Dana

dāna means “generosity” in Pali and Sanskrit. What this means is that this is a commitment to not placing a price on the teaching of the dharma but making it freely available so that no one be excluded from receiving the teachings for financial reasons. It also allows for the practice of generosity by the students and the teachers trusting the support of the students.

Not fixing a price does not mean that there is no cost to teaching. To qualify to teach, a teacher in my lineage will have practiced ourselves in intensive silent retreats for over a decade, matured their practice through study and have undergone teacher training for several years usually relying on savings and a very simple even ascetic life. And while teaching, have livings costs as all human beings and need to continue to practice for the teaching to be of benefit.

I encourage you to make an offering not as a capitalist act of paying back for something and depending on how much value you think you got out of it. Firstly, because the value of practice cannot be assessed uniquely on an immediate level, we don’t know when seeds we plant now will come to fruition. Also, we can consider the possibility that we are paying forward, contributing to making the teachings available to others in the future so it becomes less self-centered, in what there is in it for me now and more about how we are creating a potential for a better world and a better future for all when we support the livelihood of a teacher to continue to teach and practice. In this way we go against the stream of getting and accumulating for self and that altruistic release of self-concern will contribute to purifying the mind and heart, generating wellbeing and joy and furthering us on the path of liberation.

I invite you to support me financially using one of the modalities below, according to your means and also as a practice oof generosity:

Once one of my dear teachers, Joseph Goldstein was asked how to decide how much to give and he replied: “Offer the amount that makes you feel generous” – this is the practice of generosity.

Dana - EURO - Europe (SEPA)

Name: Ana Monica Costa Antunes

Address: Ch. des Tines 8, 1260 Nyon, Switzerland

PostFinance (EUR)

IBAN: CH31 0900 0000 9104 2306 1 (compte en euros)

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Dana - CHF - Suisse / Switzerland

For wiring from outside Europe you can use WISE: https://wise.com/us/pricing/

PostFinance (CHF)

IBAN: CH07 0900 0000 4075 0361 6

PostFinance’s BIC (SWIFT code)

POFICHBEXXX