The Park Covered with Gold

3.1 The Park Covered with Gold

In the city of Sāvatthī there lived a householder of great wealth whose given name was Sudatta—"Well-Given." Because he loved to give, and was always providing for the lonely and the helpless, the people of the city gave him a byname—Anāthapiṇḍika—meaning "feeder of the destitute."

Once, on business in Rājagaha, he heard the name "Buddha" for the first time. From that one hearing his heart could not put it down, and he lay awake the whole night. Before dawn he was out of the city, on his way to see the Buddha. Crossing a stretch of dark, dense forest, dread rose in him wave upon wave, and three times he wanted to turn back. Partway, a voice urged him on: "Go forward, householder, go forward; going forward is better than going back." He braced his courage and walked the road to its end, and in the Cool Grove he met the Buddha.

The Buddha taught him step by step—first the talk on giving, then on virtue and on the heavens, then the danger of desire and the benefit of renunciation, and at last the Four Noble Truths. By the end of that one discourse, Anāthapiṇḍika's Dhamma-eye opened then and there: he saw the way.

He returned to Sāvatthī wanting to build a place where the Buddha and the Saṅgha could settle. He searched everywhere, and set his heart on a park belonging to Prince Jeta. He went to ask for it. The prince at first refused, saying half in jest: "Even if you covered this park with gold, I would not sell it." Anāthapiṇḍika took him at his word—he had gold coins brought in by the cartload and laid them out, piece by piece, until the whole ground of the park was covered. Only then did the prince believe it: whatever could make a man so willing to let go must be no small thing. And so the park became Anāthapiṇḍika's.

But it is what the Buddha said next that is the real key to this story.

"Dedicate It to the Saṅgha of the Four Directions"

With the park in hand, Anāthapiṇḍika asked the Buddha: "Blessed One, this park of mine—what should I do with it?"

The Buddha's answer was unexpected. He did not say, "Offer it to me." Nor did He say, "Offer it to me and these bhikkhus who follow me." He said:

"Householder, you should dedicate this park to the saṅgha of the four directions—both arrived and not-yet-arrived."

"The saṅgha of the four directions"—the saṅgha of every quarter: east, south, west, north, all those gone forth under heaven. "Both arrived and not-yet-arrived"—those living now, and those who will only later be born, only later go forth.

See how remarkable this instruction is. What Anāthapiṇḍika saw before his eyes was the Buddha, Sāriputta, Moggallāna, the assembly of bhikkhus at Sāvatthī—particular people, one by one. Yet the recipient the Buddha had him offer to was not these people in front of him, but a whole spanning the four directions, running through past and future, counting in even bhikkhus not yet born.

Nor was Anāthapiṇḍika the only one to meet this. King Bimbisāra, the first to offer the Bamboo Grove to the Saṅgha, had likewise said at the start, "I dedicate this park to the Blessed One"—and the Buddha likewise received it and turned its direction: "Give it to the Buddha and the saṅgha of the four directions." Time after time, the Buddha took "I offer this to you" and "I offer this to the people before me" and led them toward that greater whole.

No One Can Take It as Their Own

When the park is dedicated to "the saṅgha of the four directions," something of great weight happens: from that moment on, the park no longer belongs to any one person.

For offerings of this kind, the Buddha laid down three rules—what is offered to the saṅgha of the four directions is not to be divided, not to be privately appropriated, not to be sold.

Not to be divided means no bhikkhu can be allotted a share under his own name. Not to be privately appropriated means that however senior a monk may be, even the sitting abbot, he cannot draw it into "mine." Not to be sold means no one can convert it into something else, cash it out and spend it. Seal off these three, and the park can never fall back into being anyone's private holding.

Then whose is it? It belongs to that "saṅgha of the four directions"—to all those gone forth, in all places and all times, including this generation, the next, and those a thousand years from now who have not yet been born; every one of them has a part in it. The bhikkhus here and now can use it, can live in it, can practice in it—but this is use, not ownership. They are its caretakers, not the masters of the park.

The Buddha put it without any give: even the whole body of bhikkhus, formally assembled, cannot sell this thing or divide it. Why? Because within "the saṅgha of the four directions" are countless people not yet born, and those here now cannot decide on their behalf.

One End Loosens "Mine," the Other End Guards Against "Mine"

Hidden in this arrangement is a very deep care.

Think of it: a person goes forth precisely in order to put down "mine." Yet day after day the faithful press good things into his hands—money, fields, houses, robes. As the offerings mount, will that hand, loosened with such difficulty, quietly clench again? Will this field of merit be eaten away, inch by inch, by a self-interest fattened on it?

The Buddha's way was to use the precepts, at the receiving end, to bar these offerings from "mine" from the very start—so that the moment they land, they land inside a whole that no one can take as their own.

And so you see a beautiful symmetry: the giver, at the giving end, loosens "mine"; and the Buddha, at the receiving end, uses the precepts to bar these things from "mine" from the very first. One end loosens mine; the other end guards against mine. Clamped from both ends, this field stands firm, stays guarded, and carries far.

This is also the first time that the "loosening of the hand" this book has been speaking of all along lands not only in one person's heart but in an institution, in a rule of the Vinaya. It is no longer just a capacity some donor cultivates; the Buddha set it, by means of the Vinaya, into the very skeleton of the Saṅgha—so that "not taking as one's own" rests not on the height of anyone's practice, but on the rule, kept generation after generation.

Not "Owned by All," and Not a Credit to Anyone's Name

Two things here need to be seen clearly, lest we go astray.

One: this park is not "owned collectively by everyone." Collective ownership still has an owner—the "collective"; a collective can convene, can decide to sell it off and divide the proceeds. But the saṅgha of the four directions is no such owner—it cannot even be fully convened (how would those not yet born come to the meeting?). So this thing is not "the collective's"; it is owned by no one—owning itself has been cancelled at the root. And precisely because no one can own it, it can rest secure, left to generation upon generation.

The other: though Anāthapiṇḍika covered the whole park with gold coins, the park is not Anāthapiṇḍika's personal monument. From the moment he dedicated it away, it became the saṅgha of the four directions', and even he could never again alter that or take it back. What he gained was not a merit-arch carved with his own name, but this—he planted that heart of his into a field able to carry on for a thousand generations. That hand of his, the hand that laid out the gold, loosened so completely that even "this was my donation" was loosened away.

Walking On

The giving in this chapter still had a "thing" to it—a park, a bamboo grove, a house.

But the next chapter speaks of a giving in which the hands are empty, and it is giving all the same. It costs not a cent, passes nothing over—it hides inside the keeping of the precepts. When you hold to "not killing," what happens? We will see in the next chapter.