However Great the Gift, There Is a Bottom Line

4.4 However Great the Gift, There Is a Bottom Line

The last three chapters spoke mostly of "loosening," "empty," "not gripping"—all of it from the dismantling side: setting down that tangle of "I, mine, my doing" in the mind.

But dāna-pāramitā also has a side that is built up in the positive. Besides "empty out what should be emptied," there is "grow what should be grown." The Yogācārabhūmi—the great treatise on the stages of the practitioner's path—paints, from the front, a complete portrait of the bodhisattva's giving. (The Yogācārabhūmi is a later treatise, not a sūtra spoken by the Buddha; it is borrowed here to make these two sides—the clean heart, and the line it must not cross—plain.)

How a Gift Grows Up

The Yogācārabhūmi says the bodhisattva's giving has nine facets, and together they form a road of growth—from inner to outer, and back again to inner.

It starts from the innermost place: first, a heart that "holds nothing back, neither self nor possessions"—this is the root of giving, a decision of the will, not a moment's softening of the heart. With this root in place, it grows outward: what can be given grows wider and wider (from things outside the body, to one's own body and life); the harder gifts, too, can be given (having little to begin with, yet enduring poverty to give; even the most beloved thing leaving the hand); and the avenues of giving multiply (one's own wealth, wealth others are persuaded to give, the household's, and giving to whoever comes to ask—all of them open).

Then it gathers inward again, to refine its quality: give with pure faith, give with reverence, give with your own hand, give at the right time, give without wounding the one who receives. Then it spreads outward once more: following beings' needs—food for those short of food, clothes for those short of clothes, shelter for those without shelter, light for those without light—item by item, giving pressed close to people's actual hardships.

And at the last, it returns to the innermost place—"purified giving": washing this giving heart utterly clean.

Look at this road: from the heart, to the conduct, and back to the heart. It begins in a heart that holds nothing back and ends in a heart washed clean. It seems to return to where it started, yet it has walked one great circle and grown into another stature altogether.

What Clean Giving Looks Like

Then "purified giving," this washed-clean giving heart—what does it look like in the concrete? The Yogācārabhūmi lists ten marks:

What is a bodhisattva's purified giving? Know that this giving has ten marks: giving without lingering, giving without grasping, giving without hoarding, giving without exalting oneself, giving without dependence, giving without flinching, giving without contempt, giving without partiality, giving without hope of thanks, giving without wishing for ripened reward.

Every one of them is a mirror you can hold your own giving-mind up to:

One, not lingering—when someone comes asking, give at once; do not put them off, do not delay.

Two, not grasping—do not give while holding a wrong view, such as hearing "empty" as "nothing" and so giving carelessly, as if the gift bore no fruit.

Three, not hoarding—give whenever you have something to give; do not stockpile, waiting to amass one grand sum, leaving the one before you waiting in vain.

Four, not exalting oneself—give from a low place; let no pride of "I am a great benefactor" sprout because you have given.

Five, no dependence—do not give for the sake of a good name, to hear a word of praise.

Six, not flinching—glad before the gift, clean in the moment of it, no regret after; and hearing that another has given more greatly, no shame, no shrinking back.

Seven, no contempt—give the best; do not fob people off with the inferior, with what you did not want yourself.

Eight, no partiality—do not favor this one and cold-shoulder that one by who is dear and who is resented; give to friend and foe alike, evenly.

Nine, no hope of thanks—do not look for the receiver to turn around and thank you, repay you.

Ten, no wishing for ripened reward—set down even the hope that "this gift will earn me merit by and by."

Read the ten through and you find they all say one and the same thing, from ten faces: clearing out, corner by corner, the "I" that hides behind the giving. No sticking, no pride, no name-seeking, no partiality, no angling for thanks, no fishing for reward—every item is a washing of that "I." This is "the three wheels empty" of the earlier chapters, landed in ten concrete places where you can set your hand, day after day.

The First Line: Never Driven to Harm Others

After all this talk of giving "at its greatest," "without edge"—a bodhisattva can give even eyes, even body, even life—the last and weightiest question arrives:

Has this giving, then, no edge at all? Whenever someone asks—whatever they ask, whatever it is for—should one give?

No. Right here, the Yogācārabhūmi draws a bottom line that can never be crossed. It says:

A bodhisattva would sooner, a hundred times, a thousand times, even a hundred thousand times, give up his own body and life in giving to beings, than ever follow another's command—to please anyone, to bend to anyone's wishes—and so oppress, harm, or deceive beings against all reason.

Read that sentence slowly. It has two layers.

The first layer: giving may grow without any upper limit—body and life can be given, given a thousand times over.

The second layer is the bottom line itself: and yet, this giving must never be taken up by anyone as a tool for harming others. Even if someone comes commanding you in the name of "giving," "devotion," "sacrifice"—directing you to coerce, to injure, to deceive other beings—then however great the letting-go, it stops at once. Sooner give up your life than follow such a command and do harm.

What this line guards is the original heart of giving. The original heart of giving is "loosen what is mine, benefit beings"; the moment it is conscripted and turned around to do harm, it is no longer giving at all—it is evil done in giving's name. So here the bodhisattva yields not an inch: body and life may be given up; this line may not be crossed.

The Second Line: Do Not Destroy a Great Benefit for One Demand

There is a second line, drawn right beside the first. The Yogācārabhūmi says:

If a bodhisattva's intention in giving is already pure, and a work of immeasurable benefit to beings stands present before him, then should someone come asking for a limb of his own body, he should not give it.

Hear the reason for the "not." Maitreya is careful to spell it out: this is not because the bodhisattva's mind is still impure, still unwilling to let go, or because he is shrinking back and calculating "this I can give, that I cannot." Just the reverse—precisely because his intention is already pure, he must not, to satisfy this one demand before him, throw away the great work, present and ready, that could benefit beings beyond measure.

The measure of this line is never "did you give enough, did you give fiercely enough," but "did this giving fulfill the benefit to beings, or destroy it." If giving up a limb means cutting off a work that could benefit countless people, then however heroic, it should not be done.

As for those who come with a mind bent on disturbance, asking for the bodhisattva's limbs—Maitreya says these are Māra, or those Māra has sent, or beings of deranged and frantic mind—to them, too, he should not give his body in pieces. For that giving would only lead them to commit a grave sin and bring harm upon themselves. Even in the matter of "giving," one must weigh the true good and harm of the one who receives.

The Freer the Giving, the Steadier It Must Stand

Gather the two lines together, and they are one and the same clear-sightedness. This is a deep warning: any virtue, however noble—giving, devotion, sacrifice—once captured by power or by cunning, can become a blade that harms. So a truly clean giving keeps the mind loose (the three wheels empty), yet keeps beneath the hand a line cast in iron: never, at anyone's command, harm beings; never, to satisfy one person's demand, destroy a great benefit to beings. To loosen the "I" is not to loosen yourself into a thing for anyone to wield; to give to the utmost is not to outdo others in how fiercely you can be maimed. The freest giving is not the most reckless giving; it is the most clear-sighted. Loose toward the "I"; hard against the harming. Both are required.

Part Four, to This Point

Part Four has followed the Mahāyāna and pushed giving forward a whole step.

It has let us see: a gift, with that one touch of seeing-through wisdom added—the three wheels loosened—crosses the river, from ordinary giving into the dāna-pāramitā that can ferry people across (chapter one). Through an eye given away, we saw what "the three wheels empty" is, and saw that "the other shore" is no distant perfection but the end of this one loosening of the hand, this one crossing (chapter two). We then saw that "empty" is not "nothing"—all the more effort in the deed, all the less grip in the mind (chapter three). And last, we saw that this greatest of gifts must grow, on its positive side, all the way into a clean heart—while beneath it runs a line that cannot be crossed (this chapter).

This whole part has been loosening the "I who is giving." Loosened to this point, the work is already deep.

And yet the telling of "the three wheels empty" that carries the most force, the most music—the one that has sunk deepest into people's hearts—is not these treatises of the patriarchs. It is a sūtra. A sūtra of which nearly everyone in this land has heard at least a few lines. It condensed "the three wheels empty" into a single sentence you can probably already recite—"Let the mind arise without abiding anywhere."

In the next part, we walk into the Diamond Sūtra.