Global Day of Giving (#GivingTuesday)

GivingTuesday.org; Editors, Wisdom Quarterly, SUPPORT: Dharma Meditation Initiative

Holiday To-Do List (oasisnyc)

#GivingTuesday connects diverse groups of individuals, communities, and organizations around the world for one common purpose: to celebrate and encourage giving (Buddhist dana).

A team of "influencers" and founding partners joined forces, collaborating across sectors, offering expertise working to launch #GivingTuesday. They have continued to shape, grow, and strengthen the movement.

This was the team at the Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact at the 92nd Street Y -- a cultural center in NYC has been bringing people together since 1874 around the values of service and giving back. More 

• SUPPORT: Dharma Meditation Initiative 
• Buddhist Global Relief (founded by Bhikkhu Bodhi)
• Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation

Giving in Buddhism

Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

Dāna is the act and practice of giving, generosity, letting go. It is a profitable thing to do, although its benefits are immediately sublime and with time ripen later to tangible results in our conditions and situation.

Giving to moral people is a cause of more merit, so giving is often directed at monastics or spiritually-developing people.

In Buddhism, it has the effect of purifying and transforming the mind of the giver reducing and eliminating ego and relieving the giver of clinging and the suffering that arises from holding wrong views and actions.

 

Generosity developed through giving leads to the experience of material wealth and future rebirth in fortunate states. In the Pāli language canon's Dighajanu Sutra, generosity (Pāli cāga, synonymous with dāna) is identified as one of the four traits conditioning happiness and wealth in this and future lives.

Conversely, nongiving, not letting go, grasping, clinging leads to unhappy states and poverty.

Dāna leads to one of the pāramitās or "perfections," the dāna pāramitā. This can be characterized by unattached and unconditional generosity, giving and letting go.

It is better to give without grasping after results, but even giving with the right view that such karma bears wished-for and welcome results is very good. If it feels good to do good, the Buddha encouraged the world to keep doing it and to do more of it.

Buddhists believe that giving without seeking anything in return leads to greater spiritual wealth. Moreover, it reduces the acquisitive impulses that ultimately lead to continued disappointment/suffering from egotism. More