Not Taking Is Also a Kind of Giving

6.1 Not Taking Is Also a Kind of Giving

Part Three spoke of one thing: to hold to not killing is to give all beings a measure of peace of mind—this is called the gift of fearlessness. Keeping the precepts is itself a kind of giving.

The Śūraṅgama Sūtra takes this principle one step further, onto another precept—onto not stealing. And it pushes deeper, and sharper.

"If Stealing-Mind Is Not Abandoned, the Dust Cannot Be Left"

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Buddha laid down for practitioners the four precepts that matter most—called the Four Pure Precepts: no lust, no killing, no taking, no lying. When He came to not-taking, He said something of great weight:

"If stealing-mind is not abandoned, the dust cannot be left."

"The dust" means the dust and toil of birth-and-death—this round of rebirth that keeps a person turning without end. The Buddha says: so long as that stealing mind has not been removed, you cannot get out of this round. However great your wisdom, however present your power of concentration—so long as this stealing-mind remains, you will fall into deviant paths all the same.

Notice: the Buddha did not say "do not steal things." He said "if stealing-mind is not abandoned."

Not stealing things is a matter of the hand—not taking other people's goods. But stealing-mind is a matter of the heart—that dim, half-formed thought of wanting to grab, to scoop up, to get what was never mine to get. Even if you have never stolen a cent in your life, so long as the mind that wants to scoop a little extra, gain a little advantage, get something for nothing, is still there, that is still stealing-mind.

What the Śūraṅgama Sūtra means to remove is this deeper thing—not only "do not take the object that should not be taken," but "do not let even that one thought of wanting to take arise." This pushes not-taking from the hand into the heart.

The Reverse Side of Not Stealing Is Giving

Then, once stealing-mind has been removed, what is left?

Giving.

This is not me stretching the point on the sūtra's behalf—these are the Śūraṅgama Sūtra's own words. Right after the passage on stealing-mind, the Buddha says that a bhikṣu of true practice should be like this:

"Of robe and bowl, keep not even a fraction beyond; give the residue of alms to feed starving beings."

Robe and bowl: enough to use is enough, and not an inch more is kept. Food gathered on alms-round: what is left after eating goes to beings who are starving. Look—once the stealing-mind that wants to hold more and keep more is removed, that hand loosens of itself and gives. On the reverse side of not stealing there stands, unmistakably, the single word giving. The sūtra's own text writes it out plainly.

And the Buddha goes more thoroughly still:

"They must abandon both body and mind, offering flesh and blood together with sentient beings."

Not only loosening what lies outside the body—even this body itself, its flesh, its bones, its blood, one is willing to hold in common with all beings. This is no longer merely the gift of wealth; here the body itself has become the thing given—that last, tightest-clenched possession, "this body of mine," is also loosened, also given away.

So look at this road: remove stealing-mind (stop scooping things into "mine") → loosen the hand (share with beings) → loosen even the body (hold it in common with beings). Followed to its end, not-taking turns out to be the most thorough giving of all.

Block One Hand, Loosen the Other

This joins giving and not-taking into one single thing.

Giving loosens "mine" outward—one hand opens and gives away. Not-taking blocks the hand, stops it from scooping into "mine"—the other hand halts and does not take. One gives outward; one blocks inward. The directions are opposite, yet what they both touch is the same "I"—the self-grasping that everywhere wants to draw things inside the border of "mine."

When you hold to not stealing and do not take what should not be taken, turn this over and it too is a kind of giving: you have given everyone in the world the peace of mind of "what is mine is safe in your presence." It is the sister piece, on the same principle, of the peace of mind that not killing gives—"I will not be harmed by you."

The patriarchs who explained this passage saw it through and through. Some say that on the surface it speaks of cutting off stealing, while in its bones it speaks entirely of letting-go and giving—judging not stealing to be, outright, an unfolding of giving. Some take the passage apart into several acts of letting-go: keeping no extra robe or bowl is letting go of greed; sharing alms-food is letting go of stinginess; treating blows and curses as praise is letting go of anger; loosening body and mind together is letting go all the way to the bottom. One precept of not-taking turns out to be a whole suite of letting-go.

In the end, the five parts before this spoke of giving—teaching you to loosen "mine" and give it away; this chapter speaks of not-taking—teaching you to block the hand that wants to scoop, and not take. One loosening, one blocking: they treat the two hands of the same self-grasping. Seen from the side of not taking, giving shows its reverse side—keeping the precepts, keeping the rules, is itself already giving.

Walking On

Not-taking is precept. To keep one precept turns out to be a kind of giving—this is giving seen from the side of precept.

Then what of concentration and wisdom, which lie deeper than precept? When a person sits in stillness and takes up Chan inquiry, cultivates contemplation, awakens—what has that to do with giving?

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra there are twenty-five sages, each of whom entered by a different road and awakened. In the next chapter we go to look at a strange thing: these twenty-five roads, every one of them, at the end, flow out into a kind of giving.