[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by Gem

This might an inconvenient conversation, because it is going to require any teacher quoted to not be interested in getting something out of their students or their organisation. I was schooled under the tenet of dana, to give without expecting anything in return, and that's the principle my school operates on - hence it's a Non-Profit and no one gets paid for their service. If I give service I do that for the benefit of others. If I make a donation, I do so that someone else can be roomed and fed on their retreat to learn the meditation. It is part of the teaching to practice dana, so no one gets anything in return and no one pays for what they do get. It will destroy 'what you want' from other people and cultivate 'what can I do for them'. Because I lived it, I learned it, and that's how I know that the teachers who are getting something from their students, like sex, money, or a lot of nice cars, have not yet matured as 'noble' (as they say in Buddhism).

Gem, agreed. And that's a beautifully concrete way of understanding it...that's the magic of the practice...that it is transformed into concrete acts that have a 1000 other parallels in your life.

You understand selflessness and service by making a donation for services. Further, you donate whilst it's made clear that you are paying it forward both so that the community is sustained and others then may do the same (so that they may also perform a selfless service) but also so that those who cannot donate may still receive the experience.

Yet much more broadly and deeply, you understand this as an experiential teaching, where we are guided to destroy "what (do) I want" or "what can I get from others?" and cultivating "what can I do for others?" Native Americans would call this consciously starving the wolf of selfishness and feeding the wolf of love and service.

And the 1000 other parallels are all so clear and so obvious, once the lesson is grasped and understood concretely, at the level of being and doing.

Peace & blessings
7L