The Motivation of Giving Away Statues

[jessicajameson]

WisdomBeing, this is quite a tricky one... I feel that if she told the recipient of the statue that she didn't want the statue anymore coz of the reason you gave - then she accumulated bad karma.

However, if she just gave the statue away - it'll only be her loss. I don't see what negative karma can be accumulated by giving a statue away. After all, she benefited the recipient! The only horrible thing is the intention.

Intention - Don't want the statue as to not be associated with the temple.
Action - She gives it away.
Deed is complete - Her friend receives it.
Rejoice - She rejoices in giving it away.

Only the bad part is the intention!

[thor]

As I understand it, merits are only acquired when one has good motivation. And merits are kept only if one does dedications.

So in this example here, I believe the lady in question would not have accumulated any merits at all, as her motivation is to get rid of the statues, not to benefit the recipient.

And for those who say that what she did is better than throwing the statues away --- yes that is true, but why didnt she throw the statues away then? If it was because she was afraid of negative karma from throwing away statues, she is correct... but then again, her motivation for giving away her statues was not to benefit the other person, but to save herself from accruing that negative karma.

So once again, no merits.

[Big Uncle]

Well, I think statues of enlightened Buddhas have tremendous ability to bring benefit to people. I think Rihanna's answer should be correct. There's benefit in giving away statues to further other people's practice but in this case, only half or less merits is accrued because the motivation was to get rid of the statue and actually negative karma is accrued along with it. I think there's no difference where one 'throws' away the Buddha statue, the negative karma of throwing is accrued. However, positive or negative action associated with any Buddha statue will eventually become positive by the power of the enlightened being.

[tsangpakarpo]

I guess in a way it is a good thing to do (giving away the statue) rather than throwing it away?

The giver will gain good karma as the receiver will benefit from the statue. But at the end of the day, the motivation is still most important.

[rossoneri]

I guess when someone no longer have faith in Buddhism and gave up the practices it'll automatically degenerating. In this case if someone would have to gave the Buddha statue to their friend with the motivation of giving up the practice i don't think, in my opinion they will get any merits if their friend were have to pray everyday. Perhaps if their friend is kind enough to dedicate some of the merit to them, maybe they will gain some but is it enough to cover for their negative karma which they are about to create after giving up the dharma?

[Q]

I guess when someone no longer have faith in Buddhism and gave up the practices it'll automatically degenerating. In this case if someone would have to gave the Buddha statue to their friend with the motivation of giving up the practice i don't think, in my opinion they will get any merits if their friend were have to pray everyday. Perhaps if their friend is kind enough to dedicate some of the merit to them, maybe they will gain some but is it enough to cover for their negative karma which they are about to create after giving up the dharma?

Hmm... you brought up a good point.

Does one get negative karma for giving up the karma? I wonder.

The Dharma is the truth, but it is also not the only truth as there are many other religious practices that many Dharma teachers will tell u is good to practice. One can be Christian and if they follow the true practice of Christianity, they too can very much be an enlightened being, take for example the truly compassionate Mother Teresa. After all, Buddha taught 84k teachings... perhaps one of these teachings end up becoming Christianity based religion? U never know... the history of Christianity has been rewritten so many times.

So does one get negative karma if the decide to give up Buddhism? If we say yes, then that is like the Christians telling us we will go to hell for not being Christian. So what's the real answer?

In my personal opinion, I think there is no negative karma for someone to decide to leave the Buddhist practice... but the only negative karma they will be collecting is they probably dwell more into samsaric activities once they give up Buddha Dharma. And it will be worst if they become extremely repulsive towards the Dharma that they start creating schism and bad mouthing Buddhism.

So what do you all think?

[apprenticehealer]

I think it is all about the motivation behind giving away statues.

If the motivation is pure , that is to give the statute away so that the recipient is able to do his practice with  stronger devotion and dedication , then the person who gives the statue away gains merits ' even more so if this person is giving without any expectations but to only benefit another.

However if the motivation is to 'get rid ' of the statues, because the person no longer believes or has lost faith in the religion, then i think giving the statues away to a believer is better than smashing statues up or just throwing away in the bin. This action is most disrespectful !

I know of a family who converted to another religion, and then threw away all the parent's Buddha statutes on the road. The poor parents were in such distress as they feared that their children would reap bad karma by their action, and since then they were constantly quarreling  , right up to the parents death. The children's action had harmed and hurt their very own parents.

[RedLantern]

Motivation or intent consciously or unconsciously precedes in all our actions.The ultimate motivation for giving is to generate the causes for attaining Enlightenment for the welfare of all sentient beings.
The value of an act of giving closely corresponds to the quality of the motivation.The narrower the intention, the smaller the merit,but if if it is given with a wish to attain liberation from cyclic existence,much greater merit will be generated.If by giving we aspire to the ultimate attainment of Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings,the merits we acquire will be limitless.

[Big Uncle]

Well guys, just remember that one of the additional preliminary practices that we can do in addition to the standard ones is create 100,000 images - tsa-tsas, pictures, thangkas or statues of Buddhas. In this case, we can create images of Dorje Shugden. In Tibet, they prefer to make a mould and use it to make 100,000 little individual little tsa-tsas.

Creating images is a great practice to purify negative karma arisen from bad actions, sexual misconduct and ill health. It also creates the merit to achieve the Buddha body. That means the flourishing of our Dharma work and activities. This is a potent way to collect tremendous amounts of merits especially when we couple it with the right motivation of benefitting others. These little tsa-tsas and other images are usually distributed and given out as gifts or it could be placed inside statues and stupas for posterity.

[Q]

I know that many people mention that motivation is the key to collecting merits... so in the case where people returning their Buddha statue when they decide not to be Buddhist anymore... of course they do not have great motivation behind it... however, like I said before, it is the lesser evil of throwing it or destroying the image.

If we look closely, many people that go to the temple do not have such pure motivation in the first place. The number of people that truly practice Dharma in a particular centre only a hand full. In the light of that, what is difference between the two? Neither have pure motivation...

Take for example, some people, reluctantly sponsor a statue to the temple just to look good. So what's the difference between a person who sponsor reluctantly, and even have some degree of regret... compared to one who gives away their statue to pursue another religion?

[Dondrup Shugden]

Although motivation is the key to how much merit we collect by giving away statutes, I think that any giving away of statutes which is out of respect then there should be merits collected.

This giving of statutes happens often by people who have left a faith or the center they practise from, but the fact that it is not just thrown away or thrashed is some form of respect.

Anyways for whatever reasons the person chooses to get rid of their statutes is not the demerit point but rather having left the Dharma is.

Bear in mind that for Practitioners to give away statutes to benefit another practitioner is extremely meritorious.