Publish Date:2024-10-10
(11) By studying Buddhist canon attentively and by regularly checking both on the levels, evinced at different stages of our comprehension, of essence of Buddhist canon and on the degrees, evinced at different stages, of our fidelity to our commitment to practicing Buddhist canon, we would be able to perceive readily that the initiation of the practice of almsgiving and donation (dana) was originally intended as dharma-gate for promoting a Buddhist-Chan practitioner’s self-cultivation in compliance with the Chan tenets. Throughout the entire stage of self-cultivation aimed at gaining access to the path of Bodhisattva through a process of self-exertion at attaining the six paramitas (six perfections), “practicing almsgiving and donation” is, as a rule, not only enforced as the first path of all “the sagely paths” to be adhered to by a Buddhist-Chan practitioner, but also employed as the primary countermeasure against “greed” which is also termed as “the delusion that mistakes an imaginary ego for a real ego” or as “the delusion that mistakes nonentity for real entity” and deemed as the most noisome of all the five destructive passions. Practicing almsgiving and donation is not an objective in itself and serves merely as a means, through which a Buddhist-Chan practitioner can purify his mind and correctly orientate his line of conduct. That is why in Buddhist canon the practice of giving away alms and donating is rated as the path of Bodhisattva. However when one would assume that significance of the act of giving away alms and donation consists merely in enabling an almsgiver or donator to elicit pleasure or imbibe a sense of gratification or peace of mind from his generosity, such an assumption must be regarded as a manifestation of terrestrial practicality.
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