Once again this needs to be rewritten. I find this Recollection to be very powerful. It amazes me just how many thigs can be given.
Caganussati
Recollection of Generosity.
Q. What is the recollection of liberality? What is the practising of it? What are its salient characteristic, function and near cause? What is the procedure?
A. Liberality means that one gives one’s wealth to others wishing to benefit them, and in order to derive the happiness of benefiting others. Thus liberality is to be understood. One dwells indifferent in the recollection of the virtue of liberality. This recollectedness is recollection and right recollectedness. This is called the recollection of liberality. The undisturbed dwelling of the mind in this recollection is the practising of it. Awareness of the merit of liberality is its salient characteristic. Non-miserliness is its function. Non-covetousness is its near cause.
A man who practises the recollection of liberality gains ten benefits thus: He gains bliss through liberality, he becomes non-covetous through liberality, he is not miserly, thinks of others, becomes dear to others, does not fear in others company, has much joy, acquires the compassionate mind, fares well and approaches the ambrosial.
“What is the procedure? The new yogin goes to a place of solitude and keeps his mind undisturbed. With an undisturbed mind he practises the recollection of liberality thus: “Through abandoning things I have benefited others; therefrom I have gained much merit. The vulgar by means of the dirt of covetousness, are drawn to things. I live with a mind non-coveting and not unclean. Always I give and enjoy giving to others. Always I give and distribute.”
That yogin in these ways practises the recollection of liberality. Through the recollection of liberality his mind is endowed with confidence. Because of this recollection and confidence, his mind is always undisturbed. With undisturbed mind he destroys the hindrances, arouses the meditation (jhana) factors and attains access concentration. The rest is as fully taught above.
Vimutti Magga p 153
There are, O monks, eight ways of giving. What eight? One gives spontaneously; or one gives out of fear; or because of thinking, “He too has given me a gift”; or because of thinking, “He will give me a present, too”, or because of thinking that it is good to give; or because of thinking, “I cook, but they (being ascetics) do not; since I cook, it would not be proper for me to refuse giving a meal to those who do not cook”; or because of thinking, “By giving such a gift, I shall earn a good reputation”, one gives because it ennobles the mind, adorns the mind.”
An 161
There are, O monks, eight reasons for giving. What eight? People may give out of affection; or in an angry mood; or out of stupidity; or out of fear; or because of thinking: “Such gifts have been given before by my father and grandfather and it was done by them before; hence it would be unworthy of me to give up this old family tradition”; or because of thinking, “By giving this gift, I shall be reborn in a good destination, in a heavenly world, after death”; or because of thinking, “When giving this gift, my heart will be glad, and happiness and joy will arise in me”; or one gives because it adorns and ennobles the mind.”
An 162
There are, O monks, eight kinds of rebirth on account of giving. What eight?
Here, monks, a certain person makes a gift to an ascetic or brahmin, offering him food, drink, clothing and vehicles; garlands, scents and unguents; bedding, housing and lighting. In making the gift, he hopes for a reward. He now notices affluent nobles, affluent brahmins or affluent householders enjoying themselves provided and furnished with the five cords of sensual pleasure, and he thinks: “Oh, with the break up of the body, after death, may I be reborn among them!” And he sets his mind on that thought, keeps to it firmly and fosters it. This though of his aims at what is low, and if not developed to what is higher will lead him to just such a rebirth. With the break up of the body, after death, he will be reborn among affluent nobles, affluent brahmins or affluent householders. This, however, I declare only for the virtuous, not for the unvirtuous; for it is due to his purity, monks, that the hearts desire of the virtuous succeeds.
Then again, a certain person makes a gift to an ascetic or a brahmin, offering him food…or lighting. In making the gift, he hopes for a reward. He now hears of the long life, the beauty and the great happiness of devas in the realm of the Four Great Kings…the Tavatimsa devas…the Yama devas…the Tusita devas…the devas Who Delight in Creation…the devas Who Control What is Created by Others, and he wishes to be reborn among them. He sets his mind on that thought, keeps to it firmly and fosters it. This thought of his aims at what is low, and if not developed to what is higher, it will lead him to just such a rebirth. After his death, when his body breaks up, he will be reborn among the devas in the realm of the Four Great Kings…or among the devas Who Control What is Created by Others. This, however, I declare only for the virtuous, not for the unvirtuous; for it is due to his purity, monks, that the hearts desire of the virtuous succeeds.
Then again, a certain person makes a gift to an ascetic or brahmin, offering him food…or lighting. He now hears of the long life, the beauty and the great happiness of the devas of Brahmas Company, and he wishes to be reborn among them. He sets his mind on that thought, keeps to it firmly and fosters it. This thought of his aims at what is low, and if not developed to what is higher, it will lead him to just such a rebirth. After his death, when his body breaks up, he will be reborn among the devas of Brahmas Company. This, however, I declare only for the virtuous, not for the unvirtuous; only for one free of lust, not for one who is lustful. Because he is without lust, monks, the hearts desire of the virtuous succeeds.
These, monks, are the eight kinds of rebirth on account of giving.
An 163
‘Good is giving, dear sir!
Even when there’s little, giving is good.
When done with faith too, giving is good;
The gift of righteous gain is also good.
Giving with discretion too is good.’
Sn Sagathavagga : Devatasamyutta
This was said by the Lord…
“Bhikkhus, there are these two kinds of giving: the giving of material things and the giving of Dhamma. Of these two kinds of giving, this is the foremost, namely, the giving of Dhamma. There are these two kinds of sharing, this is the foremost, namely, the sharing of Dhamma. There are these two kinds of help: help with material things and help with the Dhamma. Of these two kinds of help, this is the foremost, namely, help with the Dhamma.”
When they say that giving
Is supreme and unsurpassed,
And the Lord himself extolled sharing,
Who, wise and knowing,
Confident in that foremost field of merit,
Would not give at the appropriate time?
Both for those who proclaim it
And for those who listen to it,
Confident in the Sublime Ones teaching,
The supreme good is fully purified
As they live diligently in the teaching
Iti: 98
This was said by the Lord…
“Bhikkhus, if beings knew, as I know, the result of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given nor would they allow the stain of meanness to obsess them and take root in their minds. Even if it were their last morsel, their last mouthful, they would not enjoy eating without having shared it, if there was someone to share it with. But, bhikkhus, because beings do not know as I know the result of giving and sharing, they eat without having given and the stain of meanness obsesses them and takes root in their minds.”
If beings only knew—
So said the Great Sage—
How the result of sharing
Is of such great fruit,
With gladdened mind,
Rid of the stain of meanness,
They would duly give to noble ones
Who make what is given fruitful.
Having given much food as offering
To those worthy of offerings,
The donors go to heaven
On departing the human state.
And gone to heaven they rejoice,
And enjoying pleasures there,
The unselfish the result
Of generously sharing with others.
Iti 26
“As a materially dependent community, the Sangha give the laity the chance to practice the primary virtue of giving. Although one’s time might be consumed by work and family duties, although one might not be prepared to undertake systematic study or meditation oneself, one can still offer food or medicine or other necessities to those who have embarked on the monastic career. Such giving is a forthright and concrete act, deeply satisfying, bringing immediate gladness and future gladness too.”
Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano “Landscapes of Wonder”
“Generosity is a powerful form of renunciation. Generously sharing what we have, and many other acts of renunciation, make us feel happy. There is a sense of pleasure and relief every time we let go. It stands to reason that if we let go completely of grasping at anything in the world, then this great relinquishment will bring even more happiness than occasional acts of renunciation.”
“Generosity is taught in every religious tradition, but it is a natural state of mind that all living beings possess inherently. Even animals share their food. When you are generous, you feel happy and you delight in remembering the recipients joy.”
“The best giving occurs when we have no expectations of any return, not even a thank-you. We give while knowing in our hearts that we already have in our hearts everything we need to be happy. Such giving is motivated by a sense of fullness, not loss. Giving anonymously, and without knowing the recipient, is a wonderful way to be generous. Giving quietly, without fanfare, lessens our desire and reduces our attachment to the things we have.”
Bhante Gunaratana “Eight Mindful Steps To Happiness”
“Then Prince Payasi established a charity for ascetics and Brahmins, wayfarers, beggars and the needy. And such food was given out as broken rice with sour gruel, and also rough clothing with ball fringes. And a young Brahmin called Uttara was put in charge of the distribution. Referring to it, he said: ‘Through this charity I have been associated with Prince Payasi in this world, but not the next.’
And Prince Payasi heard of his words, so he sent for him and asked him if he had said that. ‘Yes, Lord.’ But why did you say such a thing? Friend Uttara, don’t we who wish to gain merit expect a reward for our charity?’
‘But, Lord, the food you give—broken rice with sour gruel—you would not care to touch it with your foot, much less eat it! And the rough clothes with ball fringes—you would not set foot on them—much less wear them! Lord, you are kind and gentle with us, so how can we reconcile such kindness and gentleness with unkindness and roughness?’ ‘Well then Uttara, you arrange to supply food as I eat and clothes such as I wear.’ ‘Very good, Lord’, said Uttara, and he did so.
And Prince Payasi, because he had established his charity grudgingly, not with his own hands, and without proper concern, like something casually tossed aside, was reborn after death, at the breaking up of the body, in the company of the Four Great Kings, in the empty Serisaka mansion. But Uttara, who had given the charity ungrudgingly, with his own hands and with proper concern, not as something tossed aside, was reborn after death, at the breaking up of the body, in a good place, a heavenly realm, in the company of the Thirty-Three Gods.
Dn 23
This then is the Recollection of Generosity. From the examples above we can clearly see where generosity—Caga, giving—Dana, and renunciation—Nekkhama, are at times almost synonyms for each other. In fact there are plenty of occasions where it is impossible to separate them at all, to engage in one of them, is to engage in them all, to talk and write about one, is to talk and write about them all. It seems that it is only the degree of importance of the thing that we are giving or sharing or renouncing has to us that actually allows a clear line to be drawn between these actions. I may share my lunch, I can give $20, I can renounce all alcohol or TV. The one aspect that they have in common is that we are letting go of something.
The way the Vimutti Magga describes this recollection has to me always seemed rather stilted and narrow, it seems to be defining generosity in purely monetary terms. The scriptures broaden the picture a lot, and the examples from modern members of the Sangha go even further, but we still seem to be lacking a clear definition of exactly what constitutes generosity. What are the things that we can give, share, renounce?
In attempting to answer this, I intend to invite the reader to be creative in their expressions of giving, sharing, renouncing. To me the chances to engage in the wholesome acts of generosity and renunciation are almost limitless and quite literally transcend life and death.
As a start we can draw up a list of things that are given as a matter of course in this society.
1. money
2. old clothes
3. food
The list generally stops there. Money is easy, a number of charities these days direct debit our credit cards once a month, old clothes are something various charities phone us up & ask for, food is something that we put a couple of cans in bins at Christmas (if we remember & can be bothered). Yes, this is Dana, and they certainly are wholesome actions we can and should take joy in. But to be honest, it is a pretty lame list. A certain number of us will add:
4. blood
5. organs
6. volunteer work at a charity or community organization or your temple/Buddhist society.
As we progress down the list, the act of generosity/sharing/renunciation becomes progressively more difficult and demanding. We cease being passive and become proactive. To give blood, we need to set aside a time to travel to the blood donation centre and then set aside time to recover line removed . We need to make an appointment. It is an involved procedure. To donate blood or bone marrow or an organ like a kidney (some people prefer to give while they are still alive) is essentially to gift our good health to someone. Given the barriers that must be overcome these days simply to hand over 600 ml of blood, it is not an insignificant gift. To donate our organs, means to deal with our mortality, for some of us a confronting and difficult thing. For many of us to make the decision to donate our organs, is the very first effort at recognising that they aren’t really ours, the first acceptance that this life has an end. Volunteering to help with the Parents and Citizens Association, the Red Cross, the Blood Bank, the temple/Buddhist society is more difficult because so few of us actually have the time. For those of us who do make this commitment, there is the regular scheduling of time for this giving. The thing is that budgeting time is like budgeting money, once we sit down and begin accounting how we spend our time, we are likely to find an extra hour or two that we can give to something worthy. Television is a time soak. When people talk about being a couch potato in front of the television often that is a literal and sadly accurate description of our physical and mental state when watching TV. The list of organizations I gave is a short one & the number of needy organizations is almost endless. All of us have something to give/share with society We are beginning to leave the obvious aspect of giving/sharing/renouncing. Still the list is pretty poor. Let’s get creative and add
7. virtue
8. silence
9. meditation
10. being mentally present
With these four we have moved into an area that is simply ignored by society at large, this is because now we are giving/sharing/renouncing what may at first seem to be intangibles. We can, and in my opinion at least, should make our observance of the Five/Eight/Ten/Two Hundred and Twenty-seven Precepts, a gift to the world and ourselves. The Precepts are generally viewed as something the Sangha/our Preceptors give us, not something we can then give to the world. Silence can be given, both to ourselves and to others. I quite successfully gave silence to a friend whilst staying in a monastery. I’m a morning person, he isn’t. By the time he arrived for breakfast I was revved up & very loud. He preferred to breakfast in silence and with someone sitting with him. Ultimately I sat with him in silence. It was like having ants bite me, but silence was given and gratefully received. We give silence to ourselves by turning the radio, TV, stereo, MP 3 player, mobile phone off & sitting quietly. Sit and delight in the stillness, the silence. We can give ourselves mental silence by simply refusing to engage in the endless mental proliferation & wanderings that our mind habitually engages in. ‘How can we give meditation?’ I hear you ask. Give the results of your meditation, share the Insights, the calm, the peace, the bliss, that you have happen in your meditation practice. Encourage a loved one to engage in meditation, encourage them to go on Retreats. Giving yourself the benefits of the hour or half hour a day that you spend meditating. Cultivating a mental stillness, giving ourselves a rest from the hectic ‘doing’ that fills up and dements the rest of our lives, is a profound gift that we overlook and discount at our own peril, this is how we give meditation. Simply listening with attention to the person speaking to you, is giving the gift of being mentally present. Practising ‘present moment awareness’ is how we give it to ourselves. Just paying full attention to where we are and what we are doing, is present moment awareness. Still this list isn’t anywhere near long enough.
11. life experience
12. surplus from our gardens
13. gentleness
14. …
15. …
16. …
For myself, giving the wisdom, insight, maturity that I have gained in the past 40 years, was the scary bit. Partly because I remember all too well being the flaky, nervy, wound up one. Partly because initially I wasn’t all that sure that I had much to share. Having overcome depression and abuse and having travelled a bit, I find that this is what I give. I have gained a daughter simply because when she & I met, I didn’t judge her. This spooked her a little. Our entire family had judged her & the judgement wasn’t kind. Because I have made and continue to make mistakes, because for me promiscuity doesn’t rate against seeing the results of genocide in Cambodia, because I am not in line for sainthood, I didn’t judge her. Tam is really a great daughter. Thoughtful, gentle, loving. Not at all the sort of person that I’d been told she was. I feel that there is no point in any of us living & not sharing our maturity. As a special plea to those like myself who have had a difficult time of it due to abuse & emotional illness, for heavens sake, don’t win & then become a miser with your victory…share it recklessly. There are plenty of people out there who need your calm presence and reassurance that victory is possible. Having been emotionally & mentally in some very dark places, knowing that eventually I would abide in a place of light & happiness, mattered deeply.
A lot of people have gardens these days or have at least a flowering plant somewhere in their house or unit. If you are lucky enough to have a yard and do as almost everyone does at some point in their lives & grow vegetables, I wonder if you have made the conscious choice to grow a surplus or even a vegetable that you personally don’t like simply so that you can give the surplus away. Ever decided to give some of the flowers to a neighbour or the temple? Having done this…given home grown vegetables away that is, I can personally vouch for the sense of happiness that arises when the produce is received. We can devote a section of the garden to growing vegetables, herbs, spices purely for the pleasure of giving them away. The pleasure/reward here is two fold. Firstly there is the pleasure of working the soil with our bare hands and seeing something grow as a result of that work. There is something fundamentally right about digging and weeding a garden bed. Perhaps because I am a gardener, I find it deeply rewarding. The second pleasure is the one I have already described above.
Gentleness is the last on my list. I don’t mean that you become irritatingly lovey-dovey with everyone you meet. I mean approach people with a gentleness. Rather than being aggressive, be gentle. Be considerate. If a person needs to be listened to, listen to them. Smile at people. Greet them by name. Basically give niceness.
You will have noticed that I have left some spaces empty. There is a very good and simple reason for this, they are for you to fill up. I honestly doubt that I have covered every possibility for generosity, in fact I know I haven’t.
Renunciation is the truly interesting aspect of this recollection. Renunciation happens when we have something we really like and we decide to give it up. A parallel is the idea of the Roman Catholic Lent, where someone might give up pizza for the period of Lent. Renunciation only works when it makes total sense. Renunciation is a choice. Observing the Five Precepts is a form of renunciation. In choosing to observe them you are renouncing killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, bad speech and intoxicants. It is irrelevant as to whether we are renouncing something that is bad for us or renouncing the use of a favourite possession or habit. The operative part is that we are making a choice in renouncing something. A monastic renounces the ‘freedoms’ of Lay life. This may be simply because they no longer make sense to that person, but no one can be compelled to Ordain. People nagged into giving up smoking, often just smoke away from the person pestering them. We can renounce things for set periods like a 9 day Retreat or for the Rains Retreat. Even renouncing something for as little as a day helps our Practice, so long as we do it regularly.
There is the fact that when we give something we are renouncing ownership of it. To hand over a gift then attempt to control how that gift is used is an invitation for trouble. All giving and sharing is an act of renunciation. We who practice this Dhamma & Dispensation are all renunciates.
The practice of this recollection follows the same basic pattern of the preceding recollections. Remember, recognise & savour your act of generosity/giving/ renunciation. What I have found to happen having practised this recollection for a time, is that I tend to begin creating and seeking out opportunities to give/share/renounce. It becomes an exquisite act of selfishness to give to someone so that I have something to work with in this recollection. Discussions with Sangha members haven’t revealed any problems with this. If anything it falls under the category of building a support for our Practice. There are few areas of my life that I cannot exercise charity in. As a business man, I view generosity as an investment in my business. There seems a connection between my giving discounts, or helping out at the temple and the amount of activity in my business. Periods of generosity are invariably followed by busy periods in my business. Often when I am helping/ giving/ sharing/ renouncing I feel that I am the one who is gaining the most out of the situation. I have to at times restrain myself from shouting “Ha!! Ripped off badly!!” This is the sort of joy and satisfaction that giving/sharing/renouncing can cause to arise.
If you wish to examine Dana/Caga more deeply than I thoroughly recommend Ajahn Thanissaro’s book: “The Economy of Gifts” available online at: www. accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/economy.html Having taken the joy in offering this to you, I will finish Recollection of Generosity.
Humbly I bow my head to the Blessed One.
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