Offering: The Path of Gratitude and Practice in Buddhist Philosophy
1. Sustaining Existence – Life and the Beginning of Karma
For humans and all living beings, the most fundamental condition of life is the intake of energy to sustain existence. To achieve this, we hunt, gather, and constantly engage in activity to stay alive.
Our bodily structures, sensory organs, and even social systems and civilizations have evolved on top of this activity for the continuation of life.
Life is not merely about existing; it is a constant process of sustaining and functioning, involving movement to obtain energy, reactions to the environment, and choices for survival. In Buddhism, the flow of these actions and intentional, repeated behaviors is called karma.
Life never exists in isolation. All beings live through one another, and existence is always possible only in relationship. For one being to live means to draw on the vitality of another—proof that life and death coexist in a single cycle.
All living things are intertwined, interdependent, and interactive. Buddhism refers to this law of interconnectedness as dependent origination:
"This exists because that exists; This ceases because that ceases."
Dependent origination is the principle of mutual interdependence and harmony, and karma arises as an expression of this harmonious flow.
Beings that live in harmony survive; those that disrupt it perish. Therefore, everything in the phenomenal world is both a result and an expression of karma.
Life is karma, and karma is life. That life always unfolds within structures of relationship and dependent origination.
Even the smallest actions we take daily operate within this relational structure and are fragments of karma that compose life itself.
2. Offering is an Expansion of Life – When Existence Turns Toward Relationship
Living beings absorb energy to sustain themselves. That is the instinct for survival, the foundation of all life activity. But life does not exist for itself alone. It is inevitably connected to others and seeks harmony in that web of connections.
The act of recognizing and responding to this harmony is what we call “offering.”
Offering is not merely an act of giving. It is a response from the relational self to allow received energy to flow again—a natural expression of resonance when life no longer wants to keep energy only for itself but to let it flow back into the world.
Gratitude as the Philosophical Impulse Behind Offering
Why does offering arise? Before compassion or morality, it originates in a deep emotional awareness called gratitude.
Gratitude is not merely a feeling.
It is a resonant emotion that arises the moment we realize that we are not isolated entities but parts of a greater whole.
This awareness includes:
The energy I received is not solely mine,
My life depends on countless conditions in harmony,
And many of those conditions are not created by me but by external forces—this realization occurs intuitively.
Sujata’s Offering – When Resonance Becomes Practice
According to Buddhist tradition, Sujata was a woman from a wealthy family in a village near Gaya. She had long been unable to bear a child and one day prayed earnestly to a sacred tree near the Bodhi tree. When her wish was granted and she gave birth to a son, she prepared an offering of rice and milk as a token of gratitude to the tree deity.
At the same time, Siddhartha Gautama had just abandoned his severe asceticism and resolved to follow the “Middle Way.” Weak and exhausted, he arrived under the Bodhi tree, where Sujata happened to bring her offering. Mistaking him for a divine being, she gave him the food. This meal restored his strength and became a crucial turning point—afterward, he bathed in the Ganges and entered deep meditation under the Bodhi tree, eventually attaining enlightenment.
Sujata clearly believed that the tree deity had blessed her with a child. This belief is a natural and universal form of faith—when humans encounter conditions beyond their control, they often interpret these as the actions of a transcendent order, leading to deep resonance and emotional response.
But when we look more closely at the concept of ‘divinity,’ it transcends any specific deity—it can be likened to the ideal, nature, the cosmos, or the Dharma—a self-arising order that surpasses our will and cognition. Sujata’s resonance was with this very order manifesting itself in her reality.
The moment this order is realized deeply within, one perceives that they have always been in relationship, part of a greater flow. The emotion that arises from this realization is gratitude.
Gratitude is not just thankfulness, but the recognition that one's life is sustained by external conditions, and a desire to align and harmonize with them. It is a moment of ontological resonance—when the self dissolves boundaries and connects to a larger structure of life.
Sujata’s offering was a result of this resonance. She felt an inner pulse of gratitude, a need to give it form in the real world—and so her offering became a practice of circulation.
3. Offering is a Bridge Between Life and Death – The Story of Cunda
If Sujata’s offering restored the Buddha and led him to awakening, Cunda’s offering came at the end of the journey.
Near the end of his life, while traveling toward Kushinagara, the Buddha passed through the village of Pava. There, a metalsmith named Cunda respectfully served him a dish called Sukaramaddava.
After eating, the Buddha fell ill. Yet he told his disciple Ananda:
“Cunda’s offering has the same merit as Sujata’s. Do not blame him; rather, praise his deed.”
This was not mere consolation. The Buddha was revealing the true nature of offering and the equanimity of life and death.
Offering may accompany the restoration of life, or the end of it. If Sujata aided the Buddha in reclaiming his life for awakening, then Cunda supported the Buddha’s transition into Nirvana.
Offering is a cyclical act that connects life and death, beginning and end, joy and stillness.
Both offerings lie on the same plane of dependent origination. The order Sujata resonated with and the death Cunda encountered—both are expressions of the same Dharma.
Thus, the Buddha did not assign guilt to Cunda, but praised him—for his offering was a condition for Nirvana, and a profound merit in itself.
Offering allows energy to circulate in life, and when life ends, it sends energy back into the world. It is a practice of interdependence, and at its center is always gratitude.
In nature, life feeds on life. Predation and being preyed upon are not matters of fault, but of the structural interdependence of life. This is not tragedy, but a natural function of karma and dependent origination.
If Sujata’s offering sustained life, Cunda’s became part of the process of death. Yet it was not harm—it was support for the natural fulfillment of impermanence, a manifestation of the Dharma’s harmony. It was the act of accepting death as part of life—a practice of realization, a unification with reality, a moment of attunement with the cosmic order.
4. Conclusion – A Practice That Aligns with the Dharma
Offering is not merely an act of charity. It is an existential response, an act through which a being awakens to its relational nature and seeks to allow received energy to flow again.
Sujata helped sustain life. Cunda helped close it in peace. Yet both moved in the same Dharma.
Gratitude is not just emotion—it is the resonance that arises when one recognizes their true place within the web of life. Offering is that resonance given form, a response of being.
Thus, offering is a path of practice, where we return the energy of life to the flow of dependent origination—a way of living in harmony with the Dharma.
Comments
Post a Comment