Dana
The Practice of Giving

Selected essays edited by
Bhikkhu Bodhi

The Wheel Publication No. 367/369
ISBN 955-24-0077-5
Copyright © 1990 Buddhist Publication Society
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About the Contributors

Bhikkhu Bodhi is a Buddhist monk of American nationality, originally from New York City. Ordained in Sri Lanka in 1972, he has been Editor for the BPS since 1984 and its President since 1988.

Lily de Silva is Professor of Pali and Buddhist Studies at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. A regular contributor to Buddhist scholarly and popular journals, she is also the editor of the subcommentary to the Digha Nikaya, published by the Pali Text Society of London.

Susan Elbaum Jootla is an American Buddhist living in northern India and a long-term practitioner of vipassana meditation in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Her previous BPS publications include Investigation for Insight (Wheel No. 301/302) and Inspiration from Enlightened Nuns (Wheel No. 349/350).

Nina Van Gorkom is a Dutch Buddhist who first encountered Buddhism in Thailand. A keen student of the Abhidharma, she is the author of Buddhism in Daily Life and Abhidhamma in Daily Life.

M.O'C Walshe has been an active Buddhist since 1951 and is a past chairman of the English Sangha Trust. He is the author of numerous articles on Buddhism and translator of the complete Digha Nikaya under the title Thus Have I Heard: The Long Discourses of the Buddha (London: Wisdom, 1987).
 

Notes
1. U Chit Tin, The Perfection of Generosity, Introduction.
2. E.W. Burlingame, trans. Buddhist Legends (London: Pali Text Society, 1969), 2:212-16.
3. Buddhist Legends, 2:67-68.
4. Cariyapitaka, translated by I.B. Horner, included in Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, Part III (London: Pali Text Society, 1975).
5. Though the PTS translation reads "one gives alms on one's own accord," the accuracy of this translation is questionable. The sutta seems to record motives for giving in ascending order of refinement. If the PTS translation is accepted, the order is disturbed. Moreover, asajja is the gerund of asadeti, which means to strike, offend, assail, insult.
6. See Nyanaponika Thera, The Roots of Good and Evil (Wheel No. 251/253).
7. See Kamma and Its Fruit (Wheel No. 221/224).
8. In The Illustrator of Ultimate Meaning (Paramatthajotika), Commentary to the Minor Readings (Khuddakapatha). London: Pali Text Society, 1960.
9. The five eyes are the fleshly eye (mamsacakkhu); the divine eye (dibbacakkhu), by which he sees beings pass away and re-arise In accordance with their kamma; the wisdom eye (paññacakkhu), by which he sees the specific and general characteristics of things; the Buddha-eye (buddhacakkhu), by which he sees the propensities and dispositions of beings; and the universal eye (samantacakkhu), his knowledge of omniscience.
10. The thirty-two major and eighty minor characteristics of a Great Man's body.
11. The four floods of sensual desire, desire for existence, wrong views, and ignorance.
12. The "three times" are before presenting the gift, while giving it, and after giving it.
13. Doubtlessly the commentator means cows as a source for the "five delicacies" -- milk, curd, butter, ghee, and cream of ghee -- not as a source of beefsteak.
14. Dhamma here, as the context indicates, means the sixth type of object, not the Buddha's teaching. This class of object includes the nutritive essence of food and the life faculty, hence the explanation that follows in the text.

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