~Generosity

~About generosity

Generosity, or dana in Sanskrit, is a power. Traditional teachings tell us that a life of generosity forms the ideal foundation for all other spiritual growth. We nourish this power when we offer a gentle word, an open mind, or a gift of food or money. Dana flowers when we are content with things as they are, when we let go of what is not needed, and when we do not take what is not freely given to us.

The greatest gifts of all are the teachings of liberation. These gifts are priceless, and have been passed down for generations without charge. In this spirit, the teachers and managers of this retreat offer our time and skills freely.

Generosity allows us to experiment with a revolutionary economic model based on voluntary giving rather than on mandatory fees. This economic system reminds us that each one of us is intrinsically valuable to the whole, supported by the whole, and responsible for the welfare of the whole. The modern custom of paying a fixed fee for a particular service or workshop can keep us isolated in our usual defensive fears related to money. Unfortunately, trying to "own" or get our money's worth in knowledge blocks genuine receptivity and growth. In contrast, the time-honored tradition of voluntary support for teachers has ensured the unbroken flow of profound spiritual teachings for centuries.

Our retreats rely on the generosity of participants to pay for the web of support that allows the retreat to happen: room and meditation hall rental, meals, electricity, maintenance, drinking water, and so on. The bare cost of organizing the retreat—including emails, photocopies, and staff room, board and travel costs within India—is shared by all participants.

Teachers and managers have other ongoing expenses, such as rent and electricity at home, visas, medical needs, rest between retreats, correspondence, education, personal retreats, and airline tickets to and from India. We rely upon donations to help us continue to offer retreats.

~Gautama Buddha on generosity

Sutta 142 Exposition of Offerings from the Majjhima Nikaya

The Buddha’s aunt, Mahapajapati Gotami, also raised him like a mother would, since the Buddha’s mother died soon after his birth. Once she brought a pair of new cloths she had spun and woven specially for him. She asked him to accept the gift.
He replied, “Give it to the Sangha (community), Gotami. That way the offering will be made both to me and to the community.”
She asked him two more times please to accept her gifts and two more times he made the same reply.
Ananda, who was usually right at Buddha’s side, tried to convince the Buddha to accept the gift: “After all, she nursed you when your mother died, and because of your teachings, she is virtuous, free from doubts about the way things really are, and has entered the stream of liberation. You have both helped each other very much.”
Buddha: “That is true. When someone owing to another has found virtue, freedom from doubt, and the stream of liberation, it is not easy for the receiver to repay the giver in usual ways—with signs of respect, or with things such as clothing, food, resting places, and medicines.
“One can give a gift to an animal, and to people with varying degrees of wisdom.
“By giving a gift to an animal, the offering may be expected to repay a hundredfold: the repayment may be long life, beauty, happiness, strength, intelligence, and freedom from agitation in a hundred existences.
“By giving to an uncaring ordinary person, the offering may be expected to repay a thousandfold.
“A gift to a caring ordinary person would repay a hundred thousandfold, and to a virtuous, wise person a gift would repay a hundred thousand times a hundred thousandfold.
“A gift to one who has started on the way towards entering the stream of liberation would repay…..immeasurably.
“What to say of a gift to one who has entered the steam?
“What to say of gifts to those who have not only entered the stream but also stabilized in freedom, who have completed their work?
“Ananda, one can also give gifts to some or all of the Sangha. One may give a gift to all or may say, “Appoint a certain number of people for me from the Sangha. Even if a gift is given to uncaring people within the Sangha, on behalf of the Sangha, the offering made to the Sangha is 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.
“An offering may be made fruitful if a virtuous person gives with a trusting heart a gift righteously obtained, even if it is only the virtue of the giver that makes the gift fruitful.
“If both giver and receiver are virtuous—that gift, I say, will come to full fruition.
“When a liberated person gives to a liberated person, that gift, I say, is the best of worldly gifts.”

~Jesus on generosity

Matthew 6, 24-34

No one can be the slave of two masters:
One will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the servant of both God and money.
That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to the span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the wildflowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will God not much more look after you, you who have so little faith? So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?” Your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. Set your hearts on God's kingdom first and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

~Hafiz - The Gift

Our
Union is like this.

You feel cold
So I reach for a blanket to cover
Our shivering feet.

A hunger comes into your body
So I run to my garden
And start digging potatoes.

You ask for a few words of comfort and guidance,
I quickly kneel at your side offering you
This whole book—
As a gift.

You ache with loneliness one night
So much you weep

And I say,

Here’s a rope,
Tie it around me,

Hafiz
Will be your companion
For life.

(Hafiz, The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, pg. 83.)