2 Corinthians 12:14 · World English Bible
Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I seek not your possessions, but you. For the children ought not to save up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
Anukampā: Tender concern for another's welfare The care a teacher feels toward those in his charge. Readying a third journey to a church that has wounded him means the pull is the Corinthians themselves, the way a parent keeps making the drive to a grown child's town and needs no reason past the child.
From the Buddhism reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
BUDDHISM
Anukampā: Tender concern for another's welfare The care a teacher feels toward those in his charge. Readying a third journey to a church that has wounded him means the pull is the Corinthians themselves, the way a parent keeps making the drive to a grown child's town and needs no reason past the child. Wanting them rather than what they hold is how this care looks once it has nothing left to gain.
Appicchatā: Wanting little Keeping one's own needs small. Refusing to be a burden works only because the wants are already few, so an apostle's arrival costs the household that feeds him almost nothing. A guest who eats light can show up a third time and still be welcome at the door.
Āmisa: Material gain The word covers food, money, and the bait on a hook. Corinth had support to offer, and travelling preachers there were taking it, but coin accepted quietly changes whose voice a man must please afterward. Leaving the bait in the water is what keeps his hands free for the people.
Kalyāṇamitta: Good friend on the path The companion who carries another along the way. Naming himself the parent and the Corinthians the children puts Paul in this seat exactly: the older one who has walked the road and turns back for those still on it. Help of this kind runs downhill by design, from the one with something to the ones who need it.
Dhammadāyāda: Heir to the teaching Being left the Dhamma rather than goods. Parents store up for children, and Paul has been storing the teaching itself, an inheritance that costs the heirs nothing to receive and leaves the one who gives it no poorer. Money taken from them would have made them creditors with a claim on him; this legacy hands them everything and asks nothing back.
Cāga: Open-handed letting go The willingness to release what one could keep. Every claim Paul could press, board and lodging, the wages an apostle may ask, he sets down before he arrives, the way a father picks up the bill without mentioning it. Giving up the claim is the gift, made before anyone at the table notices it was made.
Buddhism lens
What am I giving with a quiet invoice attached?
Honi saw a man planting a carob tree that takes seventy years to bear and asked why. The man said he found trees here planted by others, so he plants for the ones coming after.
Do the work that is yours and release your grip on what it earns you. The act is yours, the harvest is not.
A true gift is given the way you throw a ball to someone, for the pleasure of the throw. The moment you start keeping accounts, it has turned into a loan.
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Buddhism