The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart
28th March, 2022
Question : How can I move up the ladder from dāna to bhāvanā?
Tan Ajahn: The reason why you want to do dāna is to get rid of your money, your surplus money. Because when you have surplus money, sometimes you want to buy things, you want to go do something. This will take away your time to meditate, to develop your mindfulness.
So, if you want to go on a holiday trip, why not spend that money on dāna instead, and go stay in a temple.
You have to force yourself to do these things and force yourself to develop mindfulness. It doesn’t come automatically, especially for those people who haven’t had any mindfulness previously.
Some other people are fortunate. Maybe in their past lives they have developed a certain amount of mindfulness, so for them to meditate might be a lot easier than for those who haven’t yet developed any mindfulness. If you have no mindfulness at all, then you must force yourself to develop it. And this is the reason why you want to do charity.
Instead of going on holiday for a week, you stay in the temple instead and spend your money paying the temple for the facilities that you have used. This will enable you to be alone to focus on developing mindfulness all day long, from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep. And when you are in the temple and you are close to a teacher, you can ask any questions that might come up.
So this is the real reason for charity, for dāna. It is for you to get rid of your surplus money, so that it doesn’t take away your time, so you can have the time to be alone and to practice mindfulness.
Dāna will also help you keep the precepts because when you give money to charity, you will become kind-hearted. You will think of the welfare of other people. You will not be selfish and not want to hurt other people. When you don’t want to hurt other people, you’ll find that keeping the five precepts is very easy.
If you only think of yourself, that is, if you want to make a lot of money to spend on yourself, you will not care about other people. You will find that keeping the precepts is very difficult, and even more, you will find it to be a hindrance to making money because when you want to make quick and easy money, sometimes you have to cheat or lie.
So, this is the purpose of dāna: to help you develop mettā, compassion, loving-kindness, and to be less selfish, so that you will think of the welfare of other people and not want to hurt them. You can easily keep the five precepts. Once you do, your mind will become a lot calmer and more peaceful. If you cannot keep the precepts, your mind will be constantly agitated by the bad things that you have done. You will worry that you might be caught or you will have to pay for your bad kamma.
But if you can keep the precepts, you won’t be creating any bad kamma, and you will find it a lot easier to be peaceful and calm as your mindfulness develops. This happens because when you develop mindfulness, you want to go stay alone in quiet places. If you have done something bad, your conscience will always bother you. Especially when you stay in the forest monastery, you might worry about your bad kamma, which will make you pay for what you have done. So you might not be able to stay alone in the temple if you have a bad conscience.
You want to prevent this worry by keeping the five precepts. And in order to keep the five precepts, you have to be kind and caring towards other people, so you have to give dāna, be charitable. And you will then have the time to meditate. If you are selfish, you want to find happiness for yourself, perhaps by going on holiday instead of going to the temple, so you will never have the time to develop mindfulness, and you will never be able to bhāvanā successfully.
“Dhamma for the Asking, Dec 2, 2014”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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