Guidelines for the Use of Income from Dharma Items

Tsatsa cast by Sonam Sherpa, France, August 2016. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

Essential Attitude| What Is a Dharma Item? | Salaries | How to Work with Income from Holy Objects

Essential Attitude

The main motivation should be to make the Dharma available in order to benefit sentient beings.

Avoid the thought of making money from Dharma
We should always avoid the thought that we are selling the Dharma. Therefore, while charges are levied for certain Dharma items that may be sold in the Dharma shop or as part of the education program at the center, it is very important not to arise the thought of making money from the Dharma.

To cover the expenses, even the salary of someone employed to create Dharma items, which will ultimately be sold, is acceptable, but the motivation should not be one of making money for profit.

What Is a Dharma Item?

• Dharma books
• statues
• thangkas and photos of gurus and deities
• prayer (mani) wheels
• mantras inside prayer wheels
• double dorje brocade for thrones
• stupas
• dorjes and bells

Best Use of Income from Dharma Items

• purchase more of the same items
• build temples, monasteries, shrine rooms, places that house the triple gem (where sentient beings can collect merit and purify their minds and negative karma by doing practices of purification and meditating on the path to enlightenment)
• build stupas
• print Dharma books
• make prayer wheels
• buy statues
• paint buddhas
• commission thangkas
• frame or put brocade on thangkas or holy images
• buy water bowls and other offerings to perform at the altar (like butter, pots used for candles and butter lamps etc.)
• buy auspicious symbols, cymbals, trumpets and other instruments for ritual music.

Not Dharma Items
Money made from the sale of these objects can be used for other expenses of the center, for example:

• katas 
• malas
• mandala sets
• water bowls
• auspicious symbols
• robes
• representations of the 7 royal emblems and 8 substances

Salaries

You can pay salaries with income from Dharma
It is suitable for a Dharma publishing company, or other enterprise that is creating Dharma objects, or a center’s bookshop, to pay reasonable salaries to its staff from the proceeds of sales [of holy objects], and to cover the costs of overheads.

BUT it’s better to use other income 
However if your center is able to find a way to pay wages from resources other than the proceeds of the sale of holy objects, this is best. Rinpoche says “even high yogis experience obstacles by using money from the selling of holy objects [for food and water].”

If there is no other way to pay staff and one has to use income from the sale of Dharma items to pay salaries, then with the attitude of sacrificing oneself and cherishing others and the wish only to benefit others by bringing them the Dharma, this is acceptable, but there must be a positive attitude with the main motivation being to make the Dharma available.

Always avoid consuming food and drink bought with money coming from the sale of the Dharma.
Regardless of your motivation, if one ingests food or drink bought with money coming from the sale of Dharma, it is going to have a negative effect.

Buildings built using income from the Dharma will have a subtle negative effect (a form of pollution), which holy beings would be aware of immediately. Normal people will not be aware of this pollution, but will incur a negative result.

How to Work with Income from Holy Objects

It is important to try one’s best to avoid the obstacles that come from using income from holy objects for non-Dharma purposes.

For the Center or Shop: Be clear that income from the sale of Dharma items is to cover labor, materials, salaries, etc., not the Dharma itself 
The company or center can make it clear what proportion of the income from items (eg: books or statues) is required to cover production expenses (such as salaries and overheads), what proportion covers materials, and what proportion there may be to enable the future production of Dharma items. Then the company or center must be very careful to ensure that the income is used in that way.

For the maker of holy objects: Tell people the cost of labor, materials, etc. 
It is acceptable to cover your costs by telling people ordering holy objects the cost of materials and the cost of labor for that object, and asking people to cover both costs.  In this way it is not selling the Dharma.

So you can set an hourly wage for making holy objects, and charge for your time and the cost of the materials and related expenses. In the cost of materials you can include all your related expenses. So then you say the cost of the holy object is:

Working time – xxx
Cost of materials – xxx

This way you can make holy objects without any idea of selling them. Instead, you sell your time, so that the money you make won’t be coming from selling holy objects. By doing it this way you won’t experience heavy obstacles and suffering in the lower realms.

People can make a donation for the Dharma 
As well as charging for materials and labor, it is acceptable to say that they are welcome to make a donation if they would like. Another way is that when somebody offers a donation, then you give them the holy object to thank them, without the motivation of selling.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche suggests that to charge for materials and time is easier.

The main thing is to avoid any idea of actually selling the holy object.

Once when the Sangha were having an interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, somebody raised the question about publishing books and Dharma texts and things like that and having to live on that money. As I recall, His Holiness said, “If one works at producing books and there is no other way, then one has to live on money that comes from selling those books.

Regarding this, I [Lama Zopa Rinpoche] want to say that if one has other means to easily support oneself it is good, and it is better to choose that way. The main thing is that it depends on one’s attitude. Generally what you hear in the teachings is that one should not sell Dharma scriptures, statues, and so on. But, since there is nobody who makes offerings of statues and scriptures to everybody else, the two or three people who start a business to, say, make statues, whether their attitude is the thought to benefit others or the thought to benefit themselves, the thousands or however many they make give many other sentient beings some opportunity to create merit…

You can see that if nobody publishes books, if nobody bears the hardships because of the negative karma, then all the rest of the sentient beings do not get the opportunity to meet the Buddhadharma through reading.

In this instance it is important to have strong, unbearable compassion towards other sentient beings who are suffering because of not having the Dharma wisdom eye (how ignorant they are!) and to have the thought of completely renouncing yourself and cherishing others: I’m gong to experience whatever suffering results. Whatever trouble arises from this, I’m going to experience it for the sake of others. If your attitude can be one of complete sacrifice like this, I think that due to its power it is great purification in itself.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from Ganden Lha Gyama Commentary, 1986

• Tagged: dharma income, selling dharma items