On Giving

Greetings Kind Readers:

It’s almost Halloween! Not really, but in my head it is because it’s ghost season. From August until late November, ghosts of all kinds wander and permeate our realm (traditionally in East Asia this ends in late September). This is the time to make offerings, to be giving.

I made this comic above in 2024 not as a call-out but to demonstrate what I was seeing as I raised money for mutual aid for families in Gaza, Palestine (while simultaneously keeping up pre-existing mutual aid efforts for incarcerated activists, struggling students and artists, etc). The people in my life who had the most privilege and highest incomes were the ones who gave the least, and gave reluctantly. Meanwhile there were small business owners risking their businesses, teachers risking their very lives. At the time, speaking about fundraising, challenges and successes was seen by the privileged as annoying, and, at times, as bragging. Meanwhile, holy people on the ground rejoice in each others recollection of holy acts. I use the word holy because these acts are in alignment with cosmic law, the ultimate reality that we return to after death, the Dhamma. I give thanks to those who showed me greed for they brought me closer to the Dhamma.

I also forgive those who are stingy and confused about being their own humanity; they do not understand that they are living hungry ghosts and hungry ghosts in the making. These ghosts have skinny throats and large bellies; they want to be fed the fruit that will release them from their suffering but their ignorance squeezes their throats. So, they are unable to eat the fruit of the Dhamma. They will inherit this greed in the next life, in a new configuration, not as a punishment but as the fruit of their own cultivation. From what I have seen in trance, this fact of karma is not a metaphor but a distinct fact with physical, painful properties.

I took my upasika vows this year. I’ve switched from Tantric Vajrayana studies to adamantly studying the Pali suttas. I incorporate Tantra with sutta studies, using my *siddhis* on behalf of monastics living in monasteries.

The majority of the people in my life stand with the marginalized and oppressed. I have deliberately surrounded myself with good people. My communities shine brightly because they have been generous for most of their lives, including in ‘past’ lives. They live generously. They are generous with their thoughts, energy, attention, effort, presence. Their generosity often puts themselves at risk in one way or another. They do not feel forced to choose between their safety and the safety of others who are confronted with a genocide playing out around them. This is living Dhamma, people behaving according to cosmic law. This is Engaged Dhamma, people using their own human practices to respond to the injustices of the world. When we grow our bodhicitta we align with the Dhamma, we resonate at its lofty height, its ever-present subtlety. We also bear the fruit in this life and the next.

If you could see what I see, you would see, without a telescope, the sprawling network of light that we are when we work together. We create the vast, great, cosmic filament that connects small beings to each other, and also to larger beings like planets, solar systems, galaxies.

In the Dana Sutta: Giving, the Buddha explains the different mental motivations behind giving. A person might give to gain status, out of attachment, or in hopes of a return. However, the highest form of giving is treated as an "ornament for the mind" and a "support for the mind" to cultivate serenity and advance along the spiritual path. Generosity unlocks parts of the mind that lead you to higher stages on the path of Awakening. Heart-centered generosity is one of the vehicles that drives you away from your own suffering.

If you have suffered in your life and you are on your healing path, please know that when you address the suffering in front of you, outside of you, that you are also addressing the suffering inside. There is no inside, no outside. There is No-Self.

Below are fundraising campaigns and organizations where we can practice Dana with a pure heart:

Nepal-Tibet Flash Floods: Barre Center for Buddhist Studies List of Donation Resources

Fundraiser: Bashar Kullab and his family in Gaza

Meal Train for Friend 01: Recovering from emergency surgery

Meal Train for Friend 02: Recovering from gender affirming surgery

Reminder: Make offerings to your ancestors, spiritual guides and teachers, angels, the devas, the nagas, the asuras, and to hungry ghosts. Make sense offerings of sound, incense, flowers, fruits, rice, wine or other alcohol depending on who you’re offering to, art, and so forth. Keep up your altars daily, observe the moon phases.

Lastly, a poem offering during these transitional times in the world:

My first blue hibiscus bloom in my garden, from back in July.

Lumbricus terrestris by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Lumbricus terrestris

November 13, 2022 by Rosemerry

On a day when the world is weighty,
   dark and dense with need,
       I want to be the earthworm
         that gives itself over to tunneling,
   its every movement an act
     of bringing spaciousness.
       And when minutes feel crushed by urgency,
   I want to meet the world wormlike,
     which is to say grounded,
       consistent, even slow.
   No matter how desperate the situation,
     the worm does not tunnel faster
       nor burrow more.
   It knows it can take decades
     to build fine soil.
       To whatever is compacted,
   the worm offers its good worm work,
     quietly bringing porosity
       to what is trodden,compressed.
   So often, in my rush to repair,
     I end up exhausted.
Let my gift to the world be
my constancy, a devotion to openness,
     my willingness to be with what is.
       Let my gift to myself be patience
   as I tend what is dense and dark.