The purpose of dāna is not to cure your body sickness.

The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.

31 July 2023

The purpose of dāna is not to cure your body sickness.

Question: When a friend, a young mother of two, was diagnosed with cancer, she was advised to practice a lot of dāna. The cancer went into remission. She then continues to practise dāna with the thought that she will be cancer free. However, the cancer reoccur after a few months of remission and it is considered as terminal stage cancer. She then lost faith with the practice of dāna. What advice to give her in order to restore her faith back?

Than Ajahn:  First of all, giving dāna is not the cure for cancer. Giving dāna can make you feel better, make you feel good. It makes you be able to relinquish your attachment to your wealth, so that when you have to die, you won’t die feeling tormented for losing what you love.

When you give dāna, you lessen your attachment to your wealth, and so when you die, you won’t have that attachment. This is the purpose of dāna. The purpose of dāna is not to cure your body sickness. Even the Buddha cannot cure the sickness of the body. The Buddha had also to get old, get sick, and die like everybody else.

Her mind can be safe from suffering if she can develop mindfulness and wisdom. So, if she wants to be free from suffering, from her sickness, then she should try to develop mindfulness by reciting the Buddho, Buddho mantra and to develop wisdom by accepting the truth of the body that the body is temporary, it’s going to get old, get sick, and die. The body is not you. You are the mind. 

You are the one who possesses the body. If she lets go of the body, then the cessation of the body will not hurt her mind.

Q&A, May 31, 2017

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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