At any point during these Buddhist teachings, was it always through dana or was there any type of monetary transaction?

I read in the Pali cannon that the Buddha also practiced breathing methods like khumbaka (breath retention), but all of these methods gave him splitting headaches.

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  Yes, there is something called the upanicajhana which means the non breathing meditation.

So he tried that?

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  Restricting the breath yes.

Then he said that he didn’t feel that it was conducive.

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  Right.

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  Yes.

So is that meditation (jhana) the same steps of the meditation that you go through with yoga more or less?  What would you say is the difference?

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  This is, here is an interesting problem that arises from the texts. According to the suttas where the Buddha gives his own biographical account after he left his family life and came down to the state of Magadatta and became an ascetic. He  then learned and studied under two prominent meditation teachers of the period and under one he practiced and reached the attainment.  He uses the terminology, in the Buddha’s text the base of nothingness, (Pali term here). Then he became dissatisfied with that. Then he studied under another teacher and under him he reached the forth. The state of nothingness is the third of the four formless meditations. Then under the second teacher he learned the forth of the four formless meditations  which he reached the base of perception or non-perception and again he was dissatisfied with that.

Then he went off by himself and practiced for several years these extreme austerities, self-mortifications, until he came to the verge of death. Then he realized that this was not the way to enlightenment. He then had a recollection of an experience that he had when he was just a youngster. Are you familiar with that?

Yes.

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  Where he sat under a tree when his father was plowing the field and he entered into a state which he calls the jhanas. So now he reflects back on that experience and he sees that, he asks himself could this be the way to enlightenment. Then he has the intuition; yes this is the way to enlightenment. The he develops the four jhanas and on that basis he reaches the higher knowledges and then he achieves full enlightenment.

Ok now what is puzzling here is under the first two teachers, whom under he learned the highest formless meditations, there is no mention of him reaching the jhanas. And yet it would seem that in order to reach the formless meditations one would have to go through the jhanas because the lower four jhanas are like the lower four rungs on a ladder.

The four formless attainments are like the four higher rungs on a ladder. And you don’t jump from the ground to the fifth rung on the ladder but you go up through the first four rungs.

But no mention is made of that. In the suttas themselves, why is it that he finished with the ascetic practice.  Why did he recollect this experience of the jhanas when he was a youngster rather then the experience of jhanas he might have attained when practicing under these teachers.

I don’t know the answer to that question.

At what point did the Buddha first mention dana?

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  The practice of dana was in no way an invention or an innovation of the Buddha. The practice of dana seems to have been already a well established practice in Indian religious scenes of the period. I think it operates first within Brahmanic culture because the Brahman were the ones who devoted themselves to the study of the Vedas, the performance of the religious rituals, and so those Brahmins who were probably following the duty of Brahmins and being supported by donations from lay people . Particularly during later times by support from the kings and even in the Pali cannon we read that prominent Brahmans had received gifts of land from the kings; gifts of cattle. So that’s in brahminic culture, then in sramanaic culture.  In the culture of the renunciate ascetics they would all depend on their livelihood on donations and offerings from householders. So this was already a pretty well established culture at the time the Buddha appeared on the scene.

And even before the Buddha’s enlightenment, from the beginning of his quest, as soon as he renounced and cut off his hair and beard and went forth as an ascetic, he would have gone with his alms bowl, through the towns and villages collecting offerings of alms food from people.

And what exactly would be the reason for not charging somebody for the teachings?

Bhikkhu Bodhi:  I say that charging for the teaching would be in a sense a travesty of the basic underlying principles of Indian spirituality.  During that period,  particularly within Buddhist culture, the idea is that householders provide monastics with what is called umnisa dana which means a gift of material things: robes food, dwelling places, medicines and then the monastics provide lay people with what’s called dhamma dana, the gift of the dhamma. So it’s considered like a kind of exchange, but it’s not conducted in the sense like a business transaction, like you give me food and I teach you the dhamma. If you don’t give me food, I don’t teach you the dhamma. It’s just that the monastics take the responsibility of spreading the dhamma, teaching the dhamma. And then lay people understand it. The monastics live with the support of the offerings that they make. And so it’s done as a kind of exchange of love and mutual support rather than of a business transaction.

Some are saying that Buddhism should be more like psychology where you have clients. Have you heard about that?

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Yes, I’ve come across that.

And where they charge by the hour?

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Oh no. (Laughter) I have to say I understand that at least from the perspective of some teachers. They remain as lay people but they are living pretty much full time through teaching and so their conditions are different from that of monastics. I don’t like the idea of making a payment of a fee a necessary condition for somebody to be entitled to take a course, but I can understand how meditation centers have to pay for their fuel, during the winter. They might have rent to pay, or have payments on the buildings to meet. They have to provide food for the meditators, or various other expenses. So I could see that they would levy a charge for meditators to come to take courses there. So I wouldn’t condemn or blame them for doing so or say that it is a betrayal of the spirit of Buddhism.

What would concern me and what happens in some of the insight meditation centers that I know of is that the expenses of the lay people  / meditators who  meet to take the course, do not go as fees to the teacher but go to maintenance of the center.

And then after that, an announcement is made that the teachers depend on dana, on offerings from the retreatents. So it’s requested that people give what they can according to their means.

In that case I would say it’s acceptable and understandable under the circumstances. But then you probably know more about meditation centers that charge for a lot of courses (laughs) where rather extravagant fees are charged and teachers say if you want to see me then you have to meet a certain fee for the hour. Then I would say this is going quite contrary to the spirit of dana.

What about “suggested donations”, making some kind of a suggestion or implanting a thought in a person’s mind in terms of a monetary figure? Would that be considered dana or something else?

Bhikkhu Bodhi: I think I would prefer it done in the form of suggesting that the students give a particular amount to support the teacher, or rather I would say what would be in the range of acceptability for the organizers of the course or retreats to announce approximately what it would take to support the course. Or they could mention an expected figure, let me just see how to phrase this. Perhaps they could give a suggested amount of a donation but then they should also include a rider saying that if one is unable to meet this amount, they shouldn’t feel ashamed in any way or humiliated, but one should just give according to one’s ability within reason. I would say that would be in my view acceptable.

And this would be within the context of lay teachers. Within monastics I think it’s just sufficient to announce that the monastic depends on offerings from the laity and that the donations are not going to the monastics as an individual but going to the support of his own temple, monastery or center, or to provide the airfare for the teacher.

Ok, let’s say that a lay person/teacher already has their basic needs met: they have a house, or some kind of a roof over their head, they have food, clothing, heat, and enough material possessions to live a comfortable life. Then why would they need extra money?

Bhikkhu Bodhi:Yes, that’s a good question. On the one hand I would say, imagine that there are always ongoing expenses that anybody has to meet. Even though that one might have enough, one has covered one’s heating cost for one winter but there is going to be another winter with new heating costs.  There will always be the need to buy more food.