People Won’t Donate If You Say You Aren’t Accepting Offerings

Recently, I read a Chinese article titled something like “My Understanding of Dharma Assembly Offerings and the Holiness and Purity of the Buddha” written by Gongga Zunba (贡嘎尊巴) and Renqin Quezhen (仁欽却珍). My Dharma brother and sister said how they were disappointed in the way Buddhist disciples acted towards offerings. Since H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III doesn’t accept offerings and everyone knows this, people treat their red pockets as props. After such an extraordinary Dharma assembly they just naturally (自觉) went up and took back their red pockets without anyone’s instructions. It’s become such a natural thing to not give offerings to my Buddha Master that people automatically retrieve their offerings. Gongga Zunba and Renqin Quezhen said something like we should treat it as money that isn’t ours anymore and just donate it to the right temples and/or organizations instead of taking it back.

They also said this tells us something about the authenticity of H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III’s vow to never accept offerings. I had a realization after they shared this point. I thought, “wow, this is the effect of saying you don’t accept offerings.” I had thought about whether there are people who can still pretend to refuse offerings, and publicly announce they won’t accept offerings, but actually accept them behind the scenes. However, regardless of whether that’s true, just think about the kind of situation that saying you don’t accept offerings creates.