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The word, Dāna, may represent different meanings across different cultures, languages and faiths, but Dana meaning in Buddhism refers to the practice of giving, in the form of transfer of merits.

Despite the simplicity of the word Dāna, many Buddhists do not fully comprehend the proper effective ways to perform a Dana offering to monks, or the essence of Dana itself. We have seen many Buddhist laities participating in a house dana or temple dana cluelessly, unaware of the do’s and don’ts of the Dana ceremony.

Let’s delve into this interesting yet practical topic together.

What is Dāna in Buddhism?

Dāna is the mainstay of Theravada Buddhism to transfer merits to our departed relatives or late parents. The Dāna practice is encouraged to be done for our departed relatives or parents regardless of whether we are Theravada or Mahayana Buddhists, as this Dāna ceremony is effective for merits transfer to any departed souls.

Here’s the thing: Most Buddhist laities do not understand the significance of performing Dāna to departed souls. They think that anyone who has departed from this earth will just vanish into thin clouds and that they no longer have anything to do with these souls who could have ended up in the Hade world. In the Buddha’s teaching, ignorance is the cause of suffering; this fallacy will create eternal suffering for those departed souls.

This ignorance of knowledge will lead one to know that the different karmic effects will have different bindings on these departed souls upon entering the Hade world. Some departed souls will always be in a state of eternal suffering due to their wicked heart actions done on earth while other souls who did not perform any meritorious actions will enter the normal Hade world of living where everything is bare and crude.

Also read: The Existence of Hell World

The Significance of Performing Dāna, The Practice of Giving Merits

Dāna is a significant and practical ceremony in Buddhism. The concept of Dāna in Buddhism is more to assisting and uplifting unfortunate souls from eternal sufferings by giving them merits via the Dāna ceremony. It is similar to the situation where we have the normal strata of people on earth and surrounding us are vagabonds, the homeless and beggars who are living so bare and crudely; there is a need to assist all these unfortunate beings in their suffering state.

Shifting back to Buddhism’s Dāna, in much the same way, we are normal human beings on earth but our status and standard of living are far better than these unfortunate souls living in the Hade world. Some of these souls barely have food to eat while others are almost half naked and wearing torn clothes. Not only that, but some others are sick and unhealthy.

Therefore, our humans on earth must assist these poor unfortunate souls through performing the Dāna ceremony. This is one of the best means to help reduce all these souls suffering in the Hade world by offering merits to these poor souls. Performing Dāna for these helpless souls will more or less transfer some merits to them in the Hade world.

This transfer of merits will at least help to lessen their suffering of needs. Hence, the more we perform Dāna, the practice of giving merits to these poor souls, the more their bare living conditions will be improved and their financial constraints will also be lightened.

Dāna Practice in Mahayana Buddhism vs Theravada Buddhism

The two branches of Buddhism, namely, Mahayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism, performs Dāna differently.

The Mahayana way of transferring merits to souls is through holding a souls’ appeasement ceremony mostly in the temple compound. Usually, there will be a notice pasted in front of the temple informing interested devotees to participate in the ceremony by registering the names of the deceased as well as making payment to validate the participation.

The names, all in memory of late ancestors or late parents, will be displayed on a big board at a designated hall, where at an appropriate time, a Buddhist Mahayana master will then conduct the ceremony with a dozen bowls of rice and vegetarian dishes to offer to the invited late ancestors or parents to dine.

However, rarely do we see any masters calling and mentioning all the late ancestors’ or parents’ names one by one. This mentioning of names is crucial to complete the ceremony with an effective transfer of merits so that all invited souls registered for the ceremony can receive their individual portion of merits. Furthermore, many of these next of kin who have registered their late relatives or parents seldom make themselves present for the ceremony; this is another flaw in doing proper and effective transfer of merits to their departed relatives or late parents.

On the contrary, any Theravada way of performing Dana is much more systematic in the sense that first, we need to make an effort to meet a Temple Abbot to get the necessary appointment date for a Dana ceremony at home, also known as House Dāna. House Dāna is much more effective than performing Dāna at the temple, mainly due to a lot of effort being utilized.

The flow of doing a House Dāna in Theravada Buddhism is as follows:

• Preparing home-cooked food to be served at the dining table for the two monks to consume as part of the ceremony
• Fetching the assigned two monks by the temple to the house
• The two monks will perform some chanting specifically for the registered deceased
• The two monks will consume the prepared food offerings first, before continuing with their chanting
• Upon finishing their chanting, the two monks will then initiate the transfer of merits to the departed relatives by asking the head of the household to hold a jug of water and then pour this jug of water into a slightly smaller bottle or container that is placed inside a bigger basin to contain the water overflowing from the smaller bottle or container.
• After some more chanting, the ceremony ends. A token of donation will then be given to the monks to appreciate their time and effort in the transfer of merits during the House Dāna

The Theravada way of performing House Dāna ensures a more personalized transfer of merits to the deceased, unlike Mahayana’s way of mass transfer of merits.

Our Living Is Interconnected with Our Deceased Parents and Close Relatives

Many are disillusioned that upon death, the departure of any soul will automatically enter the heavenly realms or be entertained by the Hade authorities. Let us be cautious there is no free lunch in this world or the next.

We can only live smoothly through our proper effort, good work and ideal dispensing of our income to meet any demands and requisites. The same goes for these departed souls, hence, it is an important aspect to appease our suffering souls in the Hade world via transfers of merits.

Many should come to understand that if your departed relatives and late parents are living in very bad conditions in the Hade world, naturally the next of kin or immediate children will also suffer in this world as their lives are interconnected with each other.

Common Fallacy of Giving Merits to the Deceased, and What to Do Instead

We also witness many Buddhists have the misconception of giving merits to their departed relatives or late parents. Unfortunately, many people believe blindly as well as act blindly when it comes to merits transfer by simply offering their departed relatives as much burning of joss papers and other peripheral papers as possible at home or in the streets. Little do they know that these useless offerings are irrelevant and unbeneficial to the departed souls, especially when this action of burning joss papers and peripheral papers does not meet the needs of these souls.

There is a proper system of offerings to the souls in the Hade world, just as our humans on this earth also have our own system of offerings to deities and Buddhahood realm entities.

For example, if we want to invite anyone to dinner, we need to be courteous to call up the particular person’s name and inform our guest to attend the feast at a particular date, time and place the dinner will be held. Similarly, if we want to offer any food or hold any ceremony for the souls to attend, we need to inform the souls prior to the ceremony date.

How should you do that? At least a day or two before the ceremony, inform by praying with joss sticks facing the sky, calling out the names of the departed relatives or late parents and telling them our intended invitation to hold the Dana or any other ceremony. Remember to mention details of the ceremony such as the particular date, time and place of offerings, feast or ceremony.

This is very crucial to the souls, as souls in the Hade world or purgatory have their own activities to do and are roaming about far and wide; hence they do not know exactly the location, time and date of our invitation unless we specifically inform all these souls. The courtesy of informing souls is applicable not only to Dāna, but also for every type of event, from commemorating their death anniversary to praying during the Cheng Beng festival or burning offerings due to their request through dreams.

Final Thoughts

No matter where we are, it is important to always remember our long-lost ancestors who departed decades ago; despite their absence from the earth, it does not mean they are entirely foregone, for souls living in the Hade world have a life span of at least 180 years old. Also, souls living in the Hade world have a strong affinity with our human world’s next of kin living conditions.

If our ancestors or late parents are neglected without any due respect of offerings on the important dates of Cheng Beng festival and the 7th lunar month of All Souls New Year, then we will also be left without any blessings and fortunate tidings from these neglected souls in the Hade world.

That said, we hope our sharing on Dāna, the practice of giving merits, grants you valuable insights on the importance of Dāna transfer of merits to your late parents or departed relatives, and some common mistakes to avoid. And if you need any advice with regards to holding a House Dāna, feel free to contact us at Poh Ern Si Penang for assistance!