The Economy of Gifts
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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According to the Buddhist monastic code, monks and nuns are not allowed
to accept money or even to engage in barter or trade with lay people.
They live entirely in an economy of gifts. Lay supporters provide gifts
of material requisites for the monastics, while the monastics provide
their supporters with the gift of the teaching. Ideally -- and to a
great extent in actual practice -- this is an exchange that comes from
the heart, something totally voluntary. There are many stories in the
texts that emphasize the point that returns in this economy -- it might
also be called an economy of merit -- depend not on the material value
of the object given, but on the purity of heart of the donor and
recipient. You give what is appropriate to the occasion and to your
means, when and wherever your heart feels inspired. For the monastics,
this means that you teach, out of compassion, what should be taught,
regardless of whether it will sell. For the laity, this means that you
give what you have to spare and feel inclined to share. There is no
price for the teachings, nor even a "suggested donation." Anyone who
regards the act of teaching or the act of giving requisites as a
repayment for a particular favor is ridiculed as mercenary. Instead, you
give because giving is good for the heart and because the survival of
the Dhamma as a living principle depends on daily acts of generosity.
The primary symbol of this economy is the alms bowl. If you are a
monastic, it represents your dependence on others, your need to accept
generosity no matter what form it takes. You may not get what you want
in the bowl, but you realize that you always get what you need, even if
it's a hard-earned lesson in doing without. One of my students in
Thailand once went to the mountains in the northern part of the country
to practice in solitude. His hillside shack was an ideal place to
meditate, but he had to depend on a nearby hilltribe village for alms,
and the diet was mostly plain rice with some occasional boiled
vegetables. After two months on this diet, his meditation theme became
the conflict in his mind over whether he should go or stay. One rainy
morning, as he was on his alms round, he came to a shack just as the
morning rice was ready. The wife of the house called out, asking him to
wait while she got some rice from the pot. As he was waiting there in
the pouring rain, he couldn't help grumbling inwardly about the fact
that there would be nothing to go with the rice. It so happened that the
woman had an infant son who was sitting near the kitchen fire, crying
from hunger. So as she scooped some rice out of the pot, she stuck a
small lump of rice in his mouth. Immediately, the boy stopped crying and
began to grin. My student saw this, and it was like a light bulb turning
on in his head. "Here you are, complaining about what people are giving
you for free," he told himself. "You're no match for a little kid. If he
can be happy with just a lump of rice, why can't you?" As a result, the
lesson that came with his scoop of rice that day gave my student the
strength he needed to stay on in the mountains for another three years.
For a monastic the bowl also represents the opportunity you give others
to practice the Dhamma in accordance with their means. In Thailand, this
is reflected in one of the idioms used to describe going for alms: proad
sat, doing a favor for living beings. There were times on my alms round
in rural Thailand when, as I walked past a tiny grass shack, someone
would come running out to put rice in my bowl. Years earlier, as lay
person, my reaction on seeing such a bare, tiny shack would have been to
want to give monetary help to them. But now I was on the receiving end
of their generosity. In my new position I may have been doing less for
them in material terms than I could have done as a lay person, but at
least I was giving them the opportunity to have the dignity that comes
with being a donor.
For the donors, the monk's alms bowl becomes a symbol of the good they
have done. On several occasions in Thailand people would tell me that
they had dreamed of a monk standing before them, opening the lid to his
bowl. The details would differ as to what the dreamer saw in the bowl,
but in each case the interpretation of the dream was the same: the
dreamer's merit was about to bear fruit in an especially positive way.
The alms round itself is also a gift that goes both ways. On the one
hand, daily contact with lay donors reminds the monastics that their
practice is not just an individual matter, but a concern of the entire
community. They are indebted to others for the right and opportunity to
practice, and should do their best to practice diligently as a way of
repaying that debt. At the same time, the opportunity to walk through a
village early in the morning, passing by the houses of the rich and
poor, the happy and unhappy, gives plenty of opportunities to reflect on
the human condition and the need to find a way out of the grinding cycle
of death and rebirth.
For the donors, the alms round is a reminder that the monetary economy
is not the only way to happiness. It helps to keep a society sane when
there are monastics infiltrating the towns every morning, embodying an
ethos very different from the dominant monetary economy. The gently
subversive quality of this custom helps people to keep their values
straight.
Above all, the economy of gifts symbolized by the alms bowl and the alms
round allows for specialization, a division of labor, from which both
sides benefit. Those who are willing can give up many of the privileges
of home life and in return receive the free time, the basic support, and
the communal training needed to devote themselves fully to Dhamma
practice. Those who stay at home can benefit from having full-time
Dhamma practitioners around on a daily basis. I have always found it
ironic that the modern world honors specialization in almost every area
-- even in things like running, jumping, and throwing a ball -- but not
in the Dhamma, where it is denounced as "dualism," "elitism," or worse.
The Buddha began the monastic order on the first day of his teaching
career because he saw the benefits that come with specialization.
Without it, the practice tends to become limited and diluted, negotiated
into the demands of the monetary economy. The Dhamma becomes limited to
what will sell and what will fit into a schedule dictated by the demands
of family and job. In this sort of situation, everyone ends up poorer in
things of the heart.
The fact that tangible goods run only one way in the economy of gifts
means that the exchange is open to all sorts of abuses. This is why
there are so many rules in the monastic code to keep the monastics from
taking unfair advantage of the generosity of lay donors. There are rules
against asking for donations in inappropriate circumstances, from making
claims as to one's spiritual attainments, and even from covering up the
good foods in one's bowl with rice, in hopes that donors will then feel
inclined to provide something more substantial. Most of the rules, in
fact, were instituted at the request of lay supporters or in response to
their complaints. They had made their investment in the merit economy
and were interested in protecting their investment. This observation
applies not only to ancient India, but also to the modern-day West. On
their first contact with the Sangha, most people tend to see little
reason for the disciplinary rules, and regard them as quaint holdovers
from ancient Indian prejudices. When, however, they come to see the
rules in the context of the economy of gifts and begin to participate in
that economy themselves, they also tend to become avid advocates of the
rules and active protectors of "their" monastics. The arrangement may
limit the freedom of the monastics in certain ways, but it means that
the lay supporters take an active interest not only in what the monastic
teaches, but also in how the monastic lives -- a useful safeguard to
make sure that teachers walk their talk. This, again, insures that the
practice remains a communal concern. As the Buddha said,
Monks, householders are very helpful to you, as they provide you with
the requisites of robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicine. And you,
monks, are very helpful to householders, as you teach them the Dhamma
admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, and admirable in
the end, as you expound the holy life both in its particulars and in its
essence, entirely complete, surpassingly pure. In this way the holy life
is lived in mutual dependence, for the purpose of crossing over the
flood, for making a right end to suffering and stress.
-- Iti 107
Periodically, throughout the history of Buddhism, the economy of gifts
has broken down, usually when one side or the other gets fixated on the
tangible side of the exchange and forgets the qualities of the heart
that are its reason for being. And periodically it has been revived when
people are sensitive to its rewards in terms of the living Dhamma. By
its very nature, the economy of gifts is something of a hothouse
creation that requires careful nurture and a sensitive discernment of
its benefits. I find it amazing that such an economy has lasted for more
than 2,600 years. It will never be more than an alternative to the
dominant monetary economy, largely because its rewards are so intangible
and require so much patience, trust, and discipline in order to be
appreciated. Those who demand immediate return for specific services and
goods will always require a monetary system. Sincere Buddhist lay
people, however, have the chance to play an amphibious role, engaging in
the monetary economy in order to maintain their livelihood, and
contributing to the economy of gifts whenever they feel so inclined. In
this way they can maintain direct contact with teachers, insuring the
best possible instruction for their own practice, in an atmosphere where
mutual compassion and concern are the medium of exchange; and purity of
heart, the bottom line.
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Source:
http://world.std.com/~metta/lib/modern/economy.html
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