The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

This article is one of several reports on Sravasti Abbey. The other reports include Daily Life at Sravasti Abbey, Supporters of Sravasti Abbey and Venerable Chodron.

Dana

The Buddha originally envisioned a relationship of mutual generosity between lay supporters and the monastic community: monastics would offer religious teachings and guidance to the lay people, and lay followers would in turn offer the four requisites—food, shelter, medicine, and clothing. The term given to this mutual support was “dana,” a Sanskrit term which is often translated as “giving” or “generosity.” Ven. Chodron sometimes translates this term as "giving with a sense of joy."

Historical Context of Dana in Buddhism

As Buddhism spread from India to other countries in Asia, the relationships between laypeople and monastics took on different forms. According to the Pali canon, at the time of the Buddha, lay supporters often offered food and drink directly to the monastic community. Monastics would go on alms rounds with their begging bowls, and would eat the food offered to them by devotees. Other people made donations of land so that monastics could have a more permanent place to stay. One such person was Anathpindika, who donated a large park to the monastic community; to commemorate such generosity Sravasti Abbey has decided to name one of the open fields on their land Anathapindika’s Park.

As Buddhism spread to other places in Southeast Asia, such as Thailand, this practice of begging for alms continued. Indeed, if one travels to Thailand today one can still see Thai monastics receiving their daily fare in this way. Yet as Buddhism began to plant roots in China, different cultural values prevented the Buddhist monastics from continuing their tradition of alms rounds. Begging was viewed as unseemly, and people would have lost respect for the monastic followers of Buddhism if they had persisted in the habit of alms rounds. As a result, many Chinese monasteries grew some of their own food, and lay people made donations by visiting the temples and monasteries themselves.

The tradition of begging for alms never really took hold in Tibet either, although in this instance the factors were more geographic than cultural. The nomadic culture of Tibet generally lacked stable populations of people to provide consistent support for monasteries. Great distances could separate people from even the nearest monastery, which also made such exchanges more challenging. As in China, lay people brought their donations to monasteries and offered either food or precious substances for their offerings. In each of these Asian cultures, people have come to respect and value the contributions made by monastics, and often look upon the opportunity to make offerings to the monastic community as a great privilege and opportunity.

Dana in America

Yet as Buddhism has come to America, this custom has been difficult to establish. Many of the first dharma centers in America were oriented toward the teaching of lay people, not the support of nuns or monks. As a result, many of the teachings in this environment emphasized methods for bringing Buddhism into one’s daily life and did not emphasize the traditional role that monastics have played in upholding and transmitting the Buddhist teachings. The mere sight of a Buddhist monastic is a rare sight in America, and very few monastic communities exist where monastics can live, study, and receive support from the lay community.

One challenge faced by Sravasti Abbey is the simple fact that most people in America—even most Buddhists, much less people from other religions—do not understand the importance of the reciprocal relationship of dana in supporting monastic communities. People are used to paying money in exchange for services, and may not even think to offer money if nothing is charged (“if they’re not charging anything, it probably isn’t worth anything”). Many dharma centers charge for teachings (largely because they have bills to pay), although some have “suggested” or “recommended” fees for teachings. Such accomodations are often necessary to help provide a fledgling center with a more stable source of income.

Dana at Sravasti Abbey

In this atmosphere, Ven. Chodron has insisted that everything at the Abbey be offered free of charge, in keeping with this tradition of dana initiated by the Buddha. One reason for doing so is precisely because it challenges the norms of our goods-for-services economy. Ven. Chodron and the residents of the Abbey want people to choose to support the Abbey because the believe in vision and activities of the place. According to Buddhist teachings, making a financial contribution with the intention to create a place where others can study and practice the dharma without charge creates a far different effect in the mind of an individual than writing a check to pay for room and board. Similarly, freely giving something to support an idea or project one believes in creates a different mental attitude and habit than paying for something religious with the same attitude that one purchases a DVD.

Although Sravasti Abbey certainly requires the support of others in order to survive, Ven. Chodron wants all parties involved to rethink their own attitudes toward this support. Dana is considered first a mental attitude and secondly an exchange of money, time, or other goods. The Buddhist understanding of cause and effect emphasizes the great role that motivation and intention play in determining the outcome of our actions; Ven. Chodron draws people’s attention to this teaching by emphasizing the importance of giving with joy.

Residents at the Abbey learn to both give and receive generosity as well. It is a rather humbling experience to realize tha

Residents also work to make their own motivations at the Abbey as altruistic as possible. Such potentially-mundane tasks as weeding, shoveling gravel, or sanding a deck are consciously thought of in terms of offering service to Sravasti Abbey and creating a place in which Buddhist monastics can live and study. To emphasize the importance that the mind plays in such actions, the afternoon period is called “Offering Service” instead of being referred to as a work period. This emphasis upon one’s own attitude—and even the very labels one uses to refer to certain actions—concords with Buddhist teachings about the interdependent nature of phenomena. In Buddhist terms, the activity of, for example, framing a doorway is determined more by the personal motivation behind the action that the physical movements themselves. Someone can do the exact same actions with either an altruistic intention or a sour mood, and this mindset will play a greater role in determining the individual’s subsequent experiences than the physical actions.

Even for those who stay at Sravasti Abbey and choose to leave a donation, Ven. Chodron wants them to rethink this act. She says, “You are not paying for yourself. You are supporting the Abbey.” A vision of supportive generosity, in which money is offered to provide a similar experience for others, replaces the traditional quid pro quo transaction of staying at a rest house or hotel. She wants people to “put their money where their values are. If they value a place like Sravasti Abbey, then they will support it. We rely completely on the generosity of others.” A belief in the natural generosity of people pervades Sravasti Abbey; by inviting dana instead of charging visitors, the Abbey hopes to encourage people to get in touch with this spirit of generosity. Ven. Chodron concludes, “people’s dana supports the Abbey, which freely offers a place to practice.”