(DANAPARAMITA)
Mahayana Buddhist sutras maintain that the most admirable
human beings, bodhisattvas at the highest level, are characterized by a profound,
universal compassion, compassion so far-reaching that their daily actions
demonstrate as much concern for the well-being of others as for themselves. In
order to pursue the Buddhist ideal of compassion at this exalted level,
practitioners train themselves in the perfection of generosity. Generosity of
spirit—the capacity to give of oneself in a wide range of creative ways—has
been an important dimension of Buddhist self-cultivation throughout the long
history of this tradition.
How,
then, does generosity emerge as a topic of self-cultivation in early Mahayana
sutras? Although in some sense the first step up a progressively more difficult
ladder of Buddhist virtues, generosity is also closely tied to the ultimate
goal—enlightenment. Buddhas and enlightened bodhisattvas are imagined to be
generous above all else, practicing the broader virtue of compassion toward all
sentient beings. The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras praise the virtue of
generosity and challenge all prospective bodhisattvas to train relentlessly in
this capacity as the all-important first step through the six perfections.
The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras divide the practice of giving into two types, following the lead of the earlier Buddhist tradition. At the most basic level is the gift of material goods of various kinds, especially those goods necessary for life itself, and at the higher level is the gift of the dharma, the teachings, the very possibility of a spiritually significant life. But the teachings are powerless if hunger and poverty stand in the way. So the sutras teach compassion for all levels of human suffering and demand that material generosity be the first order of business for an authentic Buddhist. Therefore the Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom asserts: “Do give gifts! For poverty is a painful thing. One is unable, when poor, to accomplish one’s own welfare, much less that of others!”1
This
sutra heads the list of material objects to be given by saying that the Buddha
“gives food to the hungry.”2
But food is just the beginning, and the list
goes on to add drink, clothing, shelter, land—the most essential material
conditions of life. Nor is that the end of giving. The sutra recommends giving
a wide variety of gifts, including what we would consider luxury items such as
gold, jewels, perfumes, and so on. Why are these gifts thought to be important
in a religion of material renunciation? Two reasons. First, the division of two
kinds of giving corresponded in the early Buddhist social world to a division
between monks or nuns and lay people. Monks and nuns, because of their vows of
poverty, had no material objects to give, not even food. So this list of
material objects to give applied more to lay people than to monks, and
precisely because Buddhism was a religion of renunciation, even for the laity,
radical acts of giving were possible spiritual practices for a devout lay
bodhisattva.
The
second reason for the inclusion of these luxury gifts was that the sutras in
which they are found were meditation manuals as much as they were instructions
for actual living. In meditation, anyone, whether they owned material objects
or not, could work through the imaginary mental exercises of giving.
Visualizing and contemplating acts of giving in meditation, Buddhists hoped to
inculcate profound feelings of generosity which in the future would give rise
to compassionate, charitable acts on behalf of the well-being of others.
Therefore, because it was a mental exercise, the list of items given goes even
further, to what would seem to be outrageous extremes. A bodhisattva would
meditate on the act of giving away (that is, renouncing) his own family members
or, the final material object one could give, his or her own bodily life. These
meditative extremes symbolized spiritual renunciation at the highest level,
the final surrendering of the self. Thus the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras include
admonitions like: “A Bodhisattva must cast away even his body, and he must
renounce all that is necessary to life.”3
Meditating
on the act of giving away even one’s own body, bodhisattvas cultivated what
Buddhists considered the most noble motive for all gener- osity—that the
welfare of others be placed on a par with one’s own. Recall that the
bodhisattva vows compassion in the form of postponing his or her own
enlightenment so that others might also have such an opportunity. The
bodhisattva vows to achieve a selfless state of compassion in which the
enlightenment of others is as important as his or her own and strives toward
that goal by training the mind to respond to others in a spirit of open
generosity. This training constitutes the early contemplative life of the
bodhisattva, and its intention is to effect fundamental change in actual life
attitude and behavior.
Beyond
material gifts—the first level of generosity—is the gift of the dharma—teachings
aimed at the elevation of human life to an enlightened level. This second type
of giving was thought to be most appropriate for monks and nuns, whose very
lifestyle prohibited material giving and who were therefore, by that very act
of renunciation, fit to give teachings of spiritual renunciation. Ordinary
people were most often pictured as donating the material livelihood of the
monastery, while the monks reciprocated with spiritual gifts made possible by
the generosity of the laity. But Mahayana Buddhists also realized that
anyone—monk, nun, or layperson—might rise to the ideal level of compassion and
wisdom pictured in the image of the perfected bodhisattva. Images of lay bodhisattvas,
like the wealthy householder Vimalakĩrti, emphasized the value of enlightened
generosity.
That
material generosity, while important, is less exalted than spiritual generosity
is a point made frequently in early Mahayana sutras. Picturing human life as
most importantly a spiritual quest, the kind of generosity that the sutras most
fervently proposed was the gift of visionary life and human excellence, not
material objects, and it is in this vein that they were written. Thus the Sandhinirmocana
Sũtra says: “When Bodhisattvas benefit sentient beings by means of the
perfections, if they are satisfied merely by providing benefits to beings
through giving material goods and do not establish them on virtuous states
after having raised them up from non-virtuous states, this is not skillful.”4
The principal reason for giving material gifts
is that human beings might be solidified in their lives and elevated to the
point where a spiritual life of wisdom and compassion becomes possible. So, no
matter how much material well-being is imagined, the possibility of an
authentic spiritual practice goes far beyond it. Therefore the Diamond Sutra
makes this point firmly: “If someone were to offer an immeasurable quantity of
the seven treasures to fill the worlds as infinite as space as an act of
generosity, the happiness resulting from that virtuous act would not equal the
happiness resulting from a son or daughter of good family who gives rise to the
awakened mind and reads, recites, accepts, and puts into practice the sutra,
and explains it to others, even if only a gatha of four lines.”5
Upon
whom should the bodhisattva bestow his or her generosity? Although answers to
this question in the early Mahayana sutras occasionally vary, for the most
part they prescribe universal giving. Although in practical circumstances it
may be necessary to target those who are most needy, what the sutras want to
cultivate is the desire to be generous with everyone. The virtues of nondiscrimination
and impartiality are given high praise. Although there was a theory in
circulation during the early years of Mahayana Buddhism that the value or merit
of a gift is proportional to the worthiness or spiritual merit of the recipient,
many texts speak directly against this idea. In this spirit, the Large Sutra
on Perfect Wisdom describes the true bodhisattva as “having given gifts
without differentiating. . . .
But if a Bodhisattva, when faced with a living
being . . . who does not seem worthy of gifts, should produce a thought to the
effect that ‘a fully enlightened Buddha is worthy of my gifts, but not this
[one],’ then he does not have the dharma of a Bodhisattva.”6
Furthermore,
the attitude of the giver and the spirit of the gift are essential to the
practice of generosity. Calm and even-minded, the enlightened donor is not
moved by anything but the welfare of human beings and the openness of heart
entailed in noble giving. Therefore, no thought is given to the rewards or
“fruit” that inevitably flow back to the donor from a genuine act of
generosity. Although there will be rewards that are a natural consequence of an
act of giving, focus on those “fruits” demean and undercut the act. The higher
and more selfless the conception of the gift, the greater is the perfection of
giving. Thus the Large Sutra ends a section on the perfection of
generosity by warning that the bodhisattva “does not aspire for any fruit of
his giving which he could enjoy in Samsara, and it is only for the purpose of
protecting beings, of liberating them, that he courses [i.e., trains] in the
perfection of giving.”7
Indeed,
any attitude of self-congratulation on the part of the practitioner of giving
is disdained. Self-satisfaction in a good deed displays the weakness of that
act of generosity; it demonstrates that the motive and self-conception behind
it are still immature. Coveting neither reward nor honor nor gratitude, the
bodhisattva gives simply because a need exists. He gives anything, including
himself, for the sake of others and in so doing meditates on the idea that
“what is my very own this is yours.”8 The difference between generosity grounded in an ingrained
sense of ownership and giving that is free of any claim about what is “mine” is
developed very clearly into a conception of two distinct kinds of giving.
Although both kinds of generosity are beneficial and therefore worthy of
cultivation, nevertheless, the “perfection of generosity” is fully defined only
in one of these practices.
The
first of these two kinds of generosity is “worldly giving.” Worldly giving
encompasses a wide range of generous acts, from a grudging, stingy gift given
for essentially selfish motives all the way to magnanimous gifts of enormous
generosity. In fact, one may give everything away, including one’s life, and
still be within the domain of worldly giving. So what constitutes its
worldliness? The answer is: the conception that structures the act itself.
Worldly generosity occurs when, having given, the bodhisattva thinks: “I give,
that one receives, this is the gift.”9
Even if the bodhisattva also goes so far as to
think: “I renounce all that I have without any niggardliness; I act as the
Buddha commands. I practice the perfection of giving. I, having made this gift
into the common property of all beings, dedicate it to supreme enlightenment,
and that without basing myself on anything. By means of this gift and its
fruit, may all beings in this very life be at their ease, and may they without
any further clinging enter final Nirvana.”10
Even
that is still worldly giving, due to the character of the understanding out of
which it arises. According to the Large Sutra, the problem with this way
of being generous is: “The notion of self, the notion of others, the notion of
a gift. To give a gift tied by these three ties, that is called worldly
giving.”ii
By contrast, the sutra describes the
perfection of an act of generosity by way of a “threefold purity”: “Here a
Bodhisattva gives a gift, and he does not apprehend a self, a recipient, or a
gift; also no reward of his giving. He surrenders that gift to all beings, but
does not apprehend those beings, or himself either. And, although he dedicates
that gift to supreme enlightenment, he does not apprehend any enlightenment.
This is called the supermundane perfection of giving.”i2
The
distinction between these two levels of the practice of generosity is essential
to the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, even though both levels are admired
and advocated. On the worldly level we find bodhisattvas giving generously,
acting out of a highly cultivated compassion on behalf of all suffering beings
without discrimination. The benefits of this kind of giving are described in
detail. Bodhisattvas who practice in this way really do help people, suffering
is alleviated to some extent, and the teachings of enlightenment are
perpetuated. Moreover, bodhisattvas achieve a higher state of
enlightenment—they overcome greed and insecurity, the fear of losing
possessions. They become more unselfish than they were before and attain a
significant peace of mind and happiness. These results are far from
inconsequential. Therefore, even though there is a greater perfection of
generosity to be taught, all genuine acts of giving are applauded.
The
question remains, though: How should we understand the higher form of
generosity—“perfect giving”? The answer can be found throughout the Perfection
of Wisdom Sutras, because wisdom is precisely what is needed to perfect
generosity. Wisdom is the sixth perfection, the most perfect of the
perfections, and the essential ingredient in all the others. Therefore it will
need to be considered here in order to complete our understanding of the ideal
of perfect generosity.
Perfect
wisdom, whether related to generosity or any other dimension of life, consists
in the realization of “emptiness,” and it is this teaching that the sutras
promulgate from beginning to end. Although emptiness (sun- yata) was an
infrequently used word in the earliest layers of Buddhist literature, when it
did make its appearance as the central concept in Mahayana sutras, it was
defined in terms that were already familiar in the Pali sutras. To say that
something is “empty” is to say that it is subject to continual change, that its
existence is wholly dependent on factors outside of itself, and that it has no
unchanging core or permanent essence. Making that claim, Mahayana Buddhists
invoked the basic Buddhist teachings of impermanence, dependent arising, and
no-self. All things are “empty” of their own self-established permanent essence
because they are always subject to alteration and revision and because they are
composed and defined in terms of what lies outside of them.
The
“perfection” of giving incorporates the wisdom of “emptiness” to transform the
perspective from which acts of giving occur. When the impermanence, dependence,
and insubstantiality of all things are absorbed into one’s worldview down to
the level of daily comportment, everything changes. A new, nonself-centered
identity gradually emerges, one that entails reciprocity with everything that
previously seemed to be other than oneself. This identity dissolves previous
habits of self-protection and selfaggrandizement, opening the “self” to others
in a connection of compassionate identification. To see how the vision of
“emptiness” transforms thinking about generosity or giving, we look closely at
passages in the sutras.
Instructing
his disciple, Subhuti, in the perfection of generosity, the Large Sutra
has the Buddha say: “Do not imagine that the gift is one thing, its fruit
another, the donor another, and the recipient another.. . . And why? Because this gift is empty of a gift, its fruit empty of a
fruit, and also the donor is empty of a donor and the recipient empty of a
recipient. For in emptiness no gift can be apprehended nor its fruit, no donor,
and no recipient. And why? Because absolutely those dharmas are empty in their
own-being.”13
The
Buddha says, “Do not imagine.” Imagine what? Do not imagine that the world is
divided up into separate self-subsistent entities, the way we ordinarily assume
it to be. Do not imagine yourself as one of these isolated entities. Why not?
Because all of these seemingly separate “things” are what they are only in
connection to other things that make them what they are. Nothing stands on its
own, and that is what it means to be “empty” of “own-being.” Applied to the act
of giving, we see that the gift is not a gift without a donor and a recipient.
Likewise, without the gift, there is no donor, no recipient. Each depends on
the others, and when one changes, so do the others.
Moreover,
when “I” give, there is far more than me making this possible. My giving
depends on many factors behind and beyond me. It depends on my having something
to give as well as the capacity to do that. To a great extent that depends on
my parents, my family, my friends, my teachers, my upbringing, my employers,
and much, much more. Without my parents shaping me the way they did, without my
family providing so well for me, without teachers preparing me, employers
paying me, farmers and grocers feeding me, and a broader culture teaching me
to value generosity, “I” would not be giving. And that is just the beginning of
the analysis of dependency. Without oxygen, gravity, sunshine, and an endless
list of other essentials, there would certainly be no gift, because no donor
and no recipient. Because my generosity is made possible by this enormous
background of interdependent factors, it’s not simply my generosity.
Understanding that truth transforms and opens up the act of giving. Now
consider the recipient of the gift. How many factors have come to shape this
particular person to be exactly who he or she is? Billions—everything that has
ever shaped his or her life. Everything depends, and the scope of this basic
interdependency is enormous.
Why
does this matter when it comes to giving? Because, as everyone already knows,
both giving and receiving vary greatly in quality, and this variation in
quality depends on the level of understanding from which it has derived.
Although all forms of generosity are good in some sense, rarely do acts of
giving reveal ideal levels of generosity because they are limited by the
boundaries of the donor’s self-understanding. Those who give are most often
still encircled by themselves. Although able to give, self-concern retains its
primacy, and this is evidenced in the way giving occurs. When first learning to
give, it is hard not to give for self-centered reasons, because those are the
only kinds of reasons we have. Enveloped in limited self-understanding, it is
perfectly natural to give for ulterior motives and to be proud of one’s
generosity. It is inevitable that, at least to some extent, we are
condescending toward those who are receiving rather than giving, and that we
selfishly hold back much more than is given.
Therefore,
over and over, the sutras recommend that “when the Bodhisattva is faced with a
beggar, he should produce a thought thus: he who gives, he to whom he gives,
what he gives,” in all of these “the own-being cannot be apprehended.”14
The Bodhisattvas’ “own-being” “cannot be
apprehended” because they have no “own-being.” Their being—what they
are—depends to a great extent on other beings, and they change over time.
Nothing is self-established; nothing stands on its own. All of us who fail to
understand this will, as donors, tend to be more self-concerned in giving than
concerned about the other. Understanding ourselves and others as isolated
entities, each on our own, in the act of giving we will likely be as much or
more self-promoting as truly generous.
The
gift may still be a good thing. The beggar will, for example, still get the
food he so desperately needs. But he will not get the sense of human dignity
and equality that he may need to recover his standing in the world, nor a
glimpse of the open-hearted human love and concern that we all need to live
well. Moreover, the one who gives will not get these either, and the deep sense
of well-being that might have come in the act of giving is stifled, replaced
tragically by more isolation, pride, and arrogance, and hence more future
suffering for both the giver and others.
Unless
we as donors can see clearly and unflinchingly that who we are as donors—secure
in wealth and health—is completely dependent on numerous turns of good fortune,
on the care and help of others, and on opportunities not available to everyone,
our acts of giving will be less than fully generous. These acts will therefore
not have the liberating effects that they might otherwise have had. When we are
able to see that the homeless person’s parents did not do for him what ours did
for us, that his teachers did not do for him what ours did for us, then we
begin to understand the contingency of our fortune, and, looking more deeply,
the thorough interdependency of all reality.
Recall that Buddhist teachings from the very beginning suggest that practitioners meditate on the idea that there is “no-self,” that there is no permanent essential core that is “me.” Contemplating all of the elements that have come together in the creation of each person, all the influences that have shaped us to make us exactly who we are, Buddhists hoped to mitigate distortions of perspective that give rise to relentless acts of selfpromotion and self-securing. From this Buddhist point of view, our “normal” self-absorption ends up looking like a harmful consequence of shallow misunderstanding. One later version of this early Buddhist teaching is the Mahayana realization that we are collectively interdependent, that we are all in this life together rather than struggling along on our own. This, in fact, is what “Mahayana” means: that the “vehicle” (yana) on which we progress in life—Buddhism—is “large” (maha) because it always includes everyone from the most enlightened donor to the most dependent recipients. Therefore, when the sutras teach generosity, they seek a variety of ways to convince us that our sense of isolation is an illusion and that we will not be truly generous until we see that truth.
Thus,
a sutra has the Buddha say: “When the Bodhisattva, who courses [i.e., trains]
in perfect wisdom, gives gifts, then, taken hold of by perfect wisdom, he is
not one who perceives duality in that.”15
Free from the false image of independence, the
bodhisattva does not dwell on the “duality” between himself as generous donor
and the other as unworthy beggar, and, on account of that, is “free of craving
and ignorance.” 16 Overcoming negative
consequences of any “duality” between themselves and others, donors and
recipients, bodhisattvas are empowered to give and to be generous in an
attitude and a spirit previously impossible. Therefore, the Large Sutra
claims, the bodhisattva “should give gifts after he has reflected that ‘what is
my very own that is yours.’”i7 Thinking that thought, we
are more able to give, and the mental state out of which we give becomes less
hesitant, less self-absorbed, and less condescending. But nonduality works both
ways. So the sutra instructs the bodhisattva to realize that the welfare of a
gift is for both donor and recipient to share—“do not think that this benefit
is theirs and not ours.” 18 The gift is for everyone,
because everyone is enveloped within the interdependent whole, whether they can
see that truth or not.
Exactly
how a gift benefits the donor can be considered from a number of perspectives,
but the most common treatment in the history of Buddhism employs the image of
spiritual “merit” (punya). When a donor gives or performs any kind of
moral act, that act merits a reward of a spiritual kind. The reward can be
conceived very generally as a share in the well-being of the society as a
whole, or as our slightly enhanced personal capacity to give in the future. Or
it can be conceived through imagery much like a savings account in the bank,
where positive merit-flows are stored for personal uses in the future,
including a better rebirth in the next life.
No
matter what the form of the conception, though, the bodhisattva is taught to
“dedicate” that merit to the enlightenment of all beings, to “turn it over” to
others for their spiritual use. The concept of “dedication” or “turning over” (parinamana)
is one of the cornerstones of Mahayana practice, in that bodhisattvas have
vowed to seek enlightenment not simply for themselves but on behalf of all
beings equally. This idea works forcefully against the practice of spiritual
selfishness, a form of religious self-absorption. Whatever the bodhisattva is
able to accomplish in the realm of generosity and compassion is “turned over”
to others so that pride and arrogance do not undercut the good that was
generated in giving. The bodhisattva is to give all the way and not stop short
by hoarding the good that follows from it. “Stopping short” of complete
generosity, bodhisattvas would limit the extent to which acts of generosity
could be enlightening, for themselves and for others.
One
interesting facet of the picture of the perfection of generosity developed in
early Mahayana texts is that they tend to treat “giving” primarily as
meditation, as a mental exercise more than directly as an act in the world. The
bodhisattva who “courses” in the perfection of generosity is undergoing a
process of mental training through which views and sentiments conducive to
generosity are being cultivated. Thus Santideva claims that “perfection”
resides in “the mental attitude itself.”19
Bodhisattvas
were thus envisioned as “in training,” and the discussion seems to have focused
primarily on this preparatory dimension of practice. The operative theory of
training seems to have been that habituation to certain ways of viewing life
situations establishes the basis on which spontaneous acts of generosity would
one day unfold. Self-centeredness was thought to be pervasive initially, even
within spiritual practice, and very difficult to root out. The bodhisattva
could do this, however, by daily meditation through which new ways to
conceiving of “self and others” would gradually replace earlier tendencies to
exclusive self-concern.
So,
if we ask how the Buddhist ideal of generosity is presented to practitioners in
the sutras, we find that it is not in the form of a set of rules to follow when
giving. It is not a demand placed on what one must do or how one must do it,
because it is assumed that if the ideal is exalted at all, this is precisely
what most of us cannot do. We cannot do it because the contours and shape of
our current character do not allow us to identify with and to understand such
an ideal, much less to practice it. Therefore, in place of a set of rules or
demands placed on people’s actual behavior, the ideal of generosity is given in
the form of mediations or trainings through which practitioners might gradually
transform themselves into kinds of people who would both understand why this
ideal is truly ideal, and be able to act in accordance with it. One’s
character, Buddhists claimed, is not fixed or static. It is always malleable,
always in motion, and always in a position to admire and strive for some higher
ideal than it currently follows.
One of the best ways to do this, according to early
Mahayana Buddhists, is to place the ideal—the image of perfection itself—out
before the practitioner’s mind so that it would gradually take root there.
Consequently, we find the sutras featuring meditations on how to picture
purified forms of generosity, both as conceptual training practices and as
descriptive images of ideal bodhisattvas in the act of giving. Selecting one of
these, we conclude this description of the way early Mahayana texts have imagined
“perfect” generosity with a summary of that ideal from the Vimalakirti
Sutra: “Vimalakĩrti said, ‘The giver who makes gifts to the lowliest poor
of the city, considering them as worthy of offering as the Tathagata himself,
the giver who gives without any discrimination, impartially, with no
expectation of reward, and with great love—this giver, I say, totally
fulfills’” the perfection of generosity.20
Our goal now is to assess this traditional
Buddhist account of generosity for current plausibility. If the perfection of
generosity is still an admirable ideal today, what would that look like for us
in our current circumstances? What would a contemporary practice of generosity
entail, and how might we understand the place of that practice within the
overarching framework of our lives? To take the challenge of these questions,
we will need to go beyond our sources, raising specific issues that have not been
addressed in traditional Buddhist texts. We will want to ask critical questions
and to frame these matters in somewhat different terms. But if we do this with
rigor, we will begin to discover the wealth of insight suggested by these
extraordinary Buddhist resources and begin the process of putting them to
contemporary use.
The Foundations of Generosity
One thing that Mahayana Buddhist authors realized, and that
is worth our recognizing, is that generosity is best understood as an
achievement of a whole society and not simply of individuals within that
society, even though it is most often within the lives of admirable individuals
that the culture’s achievement can be seen. Individuals are enabled to prize
generosity, to admire it, to cultivate and practice it, only to the extent that
the society’s history and language have made that possible. A profoundly
generous person does not simply emerge in a culture suddenly and without
preparatory historical development. Human beings refined to this extent are the
outcome of lengthy social development, the formation of a culture through many
generations, and are therefore treasured historical products, people of whom
the entire culture can be genuinely proud.
Mahayana
Buddhists allude to this communal realization in the image of the “Mahayana” as
the “large vehicle,” the vehicle on which all members of the society move
toward some form of enlightenment together, even when the disparity between
the most highly developed and the least capable is immense. The achievement of
individuals always requires this larger cultural framework as a foundation that
makes their particular excellence possible. Truly generous people, like
Buddhist bodhisattvas, elevate and ennoble the society through their
extraordinary acts of giving, but both they and their generous acts have been
made possible by the development of a culture of generosity. For this reason,
failure to recognize that “my” achievements are grounded in the achievements
of others in my society—and failure to acknowledge that dependence widely—is a
sign of considerable shortsightedness, an indication that the spirit of
generosity and the vision that must accompany it are still in early stages of
development.
It is
important to note, as well, that among both individuals and societies the
distinction between those who are generous and those who do not give is not at
all a distinction between rich and poor. It is entirely a matter of the
development of generosity of character, whether among the wealthy or least
privileged. Profound generosity of spirit is rare, but when we do see it, it is
at least as likely to be found among the poor as it is among those blessed with
substantial resources. Both history and common experience attest to this
egalitarian fact.
The
culmination of Buddhist practices of generosity can be seen in their ideal
form, the bodhisattva who gives unselfishly out of a deep compassion for all
living beings. Compassion is the ultimate aim of these practices. But that
culmination is the result of a long process of self-cultivation. For the most
part, compassion is something we learn to feel. It is not innate, not a
“natural” feeling. For these reasons, we cannot feel compassion simply by
deciding to feel it, or by telling ourselves that it is our responsibility to
feel it. We do, however, have the capacity to develop compassion by cultivating
our thoughts and emotions in ways that enable it. This is the function of the
“practice” of giving. Making generosity of character an explicit aim of selfcultivation,
we sculpt our thoughts, emotions, and dispositions in the direction of a
particular form of human excellence.
Most
of us, most of the time, have a weak capacity for generosity. Admiring this
element of character and deciding to emulate it does not make us able to give.
But it does initiate momentum in the direction of generosity and gets us
moving. At first, our motivations to give are not primarily compassion for
those we want to help. More frequent, and a motivation more in correspondence
with our initial state of character, is the desire to be a certain sort of
person, someone who is magnanimous and compassionate. Self-concern, in other
words, is what we practice overall, so it is not surprising that motivations
toward generosity are initially constructed out of that inclination of
character. When we give, we do so for reasons, and these tend to be reasons
related to our own selfenhancement in one form or another. We give so that we
may receive in exchange. We give in order to be accepted in a community, to be
admired, to be honored or praised. We give in order to think well of ourselves,
to actually be good and therefore deserving. Except at relatively high
levels of generosity, the motivation for giving tends to be the good that it
will return to us more than or as much as the good of the other. But this
inauthenticity at the outset need not be condemned. It need not be criticized,
because the movement from selfishness to selfless generosity is less a leap
than a gradual movement and maturation. It takes time, and everyone begins
wherever they happen to be.
The
long-term point of this first perfection, the practice of generosity, is the
cultivation of compassion and the ability to be guided by its power. Therefore,
beginning at whatever level is appropriate, the practices of generosity train
us to reach out to others and away from ourselves. We all give according to our
understanding of the separation between ourselves and others, our sense of
connection to or isolation from others. The extent to which that line of
separation is firm and definitive is the extent to which generosity may make
little sense to us. The more an understanding of community and interdependence
dissolve that line of separation, the more capable we will be of giving.
Buddhists define enlightened beings in terms of depth of self-understanding, a
state in which hard barriers of separation between ourselves and others have
been softened. As we develop deeper and more nuanced understanding of who we
are and how we fit into the larger world, generosity becomes a more natural
act, eventually one that requires little motivation beyond the fact that others
are in need or there is good to be accomplished.
This
realization directs us to the connection between the ideal of generosity and
the Buddhist concept of “no-self.” The most radical forms of generosity are
closely linked to the most radical forms of selflessness in the same way that
lack of generosity is correlated to selfishness. The practices of generosity
produce feelings of compassion precisely insofar as they are able to transform
the kinds of self-understanding and self-concern that structure our lives. The
new sense of self gradually generated is based on a recognition that my own
good as a person is closely bound up with the good of others. From this
perspective, egocentric people are always those whose lives are based on a
misconception, a mistaken or immature understanding about how the world of
human beings is structured. Living in that state of human character, we
tragically see ourselves as independent and alone in the world, and our
actions, therefore, as isolating, protecting, and securing ourselves.
The
practices of generosity—acts of giving, whether in meditation or in the social
world—function to develop a more mature and expansive sense of self, one that
naturally gives rise to a greater capacity for opening ourselves to others.
Indeed, the kind of transformation that Buddhists envision—the movement from
ignorance to enlightenment—requires an understanding of the “self” that is to
some extent malleable or flexible, capable of becoming something different from
what it used to be. Such a change in human lives happens gradually through
purposeful effort— the result of practices, meditations of various kinds—upon
which enlightened life depends.
All
practices of giving take place in view of an ideal, a mental model of admirable
beings who demonstrate what a life of generosity would be like. Buddhists call
this mental model the “thought of enlightenment” (bodhicitta\ In the
most general sense, this is an initial idea, hope, or sense that superior forms
of human life are possible and that “I” can gradually transform myself toward
these freer forms of life. As soon as this ideal is firmly in mind to the point
that it begins to influence and change what one desires, then the discipline is
already under way. To begin the process, one works toward habituating oneself
in the performance of certain actions, both mental and physical. Images of the
goal—generosity at the most mature level imaginable—serve to provide reasons to
act and motivation to undergo the discipline of practice.
In
the process of explicit practice, we construct a character capable of authentic
giving. Because we are self-consciously pursuing a more generous, magnanimous
way of living, the variety of practices that we perform—the occasions in which
we “practice” generosity—are not seen as isolated, separate acts, but rather as
acts that form a larger pattern of behavior that permeates our whole life. They
are acts of self-sculpting through which we strive to enlighten both ourselves
and others, hoping ultimately to fulfill a version of the bodhisattva’s vow to
live as though others are just as important and valuable as we are. Slowly
constructing a certain quality of selfless character through practices of
giving, we refashion our very desires, and out of transformed desires new
habits of daily life begin to emerge. To have engaged the “thought of
enlightenment” in the first place was to have taken responsibility for our
actions, for the desires and images that motivate those actions, and for the
kind of person we become as a result of them.
One significant consequence of this transformation is an
exhilarating experience of freedom. To act generously is to awaken a certain
kind of freedom, freedom from the stranglehold of self-concern, and freedom to
choose a level of responsibility beyond the minimal charge most of us have for
ourselves. To give and be generous is, momentarily, to be free of ourselves,
free of greed and attachments, resentments and hatreds, habitual and isolating
acts of self-protection. A generous person is on that occasion not a prisoner
of self-imposed boundaries and insecurities. This momentary experience is
exhilarating because it entails an expansion out beyond the compulsive
anxieties of self-protection. In this sense, the practices of generosity are
among the practices of freedom, and they carry with them all the joy and
pleasure that are associated with liberation. This is one good reason for
placing the perfection of generosity first on the Buddhist list of virtues—its
pleasures and joys are both attractive and energizing. They fill us with the
will to explore further, a sense that if one “perfection” provides this much
exhilaration, how much more might be in store.
Effective Generosity:
Skill-in-Means
If, engulfed in our own world of concerns, we do not even
notice when someone near us needs help, we will not be able to practice
generosity. Similarly, if we maintain a distant posture toward others that, in
effect, prevents them from appealing to us for help, we will rarely find
ourselves in a position to give. The first skill that is vital to an effective
practice of generosity is receptivity, a sensitive openness to others that
enables both our noting their need and our receptivity to their requests. Our
physical and psychological presence sets this stage and communicates clearly
the kind of relation to others that we maintain.
The
traditional Mahayana image of perfection in the capacity for receptivity is
the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin), whose multiple arms are always
extended in the gesture of generous outreach. The bodhisattva of compassion
welcomes and invites all pleas for help. Other familiar forms of presence,
other gestures, restrict the field of asking and giving; they are more or less
closed rather than open to others. Arms folded tightly around ourselves
communicate that we are self-contained, not open outwardly; arms raised in
gestures of anger say even more about our relations to others. The extent to
which we are sensitively open to others and the way in which we communicate
that openness determine to a great extent what level of generosity we will be
able to manifest. In sensitivity we open our minds to the very possibility that
someone may need our assistance, and welcome their gestures toward us. Skillful
generosity is attentive to these two basic conditions.
Furthermore,
if we are both open to help and notice when help is needed, but are mistaken
and ineffectual in how we go about it, then what we intend as an act of
generosity may in fact just compound the difficulties. The feeling of
generosity itself is not enough to make someone effectively generous. The
skills required in the ideal of generosity are complex and varied; they cover a
broad range of abilities from initial perception to effective follow-through,
including the skill to know when to stop giving.
These
skills are not as simple and straightforward as they may seem at first glance.
Without practical skill and wisdom, giving may be counterproductive.
Generosity can be misguided in a number of ways. For one, it can be based on a
superficial understanding of the overall situation. Wisdom is the guide in the
exercise of all virtues, but this is especially true of generosity. It is
essential to understand who might benefit from your giving and how that giving
might affect others beside the recipient. It is essential to know when to give,
how much to give, and how to do it with integrity, for the well-being of both
the recipient and others, including yourself. Wisdom is involved in knowing how
different ways of giving might be received by others, and to what effect. There
is also wisdom involved in asking how often to give and at what intervals.
Intelligent giving is learned through practice, both as a meditation when we
reflect on possible giving and as an activity in the world. But in practice it
is crucial that we learn from our mistakes, which requires that we notice them,
assess them, and consider what can be learned from them. Moreover, wisdom
includes an attentiveness that is watchful for our deepest and most ingrained
habits, most especially the intrusions of self-concern and the always-present
manipulations of self-interest.
The
“enlightened being” envisioned by Buddhists pursues complex practices of
generosity in the spirit of wisdom motivated by compassionate concern for the
well-being of others. In every setting, however, there are specific
complications and complexities that need to be interpreted skillfully. As an
example, consider one difficult bind faced by teachers. How is it possible for
a teacher to be generous to students while being truthful and just at the same
time? Honest appraisal of students’ work may disappoint, deflate, and
discourage some; such criticism can sometimes be deeply counterproductive. On
the other hand, undeserved praise, generously allotted “good grades,” and other
welcome gestures on the part of the compassionate teacher may be notoriously
bad teaching practice. Generous gestures of that kind may have the effect of
telling some students that their practices of learning are good enough as they
are, when in fact they are not. In this respect, a teacher’s generosity may
deter learning as much as provide it.
Skillful teachers are always aware of straddling this
balance; they continuously strive to readjust their practices to suit the
particular circumstances. This requires knowing something about the minds,
talents, and backgrounds of each student, knowing when to apply pressure and
just how much, knowing when to criticize and when to praise, knowing how much
advice and correction a student can effectively accommodate, and which among
the various ways of giving them will most likely improve learning. Skillfully
applied, criticism is direction and encouragement, a gift of enormous
importance. Ineffectively applied, criticism is destructive; it deflates and
discourages. When wisely presented, criticism demonstrates without doubt the
teacher’s care and concern for the students’ success; it tells them
convincingly that they can succeed and that further self-discipline is all
that is required to reach the highest level of understanding possible for them.
Skillfully communicated criticism is received as if it were more like planning
for the future, and the teacher who is both compassionate and wise knows how to
present it so that students receive it in this light. Teaching, like any other
sufficiently complex undertaking, involves facing new circumstances insightfully,
while making adjustments to deal with them effectively. Generosity in every
sphere of life is always to be balanced against other concerns and made
perfectly appropriate to the configuration of each case.
Imperfections in the Practices of
Generosity
Although one important effect of the practices of
generosity is a transformation in the giver’s self-understanding, as with
everything else, there is a danger of going too far. “Servility” is the name
for a kind of generosity that has become a vice rather than a virtue. It is
based on an unenlightened form of “selflessness.” Servile people serve others
generously, but never expect anything in return. They view themselves as
inferior and therefore undeserving of just or fair treatment from others. At
first glance, this kind of selflessness may seem to be an appropriate
description of the Buddhist goal of “no-self”—having so much concern for others
that no self-concern remains. On closer examination, however, we can see how
servility becomes destructive, not just to oneself but to others as well,
because it upends the balance of communal relations. It is very important to
sort out which forms of selflessness are admirable and which are not.
Servility,
the habit of unrelenting service, fails to take reciprocity into account as an
essential ingredient of enlightened social relations. Expecting nothing,
servile people fail to understand that every person in a community needs to be
treated with respect and equal rights—even themselves. Always to set one’s own
rights aside and thus to dismiss issues of self-respect allows others to
proceed as though equality and respect are not important. Under certain
circumstances, denying oneself may set the stage for the denial of others. Most
important, it gives the impression that injustice is acceptable. Although
admirable people will certainly on occasion ignore or suspend their own rights
out of generosity to the community as a whole, always to do so even when good
reasons to do it are lacking is clearly a weakness in generosity, indicating
perhaps a lack of courage or self-respect. Not expecting justice for oneself is
a form of not expecting justice at all, and on that account, servility
constitutes imperfect generosity and a weakness of character.
The
dangers of servility—a kind of contempt for oneself—are perhaps not as great as
contempt for those to whom we are being generous. Such contempt can take a
variety of forms or levels of severity: pity, blame, judgment, and disdain.
Skillful giving is not contemptuous; it is compassionate precisely in that it
is based on an understanding of the equality of human beings and the
contingency of the differences that separate us. The compassion behind
authentic generosity is fueled by a profound sense that, although
responsibility for the quality of one’s own life is an essential ingredient of
a mature human life, all of us need some assistance to get ourselves there.
Many of us have had that assistance in childhood and beyond, without our even
knowing or acknowledging it. Others who have not had that kind of support are
less to blame for their situation in life than, in our pride, we generally
concede. They need exactly what we got—thoughtful, nurturing care, not our
condescension or contempt. One way to begin to do that is, instead of pitying
their weakness, bolster their strength. Find ways to show them powers they
already possess.
Even
when we do not indulge in servility, it is still possible that we might give
too much, or give ineffectually, if within our daily practice we focus more on
the good of our generosity than on the well-being of the one to whom we give.
Our acts of generosity, while perhaps being good for our character, may not be
good for the other. Our giving may, for example, weaken others’ capacity to
provide for themselves. We can all recognize how the parent of a disabled child
may generously act on behalf of the child to such an extent that the child
never learns to be independent, never acquires the skills in life through
struggle and effort that we all need. Although this scenario is most visible in
the case of a disabled child, it is also a danger for all children, or anyone
in a position of substantial dependency. When we give too much we teach total
dependence and fail to communicate the interdependence that helps liberate us
all.
That
realization leads us to see that the question of how much to give should be
answered primarily in relation to its effects on the well-being of the
recipient. How will further gifts aid or obstruct his or her life, in the short
and long term? Specific prescriptions about generosity will never be
codifiable. Each situation is complex and needs to be judged on its own terms.
Seeing which factors are relevant in each specific situation takes wisdom, the
skill to understand how best to proceed under current circumstances in order to
contribute to the well-being of the other and not undermine it. Wisdom is also
needed to see when generosity requires that giving cease, so that the benefit
of the relationship not be undermined by a devastating paternalism.
The
foregoing three dangers inherent in the practices of giving— servility,
contempt, and poor judgment about the effects of giving—show us something
important: they make clear that, although vital, “selflessness” is not all
there is to the perfection of generosity. Being unselfish is certainly the most
important condition for admirable forms of generosity; we should not
underestimate its centrality. But beyond selflessness, there are other
essential conditions that are not generally recognized in traditional Buddhist
texts. Perhaps this is understandable. Self-centeredness is so pervasive and so
powerful an illusion that most energy and ethical strategy has gone into
overcoming it. But if it is not the only illusion, then the possibility remains
that, in the effort to overcome the pervasive illusions of selfishness, we fail
to recognize other imperfections that stand in the way of authentic generosity.
In
order to delve more deeply into the role of selflessness in ideal forms of
generosity, it will be helpful to reflect on a famous Buddhist story about
generosity. This story is found among the Jataka Tales, ancient Indian
folk tales about the former lives of the Buddha. In the final chapter of this
composite text, the Vessantara Jataka, which recounts the Buddha’s last
life before attaining enlightenment, the Buddha is a certain Prince Vessan-
tara, heir of the Sanjaya kingdom, who lives in the palace with his wife Maddi
and their two children. The prince, the future Buddha, is of course the paragon
of virtue; his generosity and compassion for the people of the kingdom are
renowned. The prince’s beneficence is epitomized in his generous use of a
magical elephant on behalf of the people, an act that virtually guarantees the
well-being of the realm by ensuring that rainfall in the kingdom is perfect for
agriculture. But the prince is so generous that when an emissary from another
land asks to be given the magic elephant, the prince does so in a spontaneous
gesture of selfless giving.
Things
begin to go badly. The people in the prince’s kingdom, frightened by the
prospects of their lives and furious at this act of outrageous generosity,
force the king to banish Prince Vessantara. In one last gesture of generosity,
the banished prince gives away all his possessions and leaves penniless with
his family. On the journey, when asked by a despicable old couple who desire
servants for themselves, the prince gives them his children to serve in this
capacity. Fearing that Vessantara might give away even his wife and be utterly
alone, the gods descend disguised as a brahmin and ask for his wife. When the
prince concedes, the gods immediately give her back. According to the rules of
gift-giving at that time, now that she is his as a gift, he is no longer
entitled to give her away. Meanwhile, the king, remorseful for having banished
his beloved son, gets Vessantara’s children back and invites the prince and
princess to return. All of the royal family comes together in blissful reunion,
and Vessantara eventually becomes the king who rules most compassionately.
This
is an ancient story—even pre-Buddhist in origins—and in it we cannot help but
notice many things, including that the position of “wife” and “children” are
regarded as property in the social customs of ancient Indian patriarchy.
Although these customs dissolved in the Buddhist era in India, the story
remained intact, becoming the best known of the Jaitaka Tales and
serving as the ultimate standard for the development of the virtue of
generosity, even if no longer interpreted literally.21
This story, among others, led early Mahayana
Buddhists in their choice of generosity as one of the cardinal virtues of the
bodhisattva. It was clear to them that the practice and development of this
virtue was the first step toward enlightenment.
But
ancient patriarchal customs should not be the only difficulty we notice in the
story. If we look more closely, we realize that, although all of the acts of
generosity in the story are profoundly selfless, not all of them are admirable,
nor constructive for the good of everyone affected by them. In fact, some of
them evoke our criticism because they appear to cause serious injustice. Why,
for example, did the prince give his children to the greedy couple who wanted
servants? Because they asked, we are told, and being unselfish and profoundly
generous, the prince holds nothing back. But what if this gift is bad for the
kids, bad for the parents, even bad in cultivating the greed of the selfish
couple? What if this act of unselfish generosity is bad for the society as a
whole? Then we would conclude that, in this case, the perfection of generosity
requires not-giving, and that the greatest gift that can be given is wise
judgment and forbearance. Even better than open, selfless giving is
discriminating giving empowered by compassion—generosity that asks critical
questions about the overall long- and short-run wisdom of the proposed gift.
Selflessness directed by wisdom is greater than selflessness alone.
As we
saw in the early Mahayana sutras, virtuous giving was required to be
“impartial” and “nondiscriminating.” We can now see, however, that this
criterion needs a more comprehensive definition. Had the prince been more
discriminating and less impartial, thinking about the welfare of everyone
affected by his gift before acting, his generosity would have been considerably
more effective in advancing the well-being of all the people under his care.
His generosity would, in other words, have been more beneficial and more
enlightening.
What
the sutras ought to mean by these two important criteria—impartiality and
nondiscrimination—is that in giving we should not discriminate between
recipients on the grounds of who among them will most likely benefit us in
return. We should be impartial and nondiscriminating about everything that
might otherwise serve our own egos and desires, but not about the need and the
situation of the prospective recipients, nor about our capacity to be generous
and helpful in the future. We notice, therefore, that authors of the sutras
have been especially concerned to work against everpresent self-interest in
the practices of generosity, for very good reasons. But in doing so, they have
neglected to consider the kinds of discrimination and judgment that will be
required for the gift to be truly beneficial to the recipient and others involved.
The
other criterion of perfect giving that we saw featured frequently in the sutras
was that the giver must not dwell on the “fruits” of the act of giving. But
once again, because the authors’ concern was so heavily focused on the
intrusions of the self in giving, they have not seen how concern for the
consequences of our actions is often crucial in determining whether giving is
the right thing to do. Had the prince in the story thought about the long-term
effects of these gifts, he would have abstained from giving some of them. So
although it is indeed important not to dwell on the “fruits” of our actions,
this concern is limited to the “fruits” for us, and cannot mean that we
do not attend to the probable repercussions of our actions overall. If we want
our gifts to bear fruit for those to whom we have given and to be fruitful for
the society overall, then caring about possible outcomes will be a significant
dimension in our choice of actions.
In
the Vessantara Jataka, therefore, the moral dimension of the concept of
generosity is limited to the virtue of selflessness. It suggests that less self
is all there is to the practice of generosity as an ideal. In truth, however,
the ethical dimension of the practice of generosity is more comprehensive than
that—concern for the unselfishness of the giver’s self is one dimension of the
practice, and concern for the other’s well-being is another. They fit together
in a well-balanced ethic, but one is not the same as the other. No doubt many
Buddhists have, in fact, taken this into account in their ethical activities,
even when their conceptual articulation of the matter did not. As Buddhist
metaphysics developed in time, especially in the Mahayana tradition, awareness
of the interdependence of all components of reality provided a conceptual image
of self and other in correlation that grounds a more balanced and comprehensive
account of moral relations.
We have
just considered how generosity may be misguided when focus on one’s own
unselfishness results in insufficient concern for the effectiveness of the
gift on the well-being of the other. Is it possible that there are dangers on
the other side, when too much concern for the other leads to insufficient
self-concern? Yes, and we have already considered one situation in which such
problems arise—the condition of servility in which lack of self-respect gives
rise to indiscriminate giving. But there is another interesting issue to ponder
here. What if, without being servile at all, generous people give so selflessly
and so compassionately that they seriously harm themselves? Are there limits to
unselfishness when others really do need our help? An example will help us get
this difficult question in view, this one another story from the Jal taka
Tales that goes to an ethical extreme in attempting to make its point.
Many
versions of The Hungry Tigress tale have circulated throughout Asian
Buddhism, but here is a summarized version sufficient for the purposes of our
question: When, in a former life, the Buddha, then a Brahmin of great religious
distinction, wandered into the forest to engage in spiritual practice, he
encountered a tigress with a litter of cubs, all on the verge of starvation.
Deeply affected by the suffering of this family and supremely compassionate,
the future Buddha freely gave his own body to feed the tigress and cubs.
Unwilling to preserve his own life at the expense of others, the Buddha
sacrificed himself so that they might live.
This
story has been told countless times throughout Asia to illustrate the truth
that generosity is grounded in the achievement of “no-self,” although it is
usually told with the added proviso that it is not necessary for others to go
to the extremes of self-sacrifice exemplified by the Buddha. But why not? Once
you have seen that generosity is authentic to the extent that it is unselfish,
what would justify stopping short of full giving to preserve yourself when
others are in dire need? Avoiding the force of this question on the grounds
that the story’s sacrifice was limited to the act of saving tigers rather than
human beings is too easy an escape from its central issue. This is a folk tale,
potent in its point if we are willing to improvise. At least some people
somewhere will starve today, while you and I have food in the kitchen and money
in the bank. Although we do give to charitable organizations that seek to
address this global problem, why shouldn’t we give everything, offering to
sacrifice our lives so that others might live? I imagine that all of us have
found ourselves asking this moral question at some point in our lives. But I
suspect that, like me, you avoid it whenever possible in order not to risk the
conclusion that you cannot in fact justify your continued existence, or your
bank account.
We
are all aware of stories in which sacrificing oneself on behalf of others is
clearly, at least in retrospect, the right or most admirable thing to do.
Mahatma Gandhi nearly died in fasts of protest on behalf of the liberation of
the people of India and in opposition to violence, and in the end he did die in
the service of others. The soldier who leaps upon the live hand grenade in
order to save the lives of his fellow soldiers is a hero of mythic proportions,
as admirable in the human excellence of selfless generosity as we can imagine.
But both of these examples feature specific and highly unusual situations in
which self-sacrifice emerges as a moral possibility where greater good might
come from someone’s dying than from their living.
Few
exemplars of generosity follow this pattern, however. Historical accounts tell
us that the actual historical Buddha lived a very long life, and that whatever
starvation he encountered among humans or animals while wandering around
northern India did not prevent him from eating in order to sustain himself.
Clearly, his self-conception focused on the task of human enlightenment, which
could not be advanced without his own health and well-being. His primary gift
to us was not food but rather the possibility of awakening to a level of
profundity in our lives that would not have been possible without his life’s
work. Mother Teresa, the modern paragon of generosity, also lived a long life,
and we are thankful that she did. Had she sacrificed herself early in life in
order to save a starving family, tens of thousands of others would not have
been fed through her lifelong efforts to overcome hunger and starvation in
India and elsewhere.
In
both of these cases, the generous concern that the Buddha and Mother Teresa had
for others was made possible by an appropriate amount of self-concern. How can
we know how much that is? In these two cases, the self-concern at stake is far
more than the food that sustained them physically. It included, in both cases,
an enormous amount of time spent in meditative self-cultivation and other forms
of spiritual practice. The ability to give, as we have seen, does not come from
nowhere; it arises dependent upon the achievement of excellence in
character—the perfections. In his public talks, the Buddhist master Thich Nhat
Hanh is very clear about the life he lives. Although he offers himself to us
for instruction, he says quite plainly that the only reason he is able to do
that is that he knows when to retreat into meditation in order to maintain
himself in a position where he will have something worthwhile to give. Without
wise self-concern, our powers of concern for others are diminished. Without
that kind of wisdom, giving is embedded in irony; it becomes part of a pattern
of life that destroys one’s future capacity for generosity.
Moreover,
the magnanimous giver must always know when to stop, when to pull back in the
present for the sake of the future. Having exhausted your resources, you will
be in no position to be generous another day, when what is perhaps a more
important occasion arises. To be truly effective in giving, you must realize
your own limitations and the limitations of your resources. This is true
whether the resources are your money or your time and energy. Going too far,
you diminish the extent of giving that will be possible for you in the future,
when needs may be great. Timing is crucial, knowing when to advance and when to
rest in order to prepare yourself for a long succession of challenges. A subtle
balance between helping others and maintaining or cultivating your capacity to
help is a high-level skill of great significance. Other forms of balance are
also important. The moral dimension of our responsibility for others, while
basic, is just one dimension of our lives. We are fortunate to have many other
reasons to live and many forms of engagement. Similarly, generosity is only one
of the perfections. Admirable people often understand the art of balance with
uncanny perceptiveness.
The
question—how much should I give, or at what point in the diminishment of my own
resources should I stop giving?—is a theoretical question for most of us that
has little bearing on our life practice. This is so because we have not yet
engaged in the practices of generosity to an extent that selfless
over-generosity might endanger us. But two things have become clear—that
generosity is an excellence of character that all of us would benefit from
cultivating, and that thoughtfulness as well as selflessness are essential to
that excellence.
These
subtleties in the practice of generosity are not the most obvious dimensions in
the practice of giving. But they can be learned from a variety of sources. More
often than not, we come to understand them through our admiration of others,
from role models who set the standard for generosity of character. Precisely at
the point where we are able to notice strength of character in someone else and
see the corresponding weakness in our own character, we are in a position to
learn. This kind of learning is most direct and effective when guided by
teachers in our own social world, but there are certainly other ways to get it.
In traditional Buddhist societies, this most often took the form of stories
circulating through Buddhist storytellers. But it can also be readily found in
books, narratives about lives lived by people, whether fictional or historical,
who represent the ideal or the anti-ideal of generosity.
Mahatma
Gandhi and Mother Teresa are noteworthy twentieth-century exemplars of
generosity, but we have many more, some created in novels and others told in
historical narratives. From these we get a concrete glimpse of the ideal, and
through creative analysis we can begin to determine what would be entailed in
seeking greater generosity in our own lives. We study the great musicians in
learning music, the great athletes in our own athletic pursuits, and there is
every reason to do the same in our own quest to construct a character that best
suits our ideals and our situation in life. Although we can see that the great
saints are spontaneously moved to generosity simply by seeing the suffering of
the world, we realize that they were not born with that compassion, and set out
to establish a discipline that might move us toward a similarly enlightened
capacity for giving.
Perhaps even more important than teachers are friends.
Those seeking enlightenment do not undertake the practices of generosity alone.
They always seek and make good friends to accompany them on the way. The
ethical importance of friendship is well known to the Mahayana sutra writers,
and they develop this theme skillfully. The bond of friendship is a bond among
equals, where, at least in principle, all share and share alike. They construct
a network of support and encouragement in traversing the difficulties of an
arduous discipline, the discipline of questioning one’s own standpoint in the
pursuit of various forms of excellence. As Aristotle knew, too, friendship
entails a shared recognition of and pursuit of an “idea of the good,” a
“thought of enlightenment,” however skillfully the friends in any particular
case are able to conceptualize that. They travel a path together and seek the
well-being and success of the others along with their own. To make generosity
in life a goal, part of a larger goal of enlightened character, is to set out
on a path that has numerous destinations but no final end. On such a path,
companionship and fellow travelers are absolutely essential.
The Gift: What Can Be Given?
No definitive rule or code for giving can be provided.
Generosity is a creative act of freedom that is bound only by the ideals of
wisdom and compassion and the cultural shape of the world it seeks to benefit.
Therefore, the “what” of giving is always open in every situation. Stretching
our minds to see the good that generosity might accomplish in any particular
setting requires insightful freedom, or creativity. Only in this open light can
we adequately ask: What can be given?
Money
is the easiest and most effective commodity for giving, because recipients can
cash it to pay for whatever is truly needed, relieving the donor of the
responsibility to understand fully the complex and always changing needs that
the gift hopes to address. Money is not just another thing; it is our symbol of
things, and in that capacity has extraordinary contemporary prominence. Money
symbolizes the power of abundance and the security of our relations to the
larger world. To give it requires a clear sacrifice on our part. Giving money
so that others might procure what they need, we sacrifice some of our capacity
to have what we want. In holding our money, we possess power; in giving our
money, we exercise that power.
But
giving is not simply a practice for the wealthy; it is a practice in which
anyone can engage. Giving is closely linked to our freedom and is a fundamental
dimension of being human, a possibility we all share. We can only give to the
extent that we are truly free, that is, not possessed by our possessions, or
our money, or ourselves.
So
what can be given by those who do not possess an abundance of material
resources? Clearly, we can give of ourselves—our labor, our time, our concern.
In fact, in our own economic world, when we give money, it is often labor,
time, and concern that it buys, and it is in our power to give these directly
by offering what we can of our own involvement. The gift of volunteer labor is
an act of extraordinary generosity, and when we witness someone able to give
this gift freely, we cannot help but admire it. When we give of ourselves in
this way, we set self-concern aside in order to identify with some concern
beyond the ordinary boundaries of our own lives. The corresponding feeling
associated with this act of generosity is exhilaration, a sense, however large
or small, of expansion out beyond ourselves. In giving we experience directly
the feeling of unselfishness implied in the Buddhist idea of “no-self” in which
the borders that conventionally define us are erased.
Some
gifts are so light and insubstantial that they can be given to others on a
daily basis. One such gift is simple recognition, an affirmation in speech,
gesture, or action that someone else exists, and that they matter. Often we
fail to grant this simple gift of recognition, and the more often we fail in
that the more alienating our social world becomes. We all know, for example,
what it feels like to be in a room where those who have not been introduced to
each other avoid eye contact, awkwardly trying to carry on as though the others
are not there. Worse, we have all experienced powerfully self-possessed people
who take over a room of people without ever acknowledging the presence of
someone in the room. When recognition is withheld from anyone by anyone, the
bond of care and generosity that holds a community or a family together is
undermined in some small way. That is why this gift is so significant—when we
give the simple affirmation of others present, we act to create a certain kind
of community, and in so doing we make it more possible for others to do the
same.
There
are times, moreover, when this gift of recognition is crucial. These are
occasions of suffering when someone is overwhelmed by the pain of their own
existence. Sometimes this pain has an overt cause—the death of a family member,
a personal failure or disappointment, for example—and at other times the cause
is latent or hidden, the raw pain of anxiety. In either case, the ability to
register the other’s pain and to communicate a sense of understanding and care,
whether through providing personal contact or appropriate distance, is an
important skill in the perfection of generosity. Those who are able to do this
with sensitivity possess an excellence that we can emulate with transformative
effect.
There
are times when all we experience is someone’s distance, their utter alienation,
without seeing the suffering at its roots. In these cases, we often mistake the
symptoms. We interpret someone’s distance—their rude behavior, their inability
to communicate or to participate—as disdain or lack of care, and in response
we shun or secretly condemn them. Frequently, however, these and other forms of
alienation are masked signs of suffering, hidden pain with an enormous range of
causes, conditions, and manifestations. The ability not to react to another’s
distance with a natural corresponding distance is a mark of extraordinary
perception and will; it shows someone’s freedom not to have one’s own response
predetermined, the freedom not to be forced to reciprocate with a similarly
alienated reply. Few people possess the personal power to give such a gift, but
when this rare act does occur, its effects are extraordinary in reversing the
tide of alienation or suffering.
In
all of these situations, the skill of generosity is the ability to communicate
courage, the power to stand up to and to address whatever is painful in life.
Courage, in the form of encouragement, is a gift always potentially in our
possession but actualizable only if we have cultivated it, only if we have
developed our powers of compassionate, sensitive giving in other circumstances.
The perfection of generosity consists primarily, therefore, in a system of
practices aimed at the development of these capacities and these skills.
Personal
acts of giving to those who suffer, whether in the form of money or assistance
or sympathetic concern, are always limited in their capacity to solve the
overall problem of suffering, which is monumental in proportions. Helping one
hungry or under-privileged child is a wonderful achievement, but it still
leaves the overall problem of suffering largely as it was—everywhere to be
found. For every child in pain, we can hear thousands of others crying out for
similar attention. Therefore, authentic generosity requires more than our
individual acts on behalf of those in pain. It requires, very clearly, that we
give attention to the political world in which such suffering continues to
grow.
Although
we must feed the poor, doing so may do nothing to alter the injustices and
systems of power that have given rise to the problems of unemployment,
deprivation, and hunger in the first place. Therefore, in addition to our
practices of aiding those who need our help, authentic generosity requires the
practice of politics. Indeed, there are times and situations in which political
acts are more efficacious in bringing an end to suffering than acts of
charitable giving. Communities can practice generosity just as individuals can,
and the effort to persuade one’s society to engage in appropriate forms of
giving is a gift of great consequence. This is a dimension of the perfection of
giving that we are in a position to cultivate even if traditional Buddhists
were not.
This
is not to say, of course, that collective generosity—giving on the part of
communities or governments—is always the most effective political course.
There are lessons to be learned from those who instruct about the dangers of
institutionalized giving, the possibility that our acts of generosity and care
might undermine self-respect and individual capacities. But those dangers are
present, as we have seen, in any act of giving. Thoughtfulness, an
attentiveness to how to give, when to give, how much to give, and how all these
will affect the recipient and the society are always important. So that caution
about collective attention to the welfare of others should not be used as an
excuse selfishly or self-righteously to terminate collective care for those
among us who are in need. The perfection of generosity and the health of any
society require that we selflessly seek an end to pointless suffering, to
undeserved suffering, and to suffering that does nothing but destroy human
beings. And in many circumstances, it will be communities that have the power
to do this rather than individuals within those communities.
There
are some in any society who will need assistance, but they do not necessarily
need your assistance, or mine, except insofar as we do our share to support
public service institutions. Volunteer giving is to be greatly admired and very
important, but communities should not rely too heavily on it because that
allows others, those who are not generous, to ignore their responsibility and
the plight of the less fortunate. Everyone in a society should be expected to
acknowledge their own dependence on the society as a whole, especially those
who benefit most from current arrangements of power and distribution. Everyone
benefits when extreme poverty is eliminated in a community, when those who are
living in pain and hopeless conditions are offered some degree of communal
care. Everyone should be expected to participate in this effort, therefore,
even those who, due to lack of understanding, are unable to acknowledge the
responsibility of all citizens to do their share for the common good. Much of
the pointless suffering in the world can be alleviated through intelligent
political action, and any contemporary account of the perfection of generosity
will need to acknowledge this.
To
alleviate suffering among one’s own family and friends while leaving untouched
the larger world of suffering is to have fallen short in one’s quest for
authentic generosity. The “perfection of generosity” demands that we give our
attention and our labor toward the creation of a human world in which
compassion and kindness are the human norm, a world in which the diminishment
of suffering and the extension of opportunities to everyone are among our
foremost goals. Practices of generosity, therefore, include efforts to enhance
human equality, efforts toward guaranteeing through social and political action
that all children begin their lives with an equal chance for happiness and
well-being and end it with some share of peace and dignity. Those who give of
themselves through personal and political means toward these ends are in this
respect admirable exemplars of the perfection of generosity. Although
traditional Buddhists were content to recommend that we avoid doing injustice
ourselves, a contemporary perfection of generosity would need to go beyond
this. It would suggest that we give our time and energy in a thoughtful effort
to minimize the society’s collective injustice in as many forms as it can be
found.
To
understand in more concrete terms the significance of this dimension, imagine
three different compassionate benefactors, three profoundly admirable people,
each with distinct characteristics. The first is deeply compassionate, generous
always in giving to those who need help. An uncommon degree of unselfishness
gives this person saintly, distinguishing characteristics. But this person,
like Prince Vessantara, is sometimes effective in giving and sometimes not,
even though always unselfish. This person has not cultivated the ability to
articulate thoughtful ends—both short- and long-term—to pursue in the spirit of
selflessness, nor effective means. There are stories about saints of this sort
in all of the world’s religions. They are extraordinary in their compassion and
selflessness but lack some degree of worldly skill.
Second,
imagine someone of equal compassion, someone just as generous. This person,
however, has the skill to give not just selflessly but to give effectively as
well. Like Mother Teresa, this person sees that only well-honed institutions of
generosity can dent the magnitude of the problem of hunger and poverty and sets
out diligently to construct such an organization. This second donor’s
generosity yields liberating results that extend far out into the world.
Finally,
picture a third benefactor, one with both deep feelings of compassion and the
wisdom to give effectively. In addition, however, this person asks what gives
rise to poverty and desperate human conditions in the first place. While
continuing to treat the symptoms of the problem—feeding the starving, for
example—such a person also seeks to understand and treat the cause of scarcity.
Recognizing that certain governments and certain socioeconomic conditions will
produce starving people as fast or faster than any one person can remedy, this
benefactor pursues political change. With both long- and short-term political
goals in mind, such a person wants to provide society with the ideal and a
concrete plan for a morally coherent community that truly leaves no one behind.
The
point of describing these three is not to suggest that selflessness is not
important. Truly, nothing is more important, and practices aimed at cultivating
selfless openness to others are fundamental to any authentic ethics.
Nevertheless, descriptions of these three help us see that, although essential,
selflessness is not enough, and that if we are honestly attempting to
conceptualize ideal forms of generosity, we will need to recognize that there
are dimensions of this virtue beyond selflessness that are also important
ingredients of the ideal. Insightful understanding of the social circumstances
in which we live and the courage to act on behalf of a more elevated vision of
human culture are among these additional conditions for the perfection of generosity.
What
other gifts might be included in our understanding of generosity? Some of the
foregoing claims will at some point strike us as stern and joyless, and it
would be a mistake not to include the gift of lightness and laughter that some
among us are so gifted at giving. These people teach us irony; they make us
laugh at ourselves and release our strained seriousness for just a moment. The
freedom provided by humor is among our most cherished experiences, and some
have cultivated their capacity to give it with magnificent skill. The momentary
release of self-seriousness that suddenly emerges in laughter borders on the
ecstatic and provides us with some of our most exhilarating moments. The
generous freedom of laugher, and those skilled at providing it when we most
need it, are known and appreciated by all of us.
Another
of the most difficult gifts to give is admiration, a gift grounded in the
freedom of selfless humility. When we become aware of someone who has the
powers of generosity, or wisdom, or any truly excellent trait that we may lack,
it is difficult not to respond in envy or jealousy—that is what we would like
to be. What we ought to give in response to such people is admiration, the most
honest, forthright, and nonalienating reaction to excellence. Only in our rare
and best moments do we break free of ourselves enough to admire and to open our
minds in praise of something truly excellent. This gift of admiration is
important for three reasons. First, strong and admirable people occasionally
need our acknowledgment and recognition, too. Giving it, we empower them to
extend their skill further, to everyone’s benefit. Second, acts of admiration
force us honestly to assess our own capacities and to ask ourselves where and
how we have failed to live up to our own ideals. Third, an act of open
admiration affects everyone who witnesses it. In an honest and effective
gesture of admiration, we place what we value out in the open for others to
see; we make a public statement about what we find to be truly excellent and
admirable. In doing so, we place our “thought of enlightenment” out into view
for critical scrutiny by others, making it available to them in refining their
own sense of human excellence.
Apologies
are also gifts of great significance, but in this case, gifts demanded by a
sense of reciprocity. When we have been unjust, only very specific words of
apology will overcome the rift that separates us from someone who we have
harmed. An authentic apology is not a way to release ourselves from what we
owe, or from guilt. On the contrary, sincere apologies are accompanied by a
pledge to rebuild justice in the relationship; they must show a commitment on
our part to do whatever is needed over time, so that in the long run the wrong
we have done costs us and not the person we have wronged. When we give a true
apology, we give justice by backing our words with actions aimed at correcting
the imbalance we have caused. A true apology is not a way to get out of what we
owe; on the contrary, an apology is a pledge to set things straight again. When
we give it, we give much more than words; we give our word and back it with
justice.
Sincere
apologies given set the stage for possible gifts of forgiveness. The word
“give” within the larger compound word “forgiveness” shows us that forgiveness
is also something that we are capable of giving. But forgiveness is a very
specific kind of gift, based on rather precise conditions. Forgiveness is
possible only when a wrongdoing has been admitted, and when the one who has
done it admits what true reciprocity would require. Forgiveness can only be
given by the one against whom the wrong was committed, not by anyone else, even
a judge. In that, forgiveness differs from what a judge or jury can
give—leniency or clemency.
Moreover,
forgiveness does not erase the wrong; it does not change the fact that an
injustice has been done. Forgiveness is neither denying nor forgetting. The
injustice done remains, as does the memory of the wrong. What is given in
forgiveness is an end to the grudge we “hold,” an end to antipathy, especially
hatred. It entails a decision to let go of one’s own resentment. Only the
offended party holds this resentment in full proportion, and therefore only
that party can surrender it in a gesture of forgiveness. In that respect, like
generosity more broadly, forgiveness shows us our own human freedom. To give
someone forgiveness is to express our freedom in a remarkable way. It
demonstrates to ourselves and to others that we are not bound to resentment or
possessed by hatred. It also shows others around us that they too need not be
bound in this way, and that the community as a whole is free either to hold or
to let go of what might otherwise compel our resentment or force our
retaliation.
When freely and skillfully given, forgiveness
demonstrates the perfection of generosity.
Compassion and the Depth of
Generosity
To understand the relationship between generosity and
compassion, it is helpful to examine their place in Mahayana Buddhist thought.
Generosity is the first of six perfections, six dimensions of character that
are amenable to development and that must be cultivated in order to begin to
awaken from a life of self-centered delusion. Compassion is not one of the six
because it stands at the end of the path as a fundamental dimension of the
goal. In Mahayana Buddhism, the two most essential characteristics of enlightened
character are wisdom and compassion, each partially defined in terms of the
other and each requiring the other for full actualization. Generosity,
therefore, is preparatory for wisdom and compassion, even though it, too, is a
component of enlightened character.
The
primary reason for generosity’s subordination to compassion in the Buddhist
hierarchy of values is that when compassion is fully present, a separate
concern for generosity is unnecessary. We require the effort of generosity only
when we lack the compassion to live the bodhisattva’s vow—to live on behalf of
others as much as we do on behalf of ourselves. When compassion is complete, we
do not hesitate to give; it comes forth quite naturally. Only when our feelings
toward others assume a substantial separation do we need the guidance of
generosity. When we simply do not feel compassion for others, the teachings and
practices of generosity are available to help inaugurate those feelings.
Bodhisattvas work on behalf of the enlightenment of the world out of compassion
when it is deeply felt, and out of generosity when that feeling is still in
rudimentary stages. The role of generosity, therefore, as the first of the
perfections, is to inaugurate the movement toward compassion, to begin to plant
and cultivate its seeds in our minds and character.
Generous,
compassionate treatment of others is an exalted injunction found in segments of
all major religions, even if, for the vast majority of practitioners, it is far
out of reach. We find it, for example, in the Christian Gospel of Matthew
(7:12): “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you.” In its more
compassionate form, we find: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39;
Leviticus 19). Nowhere in those scriptures, however, does it tell us how to do
that—how can you love your neighbor as yourself when in truth you just do not?
From the Buddhist perspective sketched out here, actually to experience that
level of love in your daily life would require a major transformation in the
understanding that you have of yourself and others. The implication of the
Buddhist position is that unless there is a profound congruence between the
demands of the injunction to love others as yourself and the deepest
understanding that you have of yourself, then the standpoint required for
carrying out that demand is unavailable. We do not, in our current state, love
others as we love ourselves, given how we understand ourselves and others. That
level of love would only be possible through a radical transformation of
self-understanding, and that transformation is the ideal aim of Buddhist
practice.
In
Buddhism, the primary category of practice responsible for this transformation
is, of course, meditation. In meditative exercises, the basis for compassion
can gradually be constructed. Compassion originates in acts of imagination. In
order to feel for or along with someone else, you must be able to imagine their
suffering, both as it actually is in their lives and as it would be in yours if
it were you in that condition. Empathy and compassion are correlative. You
cannot have one without the other. Meditation expands the powers of imagination
and empathy, and in so doing, it expands our capacity for giving and for
compassion.
Meditations
meant to develop compassion ask the practitioner to work through a situation of
suffering in detail. Beyond the fact that someone is homeless and without work
or resources to take care of himself, the meditator looks into the specific
experiences and repercussions of the situation. What is it like to live
without a home, sleeping out on the street; what are the dangers that someone
in that situation must face—the threat of violence, the physical pain and
discomfort, the humiliation, the decline of mental and physical capacities?
What does it mean to be without possibilities, without hope, and how will these
mental conditions lead to further suffering? Meditators give contemplative
thought to what might be done to alleviate this condition and ask themselves
how assistance could be generated. They imagine a variety of conditions in
which a solution might be constructed and picture themselves setting these in
motion. Throughout, meditators work through the emotional reactions that might
be occurring in the homeless person, the dangers that whatever process they
might undertake may seem degrading and demeaning. Finally, they imagine
themselves in exactly the same condition and situation, considering how they
might respond to the efforts of others to help. Meditation begins to make
generosity possible through the imaginative extension of oneself into the
position of the other.
This
is just one form that meditation can take in the development of compassionate
generosity. Many others are also effective. At the other end of the spectrum
from meditating on the suffering of others are meditations focused on their
joy, well-being, and good fortune. Early Buddhists prized feelings of
“sympathetic joy” (mudita) that could be cultivated in meditation by
practicing responses to the happiness and success of others. They sought the
mental capacity to share in the joy of others, and in so doing, to extend and
to radiate that feeling of well-being so that it could be felt by everyone. The
capacity of character to share the joy experienced by others is grounded in
specific mental and social conditions, and Buddhist meditation is structured to
cultivate those conditions. The same is true of compassion and the response of
generosity to the deeply felt needs of others. It “arises dependent” upon
particular conditions, and in spiritual practice anyone can cultivate those
conditions. Without the development of the conditions on which it is based,
compassion is not possible.
“Emptiness,”
understood as the interdependence of all things, functions in meditation to
provide the requisite conditions for compassionate generosity. Meditating on interdependence,
we develop the realization that we share a collective destiny with others,
especially those in our immediate community but ultimately all living beings.
The more we contemplate it, the more we realize in a functional sense that we
are in solidarity with others. Understanding all of the ways in which we share
the same global reality provides grounds for sharing; understanding tends to
make generosity possible. Contemplating this, I understand ever more profoundly
that what is good for me cannot be antagonistic to the good of others. What is
best for me must be something that is good for others as well, because the
goodness that is at stake here is neither mine nor theirs—it is ours, a shared
possibility for enhanced life. Realizing this, the grounds have been laid to
share the gifts that we have received. Understanding our interdependence with
others and the debt we inevitably owe to others, we are empowered to respond
generously to others and to make better lives possible for them whenever we
can. The extent of our generosity is always in congruence with the
understanding we have of ourselves. When this understanding is weak and
self-centered, so is our capacity to give. When this understanding is broad and
profound, so are our acts of generosity on behalf of others and human community
as a whole.
Finally,
it is helpful to reflect on the connection between generosity, the ability to
give gifts, and gratitude, the ability to give thanks. Gift-giving and
thanks-giving are tightly linked together, and that is the way we find them in
the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. There even the mythological Buddhas
offer thanks for what came before them and what made their liberation possible,
the perfection of wisdom in which they trained and through which they came to
enlightenment.22
There and elsewhere we see that one’s
inability to give and to be generous is linked to an inability to thank and to
be grateful. If you cannot see your own dependence and do not acknowledge the
gifts that have sustained you, you will be less able to tolerate the dependence
of others, and therefore less able to help them get what they need. People
trapped within themselves enjoy receiving, certainly, but it is their enjoyment
alone. None of the joy is returned or disseminated in the form of gratitude,
and thus the circle of communal connection is broken.
Of
all the religious realizations possible, none may be as transformative as the
ability to see that your own life has come to you as a gift. Contemplating this
insight gives rise to a profound gratitude, a deep appreciation for the very
fact of life, no matter to whom or what the thankfulness is conceived to be
due. It is clearly one of the strengths of theism, the religious acknowledgment
of a creator god, that at some point this mode of understanding gives rise to
the feeling of gratitude and the sense of one’s life as a gift.
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