhism in the West, dāna often means giving more generally, rather than giving particularly to the sangha of ordained monastics. Anything offered as a genuine expression of generosity from the heart and mind can be considered dāna. Therefore, giving to a monastic or giving to a neighbor are both considered acts of generosity. Indeed, in the Mahayana, cultivating the paramitas, or virtues, is core to one’s practice to Buddhahood. Rather than attempting to escape the cycle of existence, aspiring Bodhisattvas work to perfect their moral virtues. Dāna is a part of the foundation of the Mahayana path, the perfection of which is a requisite for Buddhahood. As such, our ability to give becomes one of our most powerful tools for spiritual development. As Zen master Dogen Shbo Genzo shares, “Mind is beyond measure. Things given are beyond measure. And yet, in giving, mind transforms the gift and the gift transforms mind” (2013). We see again the mutual benefit that lies at the heart of dāna: the act of giving deeply transforms both the giver and the receiver(s) across time and space. Our time, love, attention, and work serve as fuel for our practice and for the liberation of others. Anything from a monetary donation at a retreat to the offering of one’s presence toward another may support us to cultivate the spirit of dāna within ourselves. Dāna is not just learning how to part with material things, but ultimately to give ourselves completely to the deeper calling we feel – however that shows up for each of us.

When deeply embodied, this can allow for a profound reversal in how we relate to not just material objects, but our whole lives. To give is to receive. And to receive is to allow another to give and receive the merit of their giving. The very notion of a transaction being a loss for one person and a gain for another collapses. In this process, the idea of a “transaction” is seen more clearly as a mental construction. “Gain” and “loss” do not exist in their own right, but rather, are reinforced by what Beth Upton calls our “mental loops”(2022).

Why Practice Dāna?

Now that we’ve established the practice of dāna as worthy of merit, let’s probe further: why is this the case, and even more so, why is it foundational? For one, generosity offers transformational insights into the three characteristics of existence: anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), and annata (no-self). When we give with an open heart, we acknowledge the cycle of things coming and going in our lives, therefore cultivating equanimity with impermanence. The same mind that gives is the same mind that lets go. Second, we sense directly how there is suffering, or dukkha, in being stingy! When we loosen our hold, so too do we loosen the mind that suffers. And third, generosity also allows us to see that in our giving, we are not separate from the receiver and the object of the gift. This cycle between benefactor, gift, and receiver reminds us of our inherent interconnectedness, helping us remember that we don’t exist in a vacuum. In the article “First, An Open Hand” (2022), Buddhist teacher of Insight Meditation Center and Spirit rock Nikki Mirghafori shares this mirror quality of giving:

“The act of giving requires us to relinquish our attachment to an object; to release it to another, we need to let it go. This is the same exact movement of a heart that gets liberated {...} Awakening is not a badge we acquire. It’s a gift, a release, a giving away”.

If we don’t have a generous mind, we don’t have a mind willing to let go. Thus, this state of giving follows us into our meditation practice. Giving brings forth the mind that is rooted in loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity, among others. Thus, generosity becomes a crucial foundation of mind that serves us in deepening our path and practice.

Greed, hatred, and delusion are the three poisons that keep us bound in cycles of suffering. By inclining our heart and mind toward generosity, we are disrupting suffering at the root. Bhikku Bodhi breaks down how this happens:

“...the cultivation of generosity directly debilitates greed and hate, while facilitating that pliancy of mind that allows for the eradication of delusion” (2004).

Folding in the current Western paradigm of scientific inquiry into this exploration further demonstrates the power of generosity. In one study, altruistic behavior has been shown to release endorphins, triggering a positive, analgesic physical response. In another study, neuroscientists Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman at NIH discovered that charitable giving lights up regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust (2006). And, when generosity is “targeted” to a known receiver, fear, anxiety, and amygdala activation are reduced (2017). In the simplest of terms, this body of work suggests that when we are generous, we not only relax but feel the goodness of connection

Dāna: Medicine for a Culture of Objectification

In many ways, classical Buddhist perspectives on dāna are more threatening to contemporary Western culture than any other teaching. Teachings such as emptiness or selflessness are relatively easy to rationalize with scientific materialism. Meditation as a tool to relieve stress is compatible with a society of well-adjusted workers to support industry. But generosity? Giving things away as an act of benefit for the giver? If we’ve grown up in the West, this is likely a foreign concept. This is not an accident. Here’s a little bit of context.

For our society to exist at its current level of spending and consumption, massive amounts of resources must be continuously extracted from the Living Earth. As a result, rainforests are cleared, ecosystems of millions of species destroyed, deep holes blasted into the Earth’s surface to extract rare metals, soils stressed to the point of ecosystem collapse through mono-crop farming, and oceans fished to the point of ecosystem collapse.

We live in a culture in which consuming is as natural as breathing. In a world of commodification, we call living beings and ecosystems “resources” and reduce them to numbers. Without objectifying the world, we would not be able to act as we do. To live as though the world is subjective, as an inextricable extension of the plants and animals that we are destroying lies outside of the dominant ideology of commercialization. At its core, a financial transaction assumes that two things can be reduced to a single “number” value. This requires that those objects are collapsed into a mental representation that has value primarily in terms of certain functions. For example, a forest becomes wood. Wood has a certain utility. That utility has a measurable value in dollars. The millions of beings that live in the forest become irrelevant information when the bottom line is human-centered profit.

Our tendency to collapse complex phenomena into simple mental models and accept these models as natural is a cause of an extraordinary amount of environmental and interpersonal violence. The colonial project views women as property for men, people of color as having the function of serving white people, or animals, and natural spaces as having the function of providing materials for us to eat, live in, entertain ourselves, and decorate our bodies. Historically, all three of these have been extremely powerful, destructive, and often unconscious beliefs for significant portions of the human population. We collapse a beautifully complicated world into a two-dimensional representation that only allows us to see what something can “do for us.” This is so normalized that we believe our representation is natural and true.

But to live in this way is a dissociation from our true reality of being a living, breathing being on a planet with many other such living beings. When we strip all of this away, there is a natural wonder, joy, and love for living things that are already there, pre-existing. This objectification, the basic practice of reducing the complexity of life to transactions and assuming this is “natural,” is so deep and fundamental for people who’ve grown up in the United States, that for many of us, we simply cannot imagine another way of being. It’s the fishbowl we swim, the air we breathe.

So we must be willing to notice and unlearn the mind states that reduce the world into “values” and “functions” that benefit systems with roots of greed, hatred, and delusion. Money is a very powerful construct in an extractive capitalist system, encouraging us to objectify our connections with the living world.

With this context, it’s unsurprising that, as Buddhism has arrived in the United States, the teachings of danā have been a point of curiosity, confusion, and even contention. In a culture that cannot imagine anything outside of capitalist exchange, how does the teaching of dāna, even Buddhism itself, survive?

Buddhism in the United States:

The four most common economic models that Western Buddhist organizations are using to navigate the capitalist constructs are full charge, sliding scale, partially donation-based, or fully donation-based (Conover, 2021). Most meditation centers also offer financial aid to those who request it.

The first approach involves charging an explicit fee for teachings or, if one is at a retreat, for accommodations, meals, etc. Most of us are familiar with this model. Notably, most Buddhist communities in the United States are deeply committed to access, even when they do not function on a donation basis. As such, they might offer a sliding scale, scholarships for marginalized groups, financial aid, or other price adjustments to ensure that people can attend. In this case, “dāna” would be like a tip on top of the base stipend teachers receive and basic operations to run the place.

This model is used by most centers operating in the United States. Perhaps it should be mentioned that there is no criticism around centers operating in this way. It is extremely difficult to set up any kind of functioning organization in a culture that does not have a strong practice of supporting such institutions. However, this approach is the least challenging to our conventional relationship with money and it cannot be said to enact the classical practice of dāna - of offering the teachings free of charge. The prevalence of this model suggests that it is impossible to replicate traditional dāna-based Buddhist communities in the United States.

The second approach is a kind of hybrid. An example of this would be centers in which the teachings are offered on a donation basis, but participants pay for the cost of room and board. Different pay rates are suggested such that a practitioner can choose to cover their basic costs, staff costs, or support other practitioners as they are able, with the rest being offered on a donation basis. One aspect of this model is to consider how a sliding scale still imposes an expectation to give an amount of money that is not coming from one’s own sense of what is right and true for them. Thus, there is a transactional nature to even the sliding scale. Again, this school of thought emphasizes the importance of access while still ensuring a certain amount of income to cover basic operations.

The final approach is the classical dāna system as practiced by the Buddha and his disciples. This approach is less common in the West, at least among the most influential retreat centers and organizations. Many of the Buddhist communities (often local temples) that primarily serve Asian-American immigrant populations are fully supported by donations. Traditional Theravadin monasteries also use this model. Only a handful of lay teachers and centers operate in this way. A few exceptions include the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California and Beth Upton, both lay Dhamma teachers, who provide teachings and retreats by dāna. Fronsdal expressed that when he has been paid to teach in places like Stanford, it shifts the teaching toward performing under requirements and expectations rather than offering from a place of generosity and compassion. But he isn’t against other models either. “There’s a wisdom in charging,” he says. “A fee allows people to be financially supported in a dignified way if it’s done well,” (Conover, 2021). Yet, one of the reasons Beth Upton believes the classical dāna system is so crucial to the path is that “The mind that offers dāna is very different from the mind that has been told to pay. The function of money is so we can get what we want. Yet at the heart of the dhamma is renunciation” (2022). She also believes that the view that dāna-based offerings are not possible in the West is a conditioned belief that reinforces itself in thought and action.

The Role of Lay People

All of the discussion so far has hinged on the responsibility of Buddhist teachers and communities. But if we are to actualize the Buddha’s teachings on generosity in the West, lay practitioners must also change their relationship to resources and practice. The first generation of Western Buddhist teachers in the United States cannot be blamed for being conservative in establishing the first monasteries and communities. We pay a great deal of respect to teachers and centers for planting the seeds of the Dharma in the West. It’s better that practice is available at a price than not at all. In fact, without any cultural context of dāna, it’s unclear whether any of the first meditation centers would have survived at all.

And so, one might imagine that as Buddhist practice and teachings continue to permeate Western culture, we might collectively arrive at deeper faith and practices like dāna-based teachings.

Moving Forward

One of Sharon Salzberg’s Burmese meditation teachers shared with her that “In Asia[...] the teachings proceed from generosity to morality, and then to meditation or insight. But here we appeared to begin with meditation, then say something about morality, and only after some time, as a kind of appendix, teach about generosity. He asked, “What’s going on?” Indeed, what is going on? (Salzberg, 2017).

In our view, it would be a loss if Buddhist communities in the West chose to sacrifice the fullness of the Buddha’s teachings on generosity. It would also be a loss for practitioners, as Beth Upton shared above, if retreats offered at a cost create the expectation in practitioners of “receiving something,” from the practice.

Furthermore, if we believe bringing the traditional practice of dāna to the West is impossible, then we imply that capitalist exchange is an immutable fact of modern life. We can come to believe that that the depth of faith and relinquishment among practitioners of the past is, in this time and place, now impossible. Not only is this contradictory to the teachings of the Buddha, but it demonstrates a lack of trust in our hearts and abilities. It certainly cannot be that we don’t have the material resources. We live in one of the richest countries in the world. If anything, it should be far easier for us to put the Buddha’s teachings on dāna into practice compared to developing countries in the global south who are still suffering from the effects of colonization.

But beyond even this, the future of our planet might well depend on wealthy countries deeply reconsidering their relationship with money. The imperative of capitalism is to colonize absolutely everything, reducing all uncharted territory to materials, cost, and value. This puts us at odds with life and liberation. Thus, the Buddha’s teachings on generosity may be one of the most effective vehicles to catalyze a cultural shift towards a society that is in harmony with life and with liberation.

The longevity of the Buddhist Sangha has already proven that not everything can be reduced to a commodity - not everything needs to be a transaction. In this way, modeling a truly donation-based institution in a world where all social forces are running directly in the opposite direction may be the very core of the social good that Buddhism can offer the world. If not even sincere Buddhist practitioners can interrogate the hegemony of the US dollar, then what are these teachings truly for?

Everything is Dāna

Even if by current necessity we are participating in organizations that charge for Dhamma teachings, let us please not forget the strength and power of the Buddha’s teachings of generosity. According to Dhamma teacher Beth Upton, “dāna isn’t separate from the topic of sangha, it’s not separate from the topic of the environmental crisis that we face, it’s not separate from peace in the world, and it’s not separate from our interconnectedness with all things […] The way that we give and receive in the world… It’s at the center” (2022).

Under the influence of this culture, it can be easy to start to believe dāna is a transaction like any other. But we urge a view of dāna as an expression of the deep reciprocity of all life. Our very existence in physical bodies is premised on a constant exchange of energy with our beings and our environment. Our relationship with that process is core to our practice. As Ajahn Sucitto says, “We’ve been given birth. We’ve been given bodies. We are in a universe of dāna and we participate in that” (Conover, 2021). Being born is a gift, not a transaction. Our first breath of air was a gift, not a transaction. Constantly reducing this natural exchange into “gain” and “loss” only reinforces our separation from life!

As we face an increasingly uncertain future, one of the greatest services many of us in the West can do is to deeply interrogate our fear of giving, letting go, or not having enough. Our comforts are premised on others’ pain. In contemplating this, we might instinctively collapse into shame and paralysis. The teachings of the Buddha would say that there is another way. If we trust deeply in the words of the Buddha, letting go might offer a gateway into a kind of liberation that we previously hadn’t imagined was possible.

We hope that more Buddhist organizations and Laity can gradually move away from abstracted transactions into interconnected generosity. This would be an act of deep faith that contemporary, Western Dharma Practitioners are just as capable of actualizing the teachings as practitioners of the past. It would also be an act of love for the Earth, whose many beings desperately require us to challenge our relationship to the idea we call “money.”

Questions for Self-Reflection:

If you’d like to explore this topic further, consider contemplating the following questions offered by staff at Tricycle Magazine (2003). In this way, you can explore your relationship with giving and make choices that empower you to give in the way that makes the most sense to you.

• In what ways have you given over the past few months, and to whom?

• What do you find easiest or most enjoyable to give?

• What is most difficult for you to give?

• To whom is it easiest or most enjoyable for you to give?

• To whom is it most difficult for you to give?

• From whom is it easiest for you to receive?

• From whom is it most difficult for you to receive?

• To whom are you able to give with no expectation of return or thanks?

• From whom do you feel you can receive without an expectation of return or thanks?

• Do you ever presume selfish motivations in people who give to you?

• Do you ever feel indebtedness to people who give to you? Which people, and why?

• Do you ever feel resentment at being asked to give? To whom, and why?

• Do you have trouble figuring out what is the appropriate amount to give—either emotionally or materially?

• Do you have any past experiences that might affect the way you give and receive today?

• Have you encountered situations where you’ve had the opportunity to give, but have held back? Why?

• Have you encountered situations where you feel you’ve given too much, or too little?

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Aaron Stryker