Publish Date:2024-09-10
(12) Carrying on almsgiving and donation from the motive of keeping abreast of terrestrial practicality or practicing almsgiving and donation simply for demonstrating a generous frame of mind cannot, from the perspective of Buddhism, be valued as a genuine practice of almsgiving and donation, because the terrestrial-practicality-based act of almsgiving and donation does not evince “the true aspects of the phenomenal world (tattvasya-laksanam)”. Then what kind of act of almsgiving and donation can be evaluated as a manifestation of the true aspects of the phenomenal world or rated as a self-cultivation-oriented act of almsgiving and donation? Bodhidharma left us the instruction: “Only such a kind of almsgiving and donation as is motivated by ‘pure intelligence and sublime mentality on the part of the almsgiver who believes in the doctrine that the universe is truly immaterial’ can be assessed as being in agreement with tattvasya-laksanam (the true aspects of the phenomenal world).” Therefore such a kind of almsgiving and donation can be rated as an act that is totally in line with the line of conduct of a sincere practitioner pursuing Buddhist-Chan self-cultivation. Now please allow me to put the last sentence in a rather vernacular way: In our opinion, almsgiving and donation is a practice aimed at
The act of almsgiving and donation is external and tangible, but the process of self-cultivation pursued by a Buddhist-Chan practitioner is internal and not readily tangible. Practicing almsgiving and donation is in fact a spontaneous demonstration—on the part of a Buddhist-Chan practitioner—of his willpower both to wean himself from obsession with all phenomena of phala (fruit of karma) and to further experience the truth inherent in sunyata (the nature of the void or the immaterial). In other words, practicing almsgiving and donation is precisely for sharpening a practitioner’s doctrinal acumen for handling concerns related to dogmatic proposition that “The three laksanas of recipient of alms, almsgiver, and alms are nothing more than ‘emptiness’ of self and dharmas”.(From My Heart My Buddha)
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