From Mushin:
Dana is the Sanskrit word for generosity. We’ll be exploring this teaching during our upcoming Generosity Sesshin. Dana is the natural expression of an open heart and spacious mind. Generosity can bring us happiness at each stage of its unfolding – when recognizing the need, when feeling the intention of giving, and then delighting in the actual act.
In addition to giving material things, and just as valuable if not more so, is giving time, attention, and the Dharma. Opening the eye, ear and heart to the dharma of everyday life brings blessings. This is how to go beyond the separate self, to how to touch wholeheartedly the simple functioning of life. We don’t need to decide to give or to choose how we give….it flows from oneness, from the natural connection with another’s true need. In this way we appreciate our life as our instrument of full participation in a living world. The quality of your own being functions fully and is your guide and is enough. Generosity as practice is not dependent on giving as a means to anything else. It’s not dependent on getting something back, not dependent on anything but a straightforward response to an immediate need that we recognize and fulfil, free of strings, with whatever we have to give.