What Is the Giving of Wealth? What Are the Three Kinds of Giving? | Master Jingben
【Q&A Series】
What Is the Giving of Wealth? What Are the Three Kinds of Giving?
Master Jingben Answers: Namo Amitabha. The "giving of wealth" you mention is one of the three kinds of giving spoken of in Buddhism. The giving spoken of in Buddhism is generally divided into three kinds: the giving of wealth, the giving of Dharma, and the giving of fearlessness.
1. The Giving of Wealth
This means using material goods to benefit others and help sentient beings. For example: donating to relieve the poor, making offerings to the Three Jewels, supporting monasteries in spreading the Dharma, and so on. The giving of wealth is further divided into two kinds: the first is "outer wealth" — material things outside the body, such as money, food, and clothing; the second is "inner wealth" — using one's own body, labor, and time to help others, such as serving the community as a volunteer. This too is giving.
Let me also mention, in this connection, the other two kinds of giving.
2. The Giving of Dharma
This means using the Buddha-Dharma to benefit sentient beings — introducing the Dharma to others, so that they may hear the right teaching and leave suffering to attain joy. For example: expounding the Dharma for others, giving away sutras, circulating Dharma materials, sharing the Master's teaching videos, and even encouraging someone to recite a single "Namo Amitabha" — all of these are the giving of Dharma. The Buddha said, "Among all offerings, the offering of Dharma is supreme," because material goods can only relieve a difficulty of the moment, while the Dharma can enable a person to attain liberation from birth and death and to be freed from suffering ultimately. This is why the merit of giving Dharma is the most supreme. For us who recite the Name, "having faith ourselves and teaching others to believe" — sharing this Buddha-Name with those who have affinity — is the finest giving of Dharma.
3. The Giving of Fearlessness
This means enabling sentient beings to be free of fear and to gain peace and security. For example: comforting those who are fearful and uneasy, accompanying those who are sick and dying, protecting the weak, and refraining from killing so that beings are spared from terror, and so on — whatever can remove beings' fear and give people a sense of safety is the giving of fearlessness. To recite the Name on behalf of the dying, bringing peace of mind to the deceased and their family, is precisely an expression of the giving of fearlessness.
What matters most in giving is that one heart — acting out of a compassionate, joyful, and sincere heart, doing as much as one's means and strength allow. And for us who recite the Name, while practicing giving, let us not forget that the most fundamental thing is still this one "Namo Amitabha." To recite the Name while giving as conditions and strength allow — and even, in the very act of giving, to connect people with the affinity for reciting the Name — nothing could be better than that. Namo Amitabha
微信分享
扫描二维码，或复制链接分享
