Generosity (Dana)

"It is the most basic of practices in making merit.  Giving of material gifts include food to the hungry, medicine to the sick, and so on."  This quote comes from the essay, "The Ten Ways of Making Merit".  You can find the full essay by clicking here.

Preschool and Early Elementary
For my youngest students we began this lesson by discussing what gifts we as lay people bring to the monks.  We bring them food, robes, and medicine.  We also make sure that they have shelter.  The children were able to recall the many times that they have personally offered food to monks during community celebrations and family visits to the Buddhist Center.

They pasted symbols of the four needs we help supply to the monks.  Then they labelled each symbol.

I asked them to consider other people to whom we could give material gifts.  How can we show generosity at school?  At home?  In our neighborhood.  They volunteered sweet examples like
-sharing their pencils and crayons with someone at school who forgot theirs
-sharing their toys with a sibling
-sharing a treat from their lunch 
-giving food to the homeless

We talked about how our gifts help people.  A classmate could finish their assignment.  A sibling had a chance to enjoy a toy.  Someone would no longer be hungry.  These are physical affects.  I wanted them to see the mental and emotional affects their generosity would have on people too.  So I asked, "How do you think people feel when you are generous towards them?
Smiles all around as children called out words:
HAPPY
LOVED
CARED FOR
THANKFUL

Then we discussed the blessings that we as givers receive when we are generous to other people.
-Affection from other people - they love and appreciate us
-We feel good about ourselves 
-Happiness, knowing that we've helped
-Good company - because nice and kind people want to be friends with other people who are kind
-Heavenly rebirth - remembering these good things gives us peace both now and when we die.  

To help the children leave this lesson with resolve to practice generosity, I gave them a simple art project.
Each child was encouraged to close their eyes and think of someone they could be generous to this week.  "Picture in your mind who you could help.  Picture yourself doing something for someone.  Think of how it makes them feel.  Think of how it makes you feel."  Then the children drew pictures of themselves showing generosity.

Middle School and High School
Taking turns, the older students read the text on generosity aloud.

Here are the questions we used for discussion:
-What is dana?
-Why would craving be called "the house builder of suffering"?
-How could dana help reduce our craving?
-What material gifts do we as lay people give to the Sangha (monks & nuns)?
 The pasting project could be done here if your older students still enjoy projects like this.  Mine do.
-How else can one gain merit (purified, stronger mind) through giving material gifts?  Who else could we help?  How?
-What blessings does the giver of food receive?  Have you noticed these benefits in your own life or in the lives of others?
-What are simple ways that you can practice dana in your own life?  
-How as a group can we practice dana?

Children offering food to monks at a ceremony.

The older children were given a worksheet to complete privately from the book, "How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything" by Cheri Huber.  The worksheet guided them through a reflection of their own personal compassion with questions like:
-When are you most compassionate?
-When are you least compassionate?
-Are you more compassionate with yourself or others?
-What is the most loving, compassionate thing you could do for yourself right now?
-What do believe about yourself and life that keeps you from doing this?
-Similar questions concerning compassion directed toward others.

The most important point I wanted to drive home to the students was that generosity is a form of merit.  It makes our minds stronger and more pure.  The merit we gain by practicing generosity can never be taken away from us.  We can recall it time and time again, even at our final breaths and continually receive all the benefits of our actions.

May all be free from suffering by the power of the Triple Gem.

Merit

With two years of stories from the life of Lord Buddha under their belts, I believe the children are ready to dive into the teachings of the Buddha and what it means to practice Theravada Buddhism.

For guidance I've chosen a booklet compiled by three authors titled Ten Ways to Make Merit.  You can find the booklet by clicking here.  The authors, Dr. Amerasekera, Dr. Wijesuriya, and Mahinda Wijesinghe wrote this booklet for adults, however it can easily be adapted for Middle School kids as well as very young children.

Over the next several weeks we will be discussing what merit is and different ways to obtain and share it.

I've asked for permission to share my adapted versions of this booklet from the authors.  If permitted, I'll share it here.  However, you could easily begin sharing this lesson without the adaptation by simply reading the booklet to yourself and then opening up a discussion with your youngest children.

Here's how I presented the lesson to my youngest children:

To understand the meaning of sensual pleasure we discussed the 5 senses.  Things that are sensual are experienced through these senses - our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and touch or the way things feel to our bodies.  Sensual pleasures are simply things we enjoy experiencing through our 5 senses.

The children were invited to share examples of sensual pleasures.  They talked about ice-cream and cookies, the softness of a stuffed animal, the fun of watching a cartoon or playing a video game, the smell of roses, the sound of rain...

Then using one of the the children's examples of sensual pleasure, we discussed how pleasures eventually end.  You have to turn off the tv to do your homework.  Once the cookies are eaten, they're gone.  It stops raining and so on.  I asked them to consider how they feel after the pleasure ends.  This helped us conclude that eventually sorrow, missing, and suffering replace our sensual pleasures.

Then I introduced the word MERIT. Merit is any action that improves the quality of our mind.  It makes our minds better.  It helps remove greediness, hatred, and misunderstandings.  It helps us live more peacefully with ourselves and with others.  Merit helps us do the things we want to do well and with greater success.

The most important thing I wanted the children to take away was this:  Merit cannot ever be taken away and it can be shared with everyone.  To help them appreciate this, we discussed the ways that doing something good gives us pleasure now and later.  After we do something that improves our mind, we can think about it forever afterward and share the good qualities that come from our actions with everyone.

To give them a visual image of this you can do the following:

• Bring out a treat to share.  You could use M&M's or cookies, something simple.  
• Show the children your pile of goodies and offer to share them.  
• Invite the children to count how many treats you have before you share.  
• As you pass out the treats, encourage them to keep track of how many treats you have left.
• By the end, there should be no treats left.

• Then give each child a tea light candle.  These can be safely used by even the youngest children if you place each candle in a clear, plastic cup and instruct them to look at it in front of them but not to touch the candle.  
• Present to them a tall, taper candle and light it.
• Now offer to share your light.
• As you pass the flame to each child's candle, ask them to observe how much fire is left on your taper.  

IT IS THE SAME WAY WITH MERIT!  You can share it with everyone you know without having less for yourself.

I think this is enough of a lesson for young children.  I explained that there are many ways to obtain merit that will help themselves and everyone with whom they choose to share their merit.  We'll discuss many of these different ways in the coming weeks.

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My older students took turns reading the Introduction aloud.Then I used these questions to create a discussion:

What is pleasure?

What does it mean when we read that sensual pleasures only bring happiness in the short term?

How do sensual pleasures eventually bring suffering?
What are some examples of ways that sensual pleasures can end or be taken away?

Why will neither indulgence nor abstinence of sensual pleasure bring true happiness?

What does merit do for the mind?

Now, you can't give candy and candles to the little ones without sharing a similar activity with their older siblings.  The activity used with the younger children can certainly be used with the older children as well.  Like many simple lessons, it will take on deeper meanings for the older students.

Next time we'll discuss the first of these ways of merit: Generosity

May all be free from suffering by the power of the Triple Gem!