A Gift With Six Factors
At Sāvatthī, the Buddha sees that Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother, is preparing an offering for the Saṅgha led by Sāriputta and Moggallāna, and tells the mendicants that her gift has six factors. Three belong to the donor: being in a good mood before giving, feeling confident while giving, and feeling uplifted afterward. Three belong to the recipients: being free of greed, hate, and delusion, or practicing to be free of them. The merit of such a gift, he says, cannot be measured, any more than the water in the ocean can be counted in gallons. A verse restates the six factors.
A note on this text. The Buddha sees the offering by ‘clairvoyance’, and the merit is described as leading to heaven and ‘a happy, pleasing world’ after death.
The full text
Numbered Discourses 6.37 · 4. Deities · A Gift With Six Factors · translated by Bhikkhu Sujato · public domain (CC0) · about 2 min · on SuttaCentral
At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. Now at that time Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother, was preparing a religious donation with six factors for the mendicant Saṅgha headed by Sāriputta and Moggallāna. The Buddha saw her doing this, with his clairvoyance that is purified and superhuman, and he addressed the mendicants: “This Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother, is preparing a religious donation with six factors for the mendicant Saṅgha headed by Sāriputta and Moggallāna.
And how does a religious donation have six factors? Three factors apply to the donor and three to the recipients. What three factors apply to the donor? It’s when a donor is in a good mood before giving, while giving they feel confident, and after giving they’re uplifted. These three factors apply to the donor.
What three factors apply to the recipients? It’s when the recipients are free of greed, hate, and delusion, or practicing to be free of them. These three factors apply to the recipients. Thus three factors apply to the donor and three to the recipients. That’s how a religious donation has six factors.
It’s not easy to grasp the merit of such a six-factored donation by saying that this is the extent of their overflowing merit, overflowing goodness that nurtures happiness and is conducive to heaven, ripening in happiness and leading to heaven. And it leads to what is likable, desirable, agreeable, to welfare and happiness. It’s simply reckoned as an incalculable, immeasurable, great mass of merit.
It’s like trying to grasp how much water is in the ocean. It’s not easy to say how many gallons, how many hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of gallons there are. It’s simply reckoned as an incalculable, immeasurable, great mass of water. In the same way, it’s not easy to grasp the merit of such a six-factored donation …
A good mood before giving,confidence while giving,feeling uplifted after giving:this is the perfect sacrifice.
Free of greed, free of hate,free of delusion, undefiled;this is the field for the perfect sacrifice,the disciplined spiritual practitioners.
After rinsing,you give with your own hands.This sacrifice is very fruitfulfor both yourself and others.
When an intelligent, faithful person,sacrifices like this, with a mind of letting go,that astute one is rebornin a happy, pleasing world.”