What is Dana really supporting?

In beginning these reflections, I first have to distinguish between two quite

different meanings of dana. The first is the received definition from the tradition,
coming from the pali, for which I turn to Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

dana [daana]: Giving, liberality; offering, alms. Specifically, giving of

any of the four requisites to the monastic order. More generally, the
inclination to give, without expecting any form of repayment from the
recipient. Dana is the first theme in the Buddha's system of gradual
training, the first of the ten paramis, one of the seven treasures, and the
first of the three grounds for meritorious action.¹

The second is my own free translation, which has no textual or authoritative

source, but I would suggest is often the default meaning of dana that students
understand, transmitted implicitly through the standard retreat form as practiced
more or less universally in the Insight Meditation tradition.

dana [daana]: Donation; The practice of voluntary contribution to

teachers and / or managers of retreats for their time, energy, support,
instead of the payment of a fixed fee.²

In many ways, the practice of Dana as a foundation for happiness, as a ground

for meritorious action, as the inclination to give or support (which Iʼll call Dana1),
is alive and well, as evidenced by the many ways in which people volunteer at
centres, organize, manage, cook and administer retreats etc.³

It is the other meaning (Dana2), and its mistaken identity with the first definition,
that I want to explore in the following paragraphs. Looking at the relationship
between the two definitions I specifically want to ask:

To what extent does dana as payment by donation actually conduce to

the practice of dana as generosity? Is it possible that payment by
donation may conduce more to miserliness than to generosity?
I have had many conversations with dharma friends and fellow teachers over
the last few years about dana. Indeed among those of us who teach, it is one of
the main subjects to which we turn in talking about teaching, a fact which in
itself seems a little tragic! Many teachers have some ambivalence about the
dana they receive and their capacity to support themselves thereby. At the
same time, questioning the dana system has a certain taboo to it. While we
discuss (moan?) to each other about various aspects of Dana(2 - the system of
payment by donation), the frank discussion of financial realities is rarely brought
directly to students, which goes along with a general cultural discomfort with
discussing money.

Dana1 is clearly foundational to dharma practice. Dana2 however, because it

has the same name gets easily lumped in with the former, given the same
importance, considered fundamental to the dissemination of the dharma. Is this
actually the case?

We have inherited a practice form that until two generations ago was practiced
almost exclusively in a monastic, renunciate form, deeply embedded in the
native cultures in which it thrived. Monastic practitioners, in relying on the
generosity of lay supporters, have no dealings with money, including any
physical contact whatsoever with it. By contrast, we are practicing today in a
context that is predominantly lay, engaged, and where most of us - all but
monastics - need very much to earn a living to support ourselves.

Dharma teaching and practice is developing in the West in a culture with no

historical valuing of dharma practice, in strong contrast to the respect and
reverence for practitioners in Buddhist countries. It is developing in a culture
that operates as a meritocracy, with each seen as responsible for making her
own way, devoid of the sense of monastic-lay mutual support and inter-
dependance that exists in Asia. These important differences affect the way we
understand reciprocal exchange for goods, services, time and support.

The situation of lay practitioners, and teachers then, is radically different from
that of a monastic, asian context. We live, work and pay our way in a culture
that requires us to be financially responsible in order for us to take care of what
in Buddhist terms are called the ʻbasic requisitesʼ of food, shelter, clothing and
medicine.

If teaching dharma and supporting students involves so much time and energy
that it excludes making a living in any other way, what is wise action? How
sustainable is it to serve others without being able to take proper care of
oneself? In many caring professions this would be seen as pathological. Do we
as Dharma practitioners, looking out of the Insight Meditation tradition with its
residue of monastic, renunciate practice, see poverty as noble? I am reminded
of the Buddhaʼs repeated advice to householders to protect their income, and to
maintain a “balanced livelihood”, wherein:

a householder knowing his income and expenses leads a balanced life,

neither extravagant nor miserly, knowing that thus his income will stand
in excess of his expenses, but not his expenses in excess of his
income.⁴

I think of the situation of a friend who has been teaching dharma for 20 years or
so. Trusting in the generosity (dana1) of others, she has taught, receiving only
dana (that is donations for her work, meaning Dana2 - see the confusing
overlap?). Now in her 60s, as health and energy levels naturally deteriorate, she
is in the precarious position of being dependent on her physical health to
continue teaching, to continue receiving donations, to be able to maintain her
ʻbasic requisitesʼ. She has no pension plan and no savings. Her only ʻcapitalʼ is
the gratitude of her students, which while ʻpricelessʼ in Dharma terms, is not
legal tender when age and health make it impossible for her to teach. To turn
the above point into a question: Given the primary need for basic requisites, and
the instability of that situation, and given the Buddhaʼs injunction to lay people to
maintain themselves adequately for a “balanced life”, could it be that teaching
in this way, relying on dana to sustain a lay life, is sometimes neither wise nor
realistic?

Dharma teachings are often presented as ʻfreely givenʼ, but is this actually true?
Thanissaro Bhikkhu defines dana as “the inclination to give, without expecting
any form of repayment from the recipient.” Is that what lay teachers are doing
when we teach? In other words, are we really offering teachings as Dana, with
no expectation of repayment? Given our lay lives, given our financial realities,
given our need and our responsibility to maintain a “balanced livelihood”, is it
even possible for us to teach with no expectation of repayment?

Clearly, there is that expectation, and it has two distinct aspects:

Firstly there are the financial realities. I have bills to pay, I have limited time, I
am giving my time for the support of others, and hope for a mutuality of that
support so as to maintain my life, or ʻbasic requisites.ʼ Some teachers are living
in a semi-monastic environment - retreat centre resident teachers - with a
stipend and food etc provided. Some have another source of income, whether
from a spouse or partner, a business, or book sales etc. Some of have only the
dana we receive from teaching. To the extent that we rely on donations for our
livelihood we are bound to have the ʻexpectation of repaymentʼ to pay the
various bills we have. This is in direct contradiction of the received definition of
dana as generosity without expectation. Given that teachings are commonly
presented as ʻfreely givenʼ, we have to ask, is this honest?

The second expectation is not of financial gain or reward, but of Dana as the
expression of respect, gratitude, acknowledgement, support. It is the studentʼs
demonstration of their appreciation for teachings, their commitment to their
practice, their support for their teachers.

In the Asian context, these feelings of respect, gratitude and support underlie
the whole relationship between practitioners and supporters, between teachers
and students, between monastics and lay people. They are the engine of
generosity. There is also the strong cultural motivation of making merit, of
increasing oneʼs own store of goodness, of karmic ʻwealth.ʼ

Equating generosity and gratitude with oneʼs own gain of merit just has no
currency in our culture. It may be our intention as Dharma teachers to teach and
educate people about the transformative power of generosity, but the fact is that
the majority of people give an amount of money that they consider to be in
payment for a service provided. This attitude, (Dana2), is the way most people,
and that includes most people who come to Insight Meditation retreats, view the
practice of Dana; as payment by donation.
Outside the Insight Meditation tradition, the most common place that we see
donation as a form of payment for a service is with people not fully qualified for
the service they are offering. Somebody training to be a counsellor or therapist
for example, before completing their training may offer sessions by donation.
The implicit message is that their services are inferior to that of someone fully
trained, who would make an appropriate charge, and therefore they offer their
time and service by donation, meaning that they expect LESS THAN THE
NORMAL CHARGE OF A QUALIFIED PRACTITIONER. The normal, cultural
assumptions we have for this kind of service are:

1. That the donation offered in exchange is expected to be of less monetary

value than the fixed fee for an equivalent service.

2. That the service is less competent, and has less intrinsic value, than an
equivalent service for which a fixed charge is made.

This situation has serious ramifications for the way Dharma teachings are seen
by practitioners, for the value they accord to the teachings, the esteem in which
they hold them, and therefore the depth of their commitment to them.

The idea is that the Dharma is ʻpricelessʼ, but is it possible that this message
gets lost in translation, implicitly communicating that actually Dharma is simply
cheap? If the assumption of ʻpayment by donationʼ is one of giving less than
one would pay by fee, is teaching on a dana basis actually encouraging
miserliness?

It is my experience that 80-90% of participants on any given retreat offer an

amount of money that is far below what they would pay for a workshop or
seminar in an equivalent field that was being run on a fee-paying basis. While
we cannot know the financial circumstances of participants, we can look at the
equivalent value of a dana offering. I am aware that some may find this
equivalent value comparison coldly monetary and lacking in understanding of
the heart-qualities of Dana. Given that I am looking at Dana as it is generally
perceived, as payment by donation (Dana2) rather than as the practice of
generosity as a foundation for happiness (Dana1), please bear with me:
In the warm glow of the end of a retreat, appreciative participants will often
express much gratitude for the teachings and for the teacher's time, energy,
patience, and kindness. What happens to this appreciation on its way from the
heart to the pocket? How does the expression of support, in the form of
appreciative comments and feelings, translate to the demonstration of support
in the form of the money they contribute?

When the strong, sincere expression of support, “thankyou, this has been so
helpful, Iʼm very grateful”, translates into a demonstration of support of say,
10€, then whatever value the person believes they put on Dharma teachings,
the ʻreal worldʼ equivalent value they are according it is roughly equal to a cup
of coffee and a donut. If the donation is 30€ - which is pretty close to the
average per-person dana I receive, ( a little less for a daylong, a little more for a
weeklong retreat) then the equivalent value is of a (cheap) meal out, a short
journey by taxi, a couple of CDs, or a half-hour massage (if youʼre lucky!).

Not knowing any particular yogiʼs financial situation, and necessarily ignorant of
the sacrifice and generosity this sum may represent for the person, I
nevertheless can safely assume that most people can rather easily afford the
above-mentioned value-equivalent items. I have no doubt that people would say
that they value and have benefitted infinitely more from the time, energy, input
and teachings they have received from a teacher, than they would say they
value the real-world equivalent items that their donation represents. Their
actions however, belie their words.

Clearly there is a self-deception that happens in translation from the expression

of support to its demonstration. People feel they have benefitted greatly. They
feel deeply grateful. The vast majority of people who participate in my retreats
however (and from what I hear from most of you I am not alone), then offer an
amount of money that represents far less value than they (self-deceptively)
believe they are placing on the teachings they have received, and on the
teacher they are supposedly supporting. Is dana supporting this deception?

The outcomes of this situation correspond to the two aspects of the

expectations of repayment mentioned earlier, that of exchange - donation for
service, and that of support - dana as an offering of gratitude and respect.
Firstly, with the real-world financial situation of the teacher, the gap between
expression and demonstration of support puts particular pressure on the
teacher. How does one respond to being ʻpaidʼ a tiny fraction of what one would
earn in an equivalent professional situation, and to not being able to sustain
oneʼs basic livelihood from the dana one receives? To teach more than one
really has the resources for, in order to bring in more money? To neglect oneʼs
own contemplative practice to serve others in order to be supported by them?
To take another job, diluting oneʼs capacity to serve students, so as to make
ends meet? To accept invitations based on which retreats provide most dana
(i.e serving the wealthy in preference to the less well-off)? All the above
motivations seem unsatisfactory, unskilful, unpalatable. At the same time, they
all necessarily play out in the mind of any teacher with the ʻexpectation of
repayment.ʼ

The second aspect is the gratitude, respect and support expressed by the
studentʼs giving. Irrespective of my financial needs as a teacher (my own
situation is that I run an unrelated business in parallel with my teaching activities
so as to avoid sole dependence on dana), I am surprised, disappointed and
frustrated when a student who expresses their support so earnestly,
demonstrates it so differently. When this is the norm rather than the exception,
born of studentsʼ self-deception about the value they place on the teachings,
and from a lack of understanding of the foundational importance of Dana as
generosity within the tradition, we have to conclude that ʻteachings by danaʼ are
conducing to situations where teachings and teachers are undervalued, under-
appreciated, and under-supported. What are the implications of this for the
transmission of Dharma within our culture?

Teachers of course, have to bear some of the responsibility. If we have the

impression that students are not practicing generosity, what does that say about
our teaching of generosity? I have begun to speak more openly about this at my
retreats recently, giving teachings on generosity as Dharma teachings, rather
than only as part of the dana talk, and also by asking people to question
themselves about the value-equivalence of their donations.
I have stated plainly that dana is not supporting me, that I question whether it is
wise of me, or even possible, to continue engaging in an activity that takes so
much of my time and energy yet supports me with only one quarter of the
money I need to live on.

Students want to support teachings and teachers. They want to be generous.

They need to hear if their teachers are not getting the support they need, so
they can do something about it. They need to hear teachings on the practice of
generosity, quite apart from the request at the end of the retreat for donations. If
students only hear about dana as basically a request for donations dressed in
language about generosity, no wonder there is the overlap and confusion of
definitions.

Teaching by Dana is seen as an inherent part of the Insight Meditation world,

but it is worth remembering that this is not so in all Buddhist traditions. Tibetan
and Zen traditions both commonly have a single charge for events that covers
both administrative costs and a teacherʼs fee. It is interesting that these
traditions historically have much greater flexibility around the role of the
monastic, and their actions and constraints in the world. It is common within
some zen and Tibetan schools for monks to be married and have source of
income. It is also common, through sponsorship or providing pastoral services
in their community, that they have to pay for living in a monastery. This
obviously influences their attitude to the worldly business of running centres,
organizing teachings etc, encouraging them to establish financial stability. We
see how skillful and successful Tibetan centres are at raising and managing
finances.

Likewise, the 227 trainings of the Theravada Vinaya influence the attitudes
toward money within Theravada Buddhism. While Insight Meditation clearly has
its roots in that tradition, do we as lay people need to carry the torch of the
renunciate, unworldly flavour of monastic practice? As Dharma evolves in the
culture in which we live, it will need forms of practice and ways of supporting
practice that resonate with our culture.

If teachers cannot take care of themselves financially through teaching, who will
teach? Both teachers and staff at Gaia House feel there is not enough teachers
to serve the sangha there. Eight senior students connected with Gaia House
just completed a teacher-training program that lasted several years.. Not one of
the recently trained teachers in the program feels able or willing to leave the
financial security of their existing jobs to teach dharma full time, leaving only
some of their holiday time - a few weeks a year - to offer teachings. This does
supports neither Gaia House, nor the sangha of practitioners, nor the existing,
overworked teachers. With this situation, what does the future hold? How can
these and other people like them be supported to teach Dharma?

This article has raised many more questions than it has provided answers.
Teaching and supporting the practice of generosity is essential to the tradition in
which we teach and practice. As lay people however, is offering oneʼs time and
energy by donation similarly essential? Many Dharma teachers already charge
for their time, either for individual sessions or for classes. Many teach in a non-
Dharma context (mindfulness in corporations, MBSR ⁵ ) on a normal commercial
basis.

It is a source of joy and a privilege, to offer Dharma teachings. But while we

may be happy to offer dharma teachings freely, living a lay life one cannot
realistically give oneʼs time and energy freely without expectation of return.
Offering Dharma is the very best of gifts. But with a finite amount of time and
energy, if the support we receive does not reciprocate the support we offer, I we
have to do something about it. This could be teaching less, or stopping
altogether in order to make ends meet. Or it could be valuing and therefore
charging for oneʼs time and energy.

We have looked at the confusion of definitions of the meaning of Dana, the self-
deception in the translation from expression to demonstration of support, and
the dishonesty of calling the teachings freely given when in fact there is the
expectation of return.

The transition from a monastic to a lay context, and from an Asian dharma
culture built over many generations, to a completely new context in the West, is
recent and incomplete. How teachings develop, how dharma is practiced and
understood, how generosity is cultivated, is up to us all as the living generation
of practitioners. Our primary responsibility to ourselves and our students is the
genuine integration of the dharma we love and the life we live .

How we do this will necessarily have its own flavour and expression, in the way
that it has in each culture it has met. With the particularly ascetic and
renunciate form of our Theravada legacy, we need to be vigilant to see where
we may be clinging to forms that put us out of step with our culture, curb
generosity and limit the resources for teachers and teachings.

May we see our way wisely, examining our own greed, hatred and delusion.
May we give generously and receive fully, offering the priceless gifts of Freedom
and Awakening that Dharma teachings reveal.

1. Thanissaro Bikkhu, Glossary of Pali Terms, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#d

2. There are many illustrations of this overlap and confusion between definitions. e.g Gaia
House, where the signs at the dana boxes refer to ʻPaying Danaʼ rather than ʻOffering Danaʼ,
reinforcing the default definition of payment by donation instead of the true definition that the
other dana literature there is trying to promote.

3. It is interesting however that many centres are running in a way that is unsustainable
financially. A co-ordinator at Gaia House recently told me “we are living off the building”, with
income insufficient to account for future renovation costs. Also, the Forest Sangha
monasteries in Britain all rely heavily on donations from Thailand to maintain them. After 30
years of being here, the amount of donations from European supporters represents only a
tiny proportion of their income relative to the amount of European practitioners there.

4. Vyagghapajja Sutta, AN 8.54, Trans. Narada Thera

5. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, as developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

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