On generosity, doing dana

My views on Buddhism - weblog.

This is a post I wrote to a forum.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on dana, generosity. I enjoyed reading it. I know exactly what you mean about people shelling out money to temples. Many chinese families (my own included), when they go to temples, will donate a few ringgits and pray for the protection and safety of their family. This is the traditional way of doing dana. I think they get the ideas right; they believe if they do good deeds, they will get good results in return. Being generous and hoping for a reward is very natural for all human beings, I think.

I want to share my stories and my own point of view of dana and generosity. I hope you won’t think that I am boasting. For me, if I do dana, the reward is secondary. As long as it brings joy to my heart, I am satisfied. Dana does not have to be in monetary form, it can be a volunteer service, giving our time, or expertise to help other people.

I grew up in a small rubber plantation town in Kedah, Malaysia. There is a Thai temple in front of my grandfather’s rubber estate. Before Wesak Day celebration, my grandfather would buy cans of paint and he and his workers would go and paint the temple Pagoda. The Pagoda is very high - with the typical Thai-style yellow pointy tip architecture. They would climb up a tall ladder to get up there to paint it. That was the way my grandfather did dana when he was alive. He donated the paints and did the painting himself.

The adults always give to temples and we grow up watching them doing dana. So when we grew up, it becomes second nature to us. A year before my grandfather passed away, we took a road trip from our hometown to another town in Perak state. Along the way, we stopped at every temple, we prayed, and my grandfather put a few ringgits in the donation box. He was a generous man and he did a lot of charities when he was alive. I pray that my grandfather is in a heavenly realm right now.

On Kathina day, my grandmother would buy monk robes and alms bowl set for the monks. I remember the first Kathina I attended was with my grandmother when I was about 10 or 12 years old. It was in MBMC, Penang. I really enjoyed it. I loved listening to the Pali chanting. I also pray that my grandmother is in a heavenly realm right now.

When I was young, my mother always told us to share our toys with our siblings. Kids are selfish and don’t like to share their toys with other kids but some kids don’t mind sharing. I was the selfish one and had to be ‘coerced’ to share my toys. After a while, I think I got used to it. When I went to primary school, sometimes I bought sweets from the school canteen. I would eat one or two and save up the rest for my younger brother and sister. I enjoyed eating the sweets and I wanted my siblings to enjoy it too. This didn’t happen very often though, only once in a while, well maybe twice only. I think this is the starting point of learning to share and be generous.

When I started working, I used my own money to do dana. There is a Buddhist meditation temple about 15 mins walk from my house. I usually buy the bath-robes for doing dana. The real monk robes are expensive, the bath-robe is only Rm10 each and I buy those for the dana.

At one time I was into all fruits diet, I ate oranges and granny smith apples every day. I enjoyed eating the fruits so much, I wanted to share the joy of eating it with others. So I bought oranges and green granny smith apples for the temple during Sunday dana. I think dana is also about sharing the joy you get with others, hoping that they would get the same joy too.

Sometimes my mother and I bought a bag of rice and we both carried it and knelt in front of Bhante or Sayadaw and do dana. Even on my mother’s death bed, my mother requested my sister to do dana for the temple. I owed my whole life to mother, if there is no mother, there would be no me. My mother taught me many things but most of all, she taught me to be a Buddhist. I pray that my mother is in a heavenly realm right now. My family also donated to the printing of free dhamma books for distributions in loving memory of my late mother.

To cut a long story short, before I came to Toronto, I volunteered at the Sunday dhamma school (for children) for about four months. I taught English to the children. Sometimes when there is no translator around, I helped Sayadaw during the daily interview with meditators. No, I don’t speak Burmese, I translate from mandarin or hokkien to english but my chinese language skill is not very good and I told Sayadaw I don’t know how to translate the word 'mindfulness' into chinese! I hope I didn’t mess up the yogis’s interview, I pray that I won’t get bad kamma from the bad translations. :-/

There are many volunteers at the temple every weekend. They cook, serve, wash, clean up and direct traffic, etc. etc. They ask the temple people if there is anything they can help with and they would help. These are the things that are considered dana also, they are service dana. But, the main dana is the food dana that the devotees bring from home to be offered to the monks. The food line is long and huge! The devotees are planting good seeds, hoping that they will sow good results in the future. :-)

That’s basically how Dana is done in Malaysia. I hope everyone can share their dana stories and how dana is done in their respective countries.

I read about the dana a pilgrimage group did for the monks in India and Nepal. I felt really happy reading it and rejoiced in their dana. May I Anumodana too. Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!