World Religion: The Buddhist perfection of giving
Giving is essential for Buddhism. Giving includes charitable giving or giving material help to people in need. It also includes giving spiritual guidance to those who seek it and loving kindness to all who need it. However, a person's motivation to give to others is at least as important as what is given.
Motivation
What is the right or wrong motivation? In the Anguttara Nikaya sutra 4: 236, a collection of texts in the Sutta-Pitaka, a number of reasons for giving are listed. These include being ashamed or intimidated to give; give in order to receive a favor; give to feel good about yourself. These are impure reasons.
The Buddha taught that when we give to others, we give without expecting a reward. We give without attaching to either the gift or the recipient. We practice giving to release greed and self-clinging.
Some teachers propose that giving is good because it accumulates merit and creates karma that will bring future happiness. Others say this too is self-gripping and an expectation of reward. In many schools, people are encouraged to dedicate merit to the liberation of others.
paramita
Giving with pure motivation is called dana paramita (Sanskrit), or dana parami (pali), which means "perfection of giving". There are lists of perfections that vary somewhat between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, but dana, to give, is the first perfection on each list. Perfections could be thought of as strengths or virtues that lead to enlightenment.
The monk and scholar Theravadin Bhikkhu Bodhi said:
“The practice of giving is universally recognized as one of the most basic human virtues, a quality that testifies to the depth of one's humanity and one's capacity for self-transcendence. Also in the teaching of the Buddha, the practice of giving claims to a place of special eminence, one that identifies it as in a sense the foundation and seed of spiritual development ”.
The importance of receiving
It is important to remember that there is no giving without receiving and without donors without receivers. Therefore, giving and receiving arise together; one is not possible without the other. Ultimately, giving and receiving, giver and receiver, are one. Giving and receiving with this understanding is the perfection of giving. As long as we categorize ourselves into donors and recipients, however, we still can't run out of dana paramita.
Zen monk Shohaku Okumura wrote in the Soto Zen Journal that for a time he did not want to receive gifts from others, thinking that he should give, not take. “When we understand this teaching in this way, we simply create another standard for measuring gain and loss. We are still in the picture of gain and loss, ”he wrote. When giving is perfect, there is no gain or loss.
In Japan, when monks give traditional alms by begging, they wear huge straw hats that partially obscure their faces. The hats also prevent them from seeing the faces of those who give them alms. No donors, no recipients; this is pure giving.
Give without attachment
It is advisable to give without being bound to the gift or to the recipient. What does it mean?
In Buddhism, avoiding attachment doesn't mean we can't have friends. Quite the contrary, actually. Attachment can only happen when there are at least two separate things: an attacker and something to attach to. But ordering the world into subjects and objects is an illusion.
Attachment, therefore, derives from a mental habit that orders the world into "me" and "everything else". Attachment leads to possessiveness and a tendency to manipulate everything, including people, for one's personal advantage. To be unattached is to recognize that nothing is truly separate.
This brings us back to the awareness that the donor and the recipient are one. And the gift isn't even separate. Therefore, we give without expecting a reward from the recipient - including a "thank you" - and do not place any conditions on the gift.
A habit of generosity
Dana paramita is sometimes translated "perfection of generosity". A generous spirit doesn't just give to charity. It is a spirit of responsiveness to the world and of giving what is needed and appropriate at the moment.
This spirit of generosity is an important foundation of the practice. It helps to tear down our ego walls while alleviating some of the suffering of the world. And it also includes being grateful for the generosity shown to us. This is the practice of dana paramita.