Search results for: "Generosity"
- Page 10
- A Dhamma Bucket List… The third quality is generosity. Here you really are leaving good things behind in the world. As the Buddha said, the things you leave behind are really yours. The things you try to hold on to get torn away from your grasp as you die. But the things you’ve given away, the time you’ve given away, the energy you’ve given away …
- Restraint… It could be in terms of generosity, virtue, or meditation. In terms of generosity, you may ask yourself: What kind of generosity are you still weak in? Probably the most important form of generosity is forgiveness. It’s often the hardest, so you have to look into why. What pride is keeping you from being forgiving? What offended sense of honor is keeping you …
- Insight Is a Judgment Call… It starts with generosity, with the realization that it’s worthwhile to give. Ajaan Lee has a nice image. He says that when you give something, it’s like squeezing the juice out of a fruit: You give the rind to the other person and you keep the juice. When you can see generosity in that way, it becomes a lot easier to be …
- Admirable Friendship… As the Buddha said, when you find an admirable friend who has conviction, generosity, virtue, and discernment, you try to emulate those qualities. You try to develop your powers of observation, too, to see how they do it. This means, of course, asking questions but also just noticing. The same with generosity, the same with virtue, and the same with discernment: You listen carefully …
- The Resolve to Let Go… The principle of giving, the principle of generosity, would seem to be such a common virtue all over the world that the Buddha’s teachings on giving would seem to be very uncontroversial. But it turns out that during his time there were actually two groups of thinkers who called it into question. One actually said that giving is the teaching of fools and …
- The Path of Giving… This is why generosity is emphasized over and over again. The Buddha once said that a person who isn’t generous can’t attain right concentration, can’t attain the noble attainments. If you’re stingy, you can’t go there because you keep hoarding. You keep putting up barriers around your sense of self. You try to hold on to things instead of …
- Loving Yourself Wisely… And that’s what the practice in generosity, the practice in virtue, and the practice in developing the mind are all about: looking for happiness in ways that you can take pride in. I received a strange letter from a young guy the other day saying that he saw the big flaw in this approach to the practice, which is that you can develop …
- Dedicating Goodness, Spreading Goodwill… One is generosity and the other is virtue. Generosity, of course, means giving. And as the Buddha said, you give where you feel inspired. But if you want your giving to be skillful, you want to be careful about your motivation for giving, the actual items you give, and the people you give to. You can turn generosity into a skill. Your motivation may …
- What’s Relative, What’s Constant… enthusiasm; generosity—generosity in the sense of really giving themselves to their field; unbroken concentration; and playfulness. Well, those correspond to the bases for success. Enthusiasm corresponds to chanda, desire. Generosity, in the sense of really giving yourself to the practice, corresponds to persistence, energy, effort. Unbroken concentration corresponds to intentness. And playfulness is a part of your using your powers of analysis: trying …
- Figuring Out Concentration… But we, too, find ourselves gladdened by the generosity that we’re able to share. We don’t spend our time just clutching to things, afraid that they’ll be ripped from us, because we’re confident that the more you give, the more wealth you have inside. So sometimes, when you’re feeling down about the meditation, remind yourself that you do have …
- Anchored by Skillful Roots… He says, generosity nourishes the roots of lack of greed, precepts nourish the roots of lack of anger, meditation nourishes the roots of lack of delusion. These are the activities that we have to engage in order to prepare, in order to withstand the storm—not just before the storm hits, but all the way throughout the storm. Being generous, observing the precepts, and …
- Return of Wisdom for Dummies… He’d start out with the act of generosity. And he had an etiquette around that. It wasn’t to get people to be generous. Often he would give that talk after they had given a gift of the meal to the Sangha or given a gift of some other kind. He’d have them reflect on the act of generosity—what it meant …
- Possessiveness… And even before the noble eightfold path, there’s the teaching of the graduated discourse, where the Buddha teaches developing qualities of generosity, virtue, reflecting on the rewards of virtue and generosity, realizing that the sensual rewards that come from those activities are going to end and they entail a lot of drawbacks and what the Buddha says is even degradation. So you realize …
- Sources of Lasting Happiness… The first is generosity. The second is virtue. And the third is developing the mind—by which he meant developing good qualities in the mind, qualities like goodwill, mindfulness, concentration, discernment, alertness: qualities that help you act in skillful ways because they enable you to see what’s actually going on. They can help you see what you’re doing and see the results …
- Developed in Body & Mind… We make merit through generosity, we make merit through virtue. What we’re doing is developing good qualities in the mind. And as we’re meditating, we’re focusing more and more directly on the mind. With generosity, you’re thinking about this person, that person, what object you want to give. With virtue, you’ve got to think about your dealings with other …
- Free Like a Wild Deer… Whatever few needs I have are met through the generosity of others. My mind is free, like that of a wild deer.” That’s the bliss he was thinking about. So, think of the bliss of seclusion, the bliss of frugality, the bliss of contentment when you’re close to nature. And that can really be sustenance on the path. Now, those traditions of …
- Mental Balance… All the good things the Buddha has us practice—generosity, virtue, cultivating the sublime attitudes, getting the mind into good state of concentration, developing insight, gaining release: The primary focus is on what they do for your mind, but in each case, you’re not only helping yourself. The people around you benefit as well. With generosity, the dual benefit is obvious. One the …
- Understanding Happiness… But the prime purpose of the generosity is to cleanse the mind, to open up the mind, to make the mind broader. It’s like living in a house. If you’re living in a very narrow room, it’s very confining. But if you’re living in a wide-open room with lots of sunlight and lots of space, you’re very comfortable …
- Gratitude to Things… These have all been provided through someone’s skillful intention, someone’s compassionate motives, someone’s generosity. The reason that this is an important distinction—that you’re grateful to the people for the things, rather than being grateful to the things themselves—is that if you feel gratitude to your bed, it’s hard not to get attached to your bed, and to …
- Treasures Beyond Death… Then there’s generosity. Generosity’s a treasure in several ways. On the one hand, just the karmic effects of being generous with your things, being generous with your time, with your forgiveness, treating people fairly: All of these things come back to you in the way other people will treat you. But even more than that, the fact that you’ve developed a …
- Load next page...
