You walk through the gate and approach the main hall of a temple or shrine. Standing between you and the Buddha or Kami you see the toothy maw of the donation box grinning up at you like the Cheshire Cat. Sometimes you'll see 1,000 yen (about 8USD) notes, or even more, caught like the scraps of a meal in between its teeth. Nowadays, you may even see stickers with QR codes for making digital donations plastered next to the box. Inevitably, like so many other Japanese and international visitors, you may find yourself asking, "How much should I give?"
Despite strict prohibitions against monks handling money in early Buddhism, in much of Asia it has become as much a money-bound religion as anywhere else. This is especially so in Japanese traditions and their descendants in the West, where ordained people are not normally expected to abide by monastic precepts like the one against touching cash. Even in countries where monastic precepts are more rigorously adhered to, like Taiwan, monks have adapted to the ubiquity of money in society by being flexible about accepting cash donations. Even in places where more legalistic adherence to monastic precepts prevails, like Southeast Asia, lay go-betweens accept and manage cash on behalf of temples and the monastics who practice in them. Some monastics even get around the rule by using credit cards and cashless payment methods so as to "not handle" cash. Across the world, donation boxes or advertisements for teachings bear the Sanskrit term Dāna or its Sino-Japanese equivalent, fuse (布施), as a simple stand-in for "fee" or "requested monetary donation."
But while dāna can contextually mean offering money, it simply means "giving," or, even more broadly, "generosity." This is the context in which it is used as the first of the Six Perfections, dāna pāramitā. Dāna Generosity is not any specific act or amount, it is an orientation that leads to the giving of one's time, energy, or, when necessary, money, to benefit someone or something in need. This is why Buddhist scriptures refer to "Acts of Dāna that can be done for free," which I will write about in another article. Perfected generosity is a quality of the Buddhas; practicing generosity in this broad sense is manifesting your own inherent Buddha nature.
Our social situation, so dominated by capitalism, consumerism, and transactionalism, constantly nudges us toward thinking in terms of "How much?" or "What is this worth?" Japanese Buddhism, I'm sorry to say, encourages this by normalizing the setting of prices for services and teachings. Though this is downright predatory in some instances, many sincere priests, when questioned about it, will say "People agonize about how much to give if there's not a price set." Both Japanese and Western dharma centers also justify price-setting by protesting that people in our money-saturated societies don't take things seriously unless they see a price tag.
Both of these, I think, miss an opportunity that allows people to practice true generosity because they bypass the process of reflection that makes giving a transformative act. So rather than ask, "How much?" I encourage readers to reflect on how they feel when confronted with opportunities to be generous, and how they feel in the wake of their response.
Generosity, in my experience, is a gentle fight against self-preservation. It's similar to exercise: if we push ourselves too hard we will burn ourselves out and make ourselves incapable of practicing anymore. If we don't push our boundaries at all, though, we don't give ourselves a chance at transformation. Whether you're confronted with a donation box, a person in need, or a situation where you can be of help, I think a useful guideline is to give enough that afterwards you feel like you did just slightly too much.
For me with my paycheck coming and a little extra money this month, that might be 2,000 yen. For you with two kids and barely enough to get a tank of gas, it might be a dollar. Or it might be asking if there's any other way you can help. Approached in this way, the offering box presents us a safe space to confront this process carefully and with low stakes. Rather than standing between us and the Buddhas, it becomes a field of practice where we can express their attributes for ourselves. What's important is gently nudging our comfort zone outward, at our own pace and being honest about our own capacity, to cultivate an ever-expanding circle of compassion in action.
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