them more visible. This can be seen among Thai peas-
ants, among whom the two highest forms of merit-
making—financing the construction of a monastery or
becoming a monk—are open only to the rich. In fact,
among Thai peasants, it was believed that the danaof
a rich person generated greater merit. Likewise, we find
in Thai-Lao villages the belief that with good acts one
moves up in the social hierarchy, either in a future life
or in this one. The economic consequences of this be-
lief is that poor Thai peasants spend a relatively larger
portion of their income on merit-making.
The main consequence of danahas been the accu-
mulation of monastic wealth, a fact that has led to at-
tempts at purifying the san ̇gha. This can be seen in
Myanmar, where since the eleventh century donations
to the san ̇gha have led to periods of monastic wealth
and laxity, which have led eventually to reform of the
order; the resulting community was deemed worthy of
donations, until the wealth and laxness of the monks
brought about a new reform. In any case, monks have
sought to keep monastic wealth within their families,
passing it mainly from uncle to nephew, in some cases
through the manipulation of the rule of pupillary suc-
cession.
Giving and freedom from the degradation
of need
In the context of giving and receiving it has been
pointed out that living according to the PRECEPTSis
not a possibility open to laypeople. In fact, in order
for monks to live in the proper manner, laypeople
have to break the precepts—for example, they must
kill in order to feed the monks meat, and they must
work, an activity forbidden to the monks. Does this
mean, as S. J. Tambiah maintains, that the work of
laypeople, insofar as it frees the monks for higher pur-
suits, is virtuous and deserving of merit, even though
in principle it is polluting? Or is it rather that by
accepting that which they, in theory, have not de-
manded, the monks allow the donors to live vicari-
ously a life beyond necessity, while at the same time
consuming and thus neutralizing the pollution inher-
ent in all work? Going back to what was said about
early Buddhism being a meditation on the process of
deferral and on the new approach to labor, we can say
that it is also in relation to labor that Buddhism seems
to function as the means of transcending the degra-
dation of being subject to need.
Another way of transcending that degradation re-
quires functioning in the world in a manner that avoids
engaging in a zero-sum game. This is achieved through
the practice of merit transfer, that is, the practice of
generating merit for the sake of somebody else. Rather
than diminishing the merit, transfer multiplies it; in
fact, anyone can partake of this merit without dimin-
ishing it in any way; instead, one’s desire to partake of
the merit generated by somebody else functions as a
multiplier.
Having examined a range of Buddhist attitudes to-
ward the economic realm, what seems to be specific to
Buddhism in this regard is the extent to which it is con-
cerned with the processes that underlie need and de-
sire, production and work, giving and taking, hierarchy
and equality, and coming into being and dissolution.See also:UsuryBibliography
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