Dana: The liberating practice of generosity
I attended my first silent meditation retreat by accident. I thought my friend had signed us up for a yoga retreat where we would stretch and lounge oceanside. This retreat was in the mountains of West Virginia so there was no beach, no yoga and, it turned out, no talking. Mealtime looked like a women’s prison with grim-seeming faces staring down at the table, careful not to make eye contact, eating soup with unnatural mid-air spoon pauses. When the schedule read “walking meditation”, I hid behind a window, fully alarmed watching people walk in bizarrely slow and random patterns across the lawn like zombies, blank expressions and arms hanging slack by their sides.
I fumbled my way through the retreat in various states of panic. I was astonished and affronted on the last day when the leading teacher invited us to make an additional offering called “dana”. I had already paid to attend the retreat and was taken aback by the prompt to make an additional donation. I had never thought to tip a teacher in any other context and had no idea what amount was appropriate. My data points ranged from 20% gratuity on a restaurant bill to tithing 10% of annual income. I recalled childhood memories of placing a crisp dollar bill in the baskets passed in Southern churches (where I secretly plotted pocketing a fistful of the cash to buy candy.) I don’t remember what amount I ended up giving at the retreat but my Southern propriety left me thinking the mention of a tip at the end was all a bit tacky.
In the years since that first retreat, I continued to attend silent retreats (on purpose), and deepened in my study and practice of Buddhism, reflecting on what dana means along the way. I am now a teacher in my lineage and experience the practice of dana both as a practitioner and recipient. Dana is a Sanskrit and Pali word in the Buddhist canon referencing the practice of giving and cultivating generosity. Dana is not equivalent to “tipping” as my Western MBA mind misconstrued. In Buddhism, dana is a foundational lifelong practice and virtue essential to cultivate on the path to awakening and the very offerings that sustain the centuries of teachers and teachings. The Buddha taught generosity, the first of the 10 paramis or perfections, before he offered the canonical teaching of the Four Noble Truths to his students. Only after practitioners had full understanding of the teachings of generosity would the Buddha consider them ready to receive more.
The practice of giving dana recognizes the immeasurable benefit of receiving teachings along with honoring the time, cultivation, skill and study by the teachers. In advance of a teaching or retreat, teachers invest considerable time, thought and deep intention into crafting a retreat, preparing teachings as well as the administration and logistics that generally go unseen by attendees.
Beyond any individual class or retreat, are the years of sustained practice the teachers spend deepening their own understanding of the teachings and in support of practitioners. Teachers are only able to do this through the generosity of retreatants allowing them to continue to dedicate themselves to practice and teaching.
Dana, the deep bow and practice of generosity, also honors the centuries of past practitioners who supported their teachers and allows us to benefit today from the teachings passed down.
This “paying-it-forward” tradition has sustained the lineage and lineage holders of Buddhism for over 2,500 years. When understood fully, dana honors past practitioners and teachers who offered support that sustained the teachings and for future practitioners and teachers who will receive and benefit from the continued lineage of teachers and teachings. The 2,500 year lineage of this teaching has depended singularly on the generosity of practitioners supporting not only the individual teachers but the continued lineage of teaching itself. This practice of giving freely becomes a thread between a practitioner today and practitioners spanning the centuries before and to come. It is quite amazing, really.
The practice of dana does not translate readily into our fee-for-service, transaction-based culture in the West and particularly the US. In Buddhism, traditional offerings of dana included alms such as volunteering in jobs, food, robes, lamps, and unguent (healing salves) and even the simplicity of sincere well-wishing. It is an expansive expression of generosity based on what a well-intended donor or practitioner can offer and what is in service to the recipient.
An essential understanding of the practice of dana is that it is not only the offering itself but of equal merit, the disposition of the practitioner when giving. Feeling gladness in the heart is as important as any amount given. Dana is offered most skillfully when the donor is happy before, during and after the giving of a gift. Honoring the sincerity and goodwill of the donor as part of the practice is a radically humanizing act. If we receive a gift bound by conditions, expectations or resentment, it is profoundly different than receiving a gift of the same amount freely offered from a donor of sincere goodwill and well-wishing. Honoring one’s own disposition in the act of giving invites a sense of connection, self-awareness, integrity and humanity not always present in giving.
In the practice of dana, the generosity is extended across the 2,500 years of teachers and practitioners who, solely through the exchange of dana have continued this lineage of teachings. I now sit with and teach alongside teachers steeped in the canon of Buddhist traditions today because human beings across the span of the globe and centuries, and whom I have never met, offered what they could with generosity that kindly, humbly and freely brought the gifts of these teachings to my door.
As I deepen in my own practice and take my seat as a teacher, the practice of dana connects me to and brings to life the entire lineage of practitioners, teachers and teachings that have so immeasurably illuminated my own path. My understanding of “dana” has been a wholly (holy) unexpected journey from “tip jar” to a renewing, transformational, joyful and profoundly sacred practice.
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This note is in the context of non-dominant culture, family, lay and householder meditation teachers.
In the context of Buddhism in the West, and particularly in meditation communities supporting families and non-dominant culture practitioners and teachers, the teachings are at an inflection point. Where householders have historically had a subordinated role in the teaching lineage, family and lay meditation teachers are expanding the discourse to directly practice the teachings as sacredly in a “household” as any monastery. As we look at critical global issues, imbuing family life with practices of fierce compassion and the 8-fold path principles such as wise speech, action and livelihood are not only urgent but could be the very offering of unguent, or healing salve, that is needed in the heart, mind and body of the world. The active voices of diverse teachers from different household and economic origins, gender and gender expressions, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, are a modern confluence illuminating and carrying forward these teachings suffusing them with wisdom needed to carry us forward. The practice of dana is as alive and essential today in the West as at any other point in the history of the lineage to support the emergence and expansion of the teachings.