Any practical concrete recommendations for opportunities to donate to Sangha? Especially Sangha who respect Vinaya.
Thank you!
- You pick a monastery you like.
- You let them know how much you want to donate in value.
- Express if you want to donate “things” or “allowable requisites”. Allowable requisites can be for collective projects like a building etc. Normally they will take 100% of what you suggest
- Donate in person, remotely, or through a representative.
- Share merit.
The main thing is you invite them and let them know you want to donate.
All monasteries have needs from electricity to water, to building kuṭis. Larger monasteries run out quickly even though they may seem “rich”. For instance, Pa-Auk might appear rich with all of the construction and nice kuṭis, but they might lack soap one week. Pa-Auk kuṭis are usually donated in full or paired up privately with friends to donate one in full.
@gregk donated a kuṭi at Pa-Auk; was it one of the 80’s kuṭis with the German monk staying there, right? He built it for a mere $1400. Now they are much more than that! One of the old but larger “black” kuṭis. Black because it was painted with used engine oil to keep the termites out. I remember Greg painting the roof white when I was there. It was his idea.
When you have 500 residents, 50 bars of soap is nothing. Often Pa-Auk gives small items to each monk and then the leftovers that are not needed are put in the storeroom. This is wasteful, but usually, all items get used up. The exception is robes. A Pa-Auk monk gets 3-6 high-quality robes per year, and 3 or 4 low-quality robes too.
So just pick a place. Make sure you say “I’m giving this as a saṅghadāna.”
Make sure you share merit.