4. Belief in rewards of giving alms (dāna) and practising the moral precepts (sīla)―i.e. rewards of generosity and morality

Another characteristic of Right View is the conviction that giving alms―dāna―and practising moral precepts―sīla―yield rewards.

What rewards do we receive in return for practising almsgiving? Longevity, good looks, comforts, and strength. Who is it that we see as a king, nobleman or prosperous deva? ―A product of dāna. Such animals as the elephant, the lion, the tiger that today live in the jungle, whose longevity, impressive or dignified appearance, comforts, and strength are greater, are in fact beings who had given alms with no belief in karma and karma-results when they were born as humans in past lives. They have no regard for moral precepts. There are giant peta-ghosts and asuras living in their respective planes of existence. Why they receive such an enormous size is purely as a result of dāna they had offered in previous lives. Though they tumbled down to peta-ghost and asura worlds owing to a mind of greed that had arisen as the death consciousness at the moment of death, due to rewards of dāna, they become beings with longevity, impressive appearance, comforts and strength that are greater.

What are the rewards of practising moral precepts? The person who practises moral precepts is bound to have their good reputation spread far and wide; is able to go before any assembly fearlessly and confidently; is guaranteed not to be mentally deranged at the moment of death; is sure to get rebirth in a fortunate destination. Who is a human being, a deva or a brahma?―A product of sīla. Who is a human being that leads a life replete with wealth, rank, power or good family life? ―A product of dāna and sīla practised in the previous life. Like this, we must have a firm conviction that such are the fruits of dāna and sīla.

Where we don’t have this conviction, society tends to always resent and feel hatred towards people who are able, talented, competent, affluent. Due to the disparity between classes of society how many clashes, wars, murders occur in society? Why does society come into conflict this way? ―Simply due to beholding society with no belief in rewards of dāna and sīla. If you feel hatred against the fruits of worthy wholesome karma-formations received by a human being in society, you must recognize that what you are thus resenting is the Dhamma. The person who has belief in the rewards of dāna and sīla won’t rebel against another’s comforts thinking it is unfair. Forsaking the myth called ‘social injustice’, they view the world according to karma-formations―saṅkhāras.1

In the Dhamma, ideologies such as communism, socialism, or a society free of social strata will be rejected. Through the Dhamma it becomes crystal clear that one’s affluence, power, beauty, or social class is not a mere political phenomenon but purely a result of saṅkhāras. The person who has belief in the rewards of dāna and sīla, without resenting others’ comforts, steadily accumulates for themselves the causative factors for future comforts by strengthening themselves in dāna and sīla.

Where you understand that it was purely as the fruit of past dāna and sīla that Prince Siddhārtha received opulent royal comforts, imperial palaces Ramma-Suramma-Subha,2 unimaginable luxury as a prince living in Jambudīpa brimming with comforts; …that it was as a product of previously giving alms that the noblewoman Visākhā3 received the great exquisite necklace she wore, worth hundreds of thousands: there, noticing the supremacy of the rewards of dāna and sīla without hating others’ success will be a worthy characteristic of Right View.

1 Saṅkhāra denotes ‘karma-formation’―i.e. wholesome or unwholesome volitional activity of body, speech or mind.

2 Ramma, Suramma and Subha were the three palaces occupied by Gotama Buddha during his lay life.

3 Visākhā was the chief among the female lay-disciples of the Buddha. She became a stream-enterer at the age of 7 and died at the ripe age of 120.