© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Udon Thani, Thailand

In almost all Buddhist lists of virtues, dana (donation) is always the first one. Many literature argues that dana is one of the central practices in early Buddhism for, without it, Buddhism would not have survived and flourished in the many centuries of its development and expansion.

The Buddhist relationship between donors and renunciants is built on interdependence where householders give according to the teachings on donation called danadhamma, and renunciants returns the householders’ offerings with a gift of teaching called dhammadana.

A Buddhist would say that dana goes beyond an exchange between a monastic or spiritually-developed person and a layman, in that, the act of dana has the effect of purifying and transforming the mind of the giver where generosity arising for the act of giving leads to being reborn in happy states and the availability of material wealth. Stretching the argument further, some believe that giving without seeking anything in return leads to greater spiritual wealth and reduces sufferings.

When presented conversely – that the lack of giving leads to unhappy states and poverty – it is of no surprise that monasteries attracts thousands of devotees weekly, with trays laden with food and pockets weighing down with donations.

Larger and more popular monasteries, that are known to collect in access of USD 50,000 in hard cash donations per dana session that last 3 hours at most, have also developed varying and complex art of giving, where the ritual form of exchange dictates how to properly acquire and use wealth, how to properly give and receive individual and communal gifts, how to think about using and transferring merit, and what constitutes proper food, robes, lodging, and medicine.

Passing the complex web of rituals as teachings in themselves that is central to the “dana contract”, my personal observation tends to defer with the ‘teachings’; having performed dana and pilgrimages under the Theravada Buddhism school over the past 3 years.

With Luang Phos heavily guarded by armed body guards; escorted by politicians, the rich and the famous; driven around in X5s; blessing those with pockets that hangs the lowest; and having pre-recorded chanting and dhamma being replayed, I can’t help but wonder if modernisation, crowd-control and  refinement of knowledge in finances have overtaken Shakyamuni Buddha’s ‘art of giving’ in his bodhisattva phase (before the final culmination into Nirvana) which was symbolised by the sacrifice of his own body when he has nothing else to offer an unexpected guest in the Jataka folktale where Shakyamuni Buddha is born as a rabbit, and unable to present any other food to a Brahmin, roasted himself in a fire*.

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* as illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in his graphic novel Buddha Vol 1: Kapilavastu