Taken from Rinpoche’s Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun of the Mahayana Thought Training.
The texts mention there are various attitudes and actions that should be abandoned and various ones that should be done in the perfection of charity.
THE ATTITUDES TO BE ABANDONED
• We should not have the idea that practicing charity has no result.
• We should not practice it with pride, thinking we are so generous and that others are unable to give as we do.
• We should not have any competitiveness in our giving.
• Whenever we give, we should avoid the wish to receive anything in return for our generosity, such as receiving a good reputation. There should be no thought of mundane reward.
• We should not be discouraged when we are trying to practice charity. Before doing so, we should be happy we are able to practice it; while doing so, we should be calm; and afterward there should be no regret at having practiced it.
• We should not be reluctant to give our things away, realizing that this attitude is only because we are unfamiliar with practicing charity. In previous lifetimes we have been miserly, and that trait is still within us. We need to overcome this and develop the attitude of wanting to give.
• We should not be afraid of becoming poor through offering what we consider to be ours. Thinking we don’t have enough to offer anything to others is a block to our generosity. We can remedy this by understanding how in the past, delusion and karma have caused us to be miserly, which has resulted in this poverty. Therefore if we want to have enough in the future, we must overcome our miserliness. Therefore, even if it means having less now, it is very worthwhile.
• We should not be reluctant to give away things we consider extremely beautiful. If we feel such a reluctance, we can see how attachment to a beautiful object is a block to our spiritual development, and that clinging to the pleasure of that object is in fact a form of suffering. In that way we can happily give it away.
• We should not have attachment to the objects we can give away but instead think that it is inevitable we will have to be separated from them anyway — the object will leave us by breaking or such, or we will leave it by dying. With this sense of impermanence we should joyfully offer the object.
• We should not have negative thoughts toward the object of our charity. If we perceive certain faults in the person we are giving something to, we should not tell others this.
• We should not give with partiality but rather have compassion for friend, enemy, and stranger alike. It is possible that because of limited funds we cannot give everything we want to everybody. If we wish to give to, say, two beggars but only have enough money to give to one, we should give to the poorer but explain to the other, pleasantly and with a sweet expression, that giving to the other beggar does not mean we don’t care for them. Nor should we only consider giving to the poor and feel that the rich don’t deserve or need our charity.
By abandoning these attitudes our practice of charity becomes pure. We should always practice charity by our own hand — being the actual giver of the present — without harming others, by bearing difficulties as they arise, and using sincere words and a gentle manner. Each of these attitudes has its results.
We can also help others practice charity with such attitudes. For instance, when we are with a miserly person who has never contemplated giving to others, we can explain we have something we would like to give and ask if they could find a beggar and bring them to us so we can offer it, or we can ask them to offer it themselves. We can also encourage them to give joyfully, thus planting the seed of generosity. We create much merit in this way.
THE ACTIONS TO BE ABANDONED
• We should not give small amounts or inferior things when we can give more, nor should we justify our miserliness by reminding others of how we have been so generous in the past.
• We should not delay practicing charity until we have accumulated vast possessions and hence would not miss what we gave away at all.
• We should not harm a third party in any way with our giving, such as making an animal carry a burden that is too heavy.
• We should not compel anybody else to create a nonvirtuous action such as killing in order for us to practice charity.
• We should not frighten the recipient of our charity, such as shouting at a beggar we give some money to, accusing them of not working.
• We should not give stolen goods. The texts say with materials taken with force from our parents or servants. Were we to become a king, we should not deprive a family of their child in order to give that child to another family.
• We should not break our precepts in order to practice charity.
THE THINGS NOT TO BE GIVEN
• We should not give something that will harm somebody. The perfection of charity does not mean that we always have to give everything that anybody wants. There are many things we should refrain from giving because to do so would harm the other being. In Lamrim Chenmo, Lama Tsongkhapa lists these. It is worthwhile to study this list. There is also an explanation about how not to give.112 For instance, say somebody was contemplating suicide and, being unable to find any weapon to use, asks us for a gun or something. Of course it is utterly inappropriate to give them a gun if there is danger they might kill themselves with it. In the same way, poison or anything like that is considered an inappropriate object to give. On the other hand, if somebody with bodhichitta wants poison, a weapon, alcohol, or the like, in order to benefit somebody else, then it is appropriate to give these.
• A member of the sangha should not give away their robes. They are not supposed to physically give away such things, but they can mentally do so.
• Laypeople should not give away a monk’s yellow robes.
• We should not give away our parents.
• We should not offer food to those who are fasting or who have taken the vow to not eat in the afternoon, or offer black food such as garlic, onions, or meat to those who have very strict diets, such as Brahmins who keep very clean.
• We should not give statues, holy texts, and so forth to inappropriate people, those who have no sincere desire to know the meaning and do not have devotion, regarding such things as merely material.
• We should not give away our body before we are ready to do so. Whereas it is a wonderful notion to be able to give our body to others, we should not do this before the right time, when we have developed great compassion toward all sentient beings and hence would be happy to give it. Neither should we give our body if it is more beneficial for other sentient beings that our body continues to exist, even though somebody might be begging for it. The texts say that in that case, even a part of the body should not be given. We should not give our body to the wrong object, to those who are evil and will use it to create nonvirtue, or to those possessed by spirits or who are crazy. It should not be given to be used to kill somebody else. Such uses are breaking the bodhisattva’s precepts.
In general, we should give whatever brings the benefit of leading the recipient on the path; whereas if the gift brings some short-term benefit or temporal pleasure but harms in the long-term, we should not give it.
When we have taken the bodhisattva vows and are trying to follow the bodhisattva’s path, we should understand the importance of practicing charity and determine to develop our generosity to the greatest degree until we can happily offer our body, all our possessions, and even all our merit to other beings. By understanding the perfection of charity, we should see how destroying our miserliness and developing our generosity is of vital importance.