How much dana should I give?
Take what you need, give what you can.
Dana means ‘giving’. Buddhist nuns and monks would live on ‘dana’, whatever was given to them. Many contemporary Buddhist teachers and retreat centres operate in this way too, allowing people to choose how much to give.
But deciding how much we want to give isn’t always easy!
Here’s how I decide how much dana to give
Firstly, I’ll try to give dana after an event rather than before it starts, then I have a proper sense of the value of what I’ve been given.
Then I try to act quickly, as I have a tendency to talk myself out of my generous impulses. I can even let a sort of vagueness descend so that ultimately I forget to give altogether!
To work out how much to give, I first have to find out how much would be too much.
Say I’ve been on an online day retreat. I’ll start really high, £200. My gut feeling is that’s too much. £100? Still too much. £80? I’d like to give that but can’t really afford it. So let’s put the top figure at £70.
Now let’s go to the bottom, how little would be too little?
What’s the minimum? £10? No, that wouldn’t feel good. £20? Not really. £40? I could give £40 and feel okay about it, but I think I’d feel happier to give a bit more. I’d feel good about giving £50.
So now I have my range. I’m going to give somewhere between £50 and £70.
Time for the fine tuning, how much feels just right?
I’ll feel into the pain of letting go of my money. (yes, I don’t always find it easy to part with money!) And imagine the pleasure of giving the gift. Gradually finding the point that the scales balance, the amount that feels ‘right’.
Obviously, if you are wealthy, you might think of giving ten times more than me, and if hard up, you might give a tenth of that amount. Like everything else in Buddhism, it’s not what we do that counts but the intention behind it.
