|
Those who offer support to Bodhisara are following the
ancient Buddhist tradition of "dana."
Dana is a word in Pali, the language
of the Theravadin Buddhist scriptures, that means "generosity,"
"giving," or "gift." Since
the times of the Buddha it has been the tradition to offer the teachings for
free, as a "dana" or
"gift," because they are considered priceless. Until the last century,
it has been almost universally monks and nuns who have offered the teaching, and
monk and nuns are wholly dependent in turn upon the generosity or dana
of the laity to provide for their basic material needs: food, shelter, clothing,
and medical care. Thus dana
is a reciprocity of giving and concern between those who teach and those who
receive the teaching.
The Bodhisara Dharma Community is not yet able to honor
this tradition of offering the teaching completely free of charge.
The board has made it a higher priority to be able to offer the teacher,
who is a householder with children, reasonable financial support for the
approximately 15 hours per week of teaching, administrative, and office
management responsibilities that he has. The
community does this in the form of a housing allowance.
To meet the requirements of our budget, courses have a suggested level of
donation for those attending. Anyone, however, is welcome to attend regardless
of ability to make a donation, and we encourage those who are able to donate
extra to provide scholarship funds to cover those who are unable to pay.
The donations from courses cover only 70% of our budget, and we rely upon pledges and donations from members to make up the rest. We also rely upon volunteers, who perform a variety of tasks. Please consider donating to the Bodhisara Dharma Community
How to donate:
Send a check payable to Bodhisara Dharma Community and mail
to:
Mark Hart
28 Autumn Lane,
Amherst, MA 01002
Bodhisara is a religious non-profit organization under chapter 501 (c) 3
of the federal tax code and contributions are tax-deductible to the extent
allowed by law.
More about the place
of dana in Buddhist Practice:
In the Buddhist tradition, dana is the first of the ten parami
or "perfections" of character that allow one to live a good and happy
life and provide the necessary foundation for progress in meditation. Developing
the virtue of generosity is thus an essential part of spiritual practice in the
Buddhist tradition, especially for lay people who are immersed in the world of
money and property. Acts of generosity are thought in Buddhist tradition to
create "merit" (in Pali "punna"), a force that produces
benefits to oneself ("good karma" as they say) as well as to others.
Traditionally one's "storehouse" of merit is considered the cause of
one's good fortune in this and other lives.
But we need not hold a belief in karma or future lives to
see the benefits of this force in our hearts. Generosity frees the heart from
grasping and releases us for a moment from preoccupation with ourselves and our
desires. It lessens the hold that fear of want has on our hearts. Generosity
also expresses the recognition that all things are interdependent and that we
receive in countless ways many things we can never pay back. The air we breath
is a gift from the plants; our life itself a gift from our parents. In
generosity we thus respond out of gratitude to what has already been given.
Furthermore, we recognize that the quality of our life in society depends upon
our willingness to contribute in turn to the common good from which we draw.
Generosity reflects a relationship of non-ownership to what we have, seeing
beyond the social conventions of property that label what is "yours"
and "mine" to a deeper or more ultimate reality where property lines
do not exist. Generosity therefore is a profound expression of wisdom.
Home | What's
New | Who We Are
Courses
& Events ||Contact | Donations
|
