Dana (Charity)

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Dana means giving charity. There are two types of dana, namely (i) cetana dana and (ii) vatthu dana.

Offerings of goods, robes, monasteries, etc are classified as vatthu (material) dana, while the goodwill in these charitable acts is called cetana (volition). It is this cetana that produces beneficial results here and in the next existences, not the material things that are offered.

This mental attitude which is projected onto offertories determines the good results in future existences. If the offertories are good and noble, so also in the cetana.

If during an offering of alms-food to the Sangha, a donor has his object of awareness the food he offers and the Sangha he is offering to; then a continuous stream of cetana (volition) occurs incessantly in his mind-continuum.

That cetana arises and disappears in very rapid succession but does not disappear totally. The forces created by the cetanas just lie dormant to produce corresponding results later.

taking into consideration that more than one trillion units of consciousness can occur and disappear within the snap of fingers, one might imagine the magnitude of cetana that occurred during an alms-giving rite which last, say, three hours.

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