***Why Isn’t Meditation Instruction Free?

“Meditation teachers should offer their instruction for free.”

About once a month, I get an email telling me that. Often, I hear this from people who have studied with meditation teachers in India or have visited ashrams where they weren’t asked for payment for classes they took. This gave them the idea that the teachings were free, even though they may have paid for room and board.

The reality in these places is more complicated than it looks, however. Here is a bit more information about the behind the scenes finances in those kinds of settings.

In situations where it appears that teachings are being offered free of charge - particularly in the East - the meditation teacher's living expenses are usually supported by the community. He or she is given food and a home to live in. Clothing isn't much of a problem when all you wear is robes.

At centers where students are asked to pay for room and board, a portion of that payment may also go directly to the teacher, even though it’s not specifically listed as such.

In other situations, the teacher or center may be supported by benefactors in a way that allows them to offer a sort of scholarship for mediation practice.

One such situation occurred in 1960’s and 1970’s Burma. If you traveled from a foreign country to visit a particular Buddhist meditation center, you were only asked to pay for your food, since getting there was so expensive. Some students got the mistaken impression that those who attended meditation were given everything for free, but could donate something after completion of the course. But the reality was that the center charged fees to local students that they used to support the center and also help defer the costs for the foreign students.

This theme has another variation. I used to help manage a meditation center that didn’t charge any advanced fees, but took donations after the completion of the course. I learned during that time that numerous students barely paid enough to cover the cost of their meals. But once in a while, someone would pay $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000. Those large donations covered a huge portion of the expenses and paved the way for seemingly free meditation instruction for other students.

Here’s another interesting thing. In other meditation centers where I've seen the accounting, they have you to pay for room and board at a fixed rate, but suggest you donate something directly to your teacher. It is strongly encouraged to make this donation, with a lot of peer pressure to give money to the teacher. The fascinating thing is that these fixed-fee-plus-donation places and the donation-only ones mentioned above both ended up taking in similar amounts of money, even though the donation-only places had far more students.