Eco Dharma Centre | Radical Ecology Radical Dharma

the dana economy

All our events are offered in the spirit of dana, a Sanskrit/Pali word meaning giving or gift. The practice of generosity takes us beyond separate selfhood and constitutes a basic ethos at the heart of life-affirming community. So, a dana economy is a gift economy or an economy rooted in generosity.

The economic forms of consumerism and capitalism strongly condition our relationship to the world. They encourage us to experience ourselves as discrete subjective entities, producers or consumers, insulated from responsive engagement with others. Rather than emulate this, we want to support economic relationships which contribute towards a culture of sharing.

We don’t want to enter into relationship with you as the providers of a service for a consumer. We want to enter into a wholehearted human relationship with you, as co-producers and collaborators in the transformation of ourselves and our world. To support this intention, rather than offering our work as a service to be bought, we ask for contributions to make this work possible. The basic principle of the Dana Economy is, “give what you can, take what you need”.

The suggested donations in our programme reflect the basic income required to make the events viable. The centre is a registered not-for-profit project. We don’t have any independent means of financing the events. So, we do need financial support to make the events viable. If you can offer more, please do. Similarly, we appreciate that your financial circumstances might mean you need to give less. Either way, please look at the suggested contributions and enter into the spirit of the dana economy by giving what you can, so that we can support you to take what you need. We are also open to discussing donations in the form of skill sharing and other offers of work to support the project. We look forward to meeting you in the spirit of mutual generosity.

Put simply: All financial contributions you make are donations, pure and simple, that enable the Ecodharma project to fulfill our aims as a non-profit organisation.

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NB:The dana economy exists to help address issues of economic marginalisation. In the case of courses and trainings organised in relationship to particular Organisations or grant-funded projects, we make specific contractual agreements regarding payment for training._