Reflections on Dana

Last week Ven. Eshu mailed out on the members' listserv an invitation to participate in the Dana group, which meets quarterly (next meeting Sept 30). As explained in that email, the idea for a Dana group arose during the Zen Centre's 2009 strategic planning sessions held last fall/winter and serves not only to help support the financial costs of the Zen Centre but also to provide, in Ven. Eshu's words, an "experiential investigation of Dana practice".

Ven. Eshu already covered in his email the origins of the Dana group and the function in terms of financial stability and sustainability for the Zen Centre. I thought I'd write a bit about my experience of the Dana meetings on the other aspect -- the opportunity to investigate Dana practice.

The main challenge in Dana practice for me has been around money. I grew up in a family affluent enough to never go hungry or worry about housing, but also in a political and cultural environment very conscious around poverty and inequality -- the "class struggle" was a phrase used with great frequency and many of my childhood memories are of protests, pickets, and union rallies. After moving out of my parents' place, there were a few short term jobs but for seven years I lived first off student loans and then on welfare. These were lean years where most months I ran out of money partway through the month so stole food or rooted through garbage bins for supermarket rejects to eat, came up with various scams to get reduced costs for basics like bus fare and used clothes/shoes, and often couch surfed when I couldn't make rent. Most months I asked people (mostly my family, but sometimes strangers) for help.

In my late twenties a friend told me about a job in a non-profit organization that valued life experience over other credentials, and so after years of unemployment I got a professional job at union wages. A couple years after that I lucked into a secretarial job at the university, where the wages were slightly better and the benefits far better. Since that time although I've sometimes had to scramble for work and have often been stressed about money, especially during periods of illness, I again consistently have a roof over my head and enough food to eat.

Now in 2009 our 2-person household is among the very rich by global standards. Last year we had a joint annual income of $42,180 after taxes, and we own a house. We have a joint bank account for joint expenses (the house, our animals, food) and also each have our own bank accounts for our individual expenses (clothes, donations, transportation, gifts, health care, etc.). Having proportionally scaled our contributions to the joint account to reflect the difference in our incomes, each month after putting money in to the joint account I have $415 to cover everything else. That money, like our joint money, is budgeted to the penny.

That's a lot of money but before starting Dana practice I often approached life as if I was still poor, with a lot of fear, anxiety, and also a lot of anger and judgment about people who have more money than we do. My basic position was that there was no way I could possibly afford to donate to the Zen Centre on top of the monthly membership fee and the small monthly amount I donate to the Zen Centre.

As always with practice in the Zen Centre, nobody guilt tripped or forced me into participating in the Dana group. People I greatly respect were part of it so I just got curious about it and decided to go, not planning to contribute any cash, just to see what it was like. The first meeting was at tax return time and shortly before going I did my tax return and realized I'd be getting around $300 back so pledged that money. For the next one I decided to experiment for a month with cutting everything out of my personal budget that wasn't absolutely necessary, to see how much I could scrape up for the Zen Centre -- figuring it would be just a few dollars at best as I didn't think I had many luxuries within my existing budget. I started with an inventory of all my financial assets (RRSP and savings account) and the details of my monthly budget, taking a hard look at what I really had vs. what I felt I had. As the month went along I experimented with eating less (as some of the financial stress comes from not being able to save for house repairs and other unexpected emergencies out of our joint account) and also did absolutely nothing social that cost money -- no going out for coffee or meals, renting movies, or any of the other occasional treats within my existing budget. To my surprise during that period I was offered a bit of freelance work on top of my job, and so over the course of three months was able to contribute $500 as part of the Dana group. I also during this time read a book by Peter Singer, "The Life You Can Save", which explores the morality of what people living in rich countries should be contributing to end dire poverty -- although I didn't agree with everything in the book it did, like the Dana group, provide the opportunity to see more clearly inconsistencies between my beliefs/values and my day to day actions relating to money.

Intrigued by the experience of the experiment with what could be cut and what I really could contribute, I decided to continue the one month experiment and use it as an opportunity to be completely honest about how much money I have and the choices I make in relation to money. This has required explaining to the people in my life that although I want to spend time with them I don't want to spend time doing things that cost money. Although people have mostly been supportive there have been some hurt feelings and eye-rolling with comments about "martyrdom" and "moral superiority".

For me this experiment with money has not been at all about moral superiority, although it has been about values. For many years I've talked about social justice and contributed a lot in various ways, but there have been inconsistencies and tendencies to selfish indulgences. The selfish tendencies are still there but I have been able to more clearly and honestly stand for what I believe in, and act in a way that is more consistent with those values. At the same time I've been able to see that my values are reflections of my day to day actions so have been less politically dogmatic about what my values should be, and more clear about how they're manifesting through my day to day life.

A side benefit of all of this has been the letting go of anxiety about money and coming to see that I am not still living on welfare. As part of being sick I spent $800 on health care, and cried and cried the day after paying those bills feeling that I had just blown my entire savings on something totally stupid and unnecessary. I did this even though I knew I'd be getting a gift from my grandfather that would cover those costs and really I was not going to be penniless as a result. As a slow learner in practice it takes a lot of these incidents to make a dint in these kinds of habitual reactions but it feels like the practice of being in the Dana group is steadily chipping away at it.

At the last Dana group meeting a parent talked about Dana as the kind of open-hearted generosity that is there when you respond to something your child needs. There is no thinking about doing this because it makes me a good person or because I should do it, the need is in front of you and you spontaneously respond in an appropriate way. Although I don't have children, that particular parent has been wonderfully generous in allowing me to spend time with her children and the feeling she talked about was something I had experienced with her kids -- an open hearted engagement.

Seeing when this feeling can be brought to other aspects of life, whether it's open hearted giving of money or time or attentive listening or something else, has been the practice for me in the last couple months. Buddhism hooked me so strongly at age 16 because life as suffering was easy for me to relate to. But in the last few months I've been seeing, in bits and pieces, the flip side -- the joy in life, and the possibility of connecting with that joy right now if I let go of "I" as a subject that the rest of the world revolves around and engage in genuine relationship with the world without concerns about what I look like and how I'll be perceived.

The picture at the top of this post reminded me of the experience of Dana as an activity that is an open-hearted exchange of joy. I've been the beggar in the picture, and I've been the giver in the picture as well. Asking for help, offering help, receiving help when it is offered -- all have been immeasurably enriched by the process of being in the Dana group. For anyone interested in checking it out I hope you'll come to the September meeting, and look forward to hearing what the experience has been like for other people engaged in this practice!

P.S. -- Before participating in the Dana group, the percentage of my income (from all sources -- work, gifts, tax refund, etc.) going to Dana was averaging around 10% -- now it's at 15%.