Charity

from JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Evening All,

The first of the Six Paramitas is Dana, or Generosity. I enjoy this paramita very much as it reminds me that to be generous means to be so without self. Any reminder to drop away self is a good thing. We spend so much of our day wrapped up in ourselves, that to get out of the wrapper is actually quite liberating.

In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha taught that a man should "bestow alms, uninfluenced by any pre-conceived thoughts as to self and other selves..." and if in "practicing charity, conceives within his mind...conceptions discriminating himself from other selves, he will be like a man walking in darkness and seeing nothing." (Goddard translation, p.90-91).

This has some very specific meaning and teaching. Similar to the Christian notion that if a man asks for a coat, you should also give him your cloak. Thought to self, and judgement as to the worthiness of others has no place in these teachings.

The moment self enters, judgement and discernment enters, we are in the darkness and delusion of dualism. The heart of the Buddha's teaching is compassion for others as a starting point and an end in itself. In this sense, then, we enter charity and become charity, within this charity there is no me, no you, no beggar or almsgiver. Being generosity is being Buddha.

Another definition of Mutual Aid.

Be well.
religion
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Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
I am not buddhist but have a great respect for buddhism. I believe strongly in charity and that it does the soul good to be charitible. However, the part of losing one's self is not something I would ever embrace. I love myself. I love the parts of me that I see have come from my parents or grandparents. I feel my successes are shared and enjoyed by them as well as myself.

That is just my philosophy though. I will always be too self involved to be buddhist. I am proud of and happy with the life I am living though.

I enjoy your writing.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
I will always be too self involved to be buddhist


That was my stumbling block too. I've only just learned how to be comfortable in my own skin and I'm simply not prepared to let that go. I can handle impermanence and I love the 'rights' (right action, thought, speech and so on), but try as I might I cannot dig the 'no-self'.

I've found that Taoism is more in line with my way of thinking, Jill. You'd probably like it too.
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hello Jill and Dharmagrl,

The notion of "no-self" is, indeed, a stmbling block to many of us. Mostly due to an understanding of self rooted in western pychcology. No self is more about understanding the fluidity of self. Self has no independent existance, so to speak. The self we construct as a child changes and evolves over time, bearing little resemblance to his beginnings. In the end, we die and disintegrate back into the elements. Secondly, we live in two essential realities simultaneously: the absolute (what some call, Big Mind) and the relative (what some call Small Mind). Self belongs to the realm of Small Mind since it is understood within the relative universe where we differentiate and distinguish between objects. On the other hand, there is Big Mind or Universal Mind (some might say, the Godhead) where all things are one and nothing exists independent of anything else.

One need only be still and feel the comings and goings of things, breath, sound, feeling, thought, sensation, to experience this.

The point of the Diamond sutra in this case is to teach that we should endevour to become the very embodiment of the thing itself: charity. The discriminating mind is a hindrance to the free expression of this quality as well as all of the others.

Be well.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
I've found that Taoism is more in line with my way of thinking, Jill.

It's always useful to find a spiritual path that is congenial and in our modern world, with so much knowledge and wisdom from every culture instantly available, we can indeed look around to find what suits us best. Of course, we may end up following a religious path that originated in a faraway culture that we don't really understand, but that can sometimes even be an advantage (as in 'keep the Dharma, throw away the deities').

Nevertheless, there is one pitfall. If we are only interested in teachings that confirm what we already know, we may be blocking ourselves from learning something new. More importantly, we may be stopping ourselves from being seriously challenged. The Japanese Zen Master Dogen said something to the effect that any religion that doesn't sometimes tell us things we don't want to hear is useless.

Interestingly, when Buddhism made its way from India to China it underwent a dramatic cultural transformation. The Buddhists of India loved to have long abstract philosophical arguments and their approach to Buddhism was in many ways 'logical' and concerned with philosophical and metaphysical theories. The Chinese were more intuitive and mystical and it took them several centuries to really 'understand' Buddhism. In the process of getting a handle on it they changed it to something more congenial for them, in part by marrying Buddhist Dharma teaching to Taoist mysticism. It's from this tradition that Ch'an (or Zen) really comes...