Search results for: "Generosity"
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- Goodness… virtue and generosity. Virtue is holding back from doing things that are harmful. And generosity is all the spontaneous goodness we want to provide. It can be material things, it can be your energy, it can be your time. Setting an example for others: That, too, is a gift. The Buddha talks about virtue as being a gift, in which you give safety to …
- A Friend When You’re on Your Own… The teachings on generosity, teachings on virtue, teachings on goodwill and basic merit making are really important for what you’re doing as you meditate. They teach you how the life you live is shaped by your actions, how an attitude of giving is what gets you started on good things, and how the desire for happiness is something you really want to respect …
- The Precepts… You reflect on your own virtue, your own generosity, your own good qualities. These are reflections on the past that you bring into the present to put the mind in good shape. You take your ability to think, your ability to form thoughts, and you put it to good use. It’s not that you’re just supposed to snuff out thoughts of past …
- Mission Possible… The Buddha recommends that you either reflect on the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, the examples they give, or on your own generosity, your own virtue, remembering that you do have some good to you. Or you can reflect on the fact that you’re here, you’ve got this opportunity, which means you’ve got the merit someplace that allows you to …
- Five Precepts, Five Virtues… the practice of generosity and the practice of virtue. It’s a lot easier to practice them when you’ve developed a sense of well-being inside. If you’re feeling ill at ease, if you’re feeling exasperated, the mind will say, “No, I don’t want to be generous, and who cares about virtue? Look at all the people in the world …
- The Management of Suffering… The third quality you look for in an admirable friend is generosity—people who like to share what they have. After all, if they’re intent on sharing, that means they probably won’t try to take things away from you unfairly. You benefit from their generosity and you benefit from their example as a good friend, as someone who reminds you that the …
- Forest Bathing… Those instructions come down basically to virtue, concentration, discernment, all based on a principle of generosity. So, stop for a while and think about what that means. Happiness is found through generosity and then perfected through virtue, concentration, and discernment. This is why we meditate. This is how we escape danger. A forest is a good place to do this because as you let …
- Control… You could say that the teaching on not-self begins with the teaching on dana—generosity, giving—because that’s where the Buddha would always start when he was teaching people brand new to the teaching. He wanted to bring them up to the level of the four noble truths. He would start them with generosity, something that they had had experience with—knowing …
- Volunteer Spirit… After all, other religions have various projects by which they help the world, so why aren’t the Buddhists doing that? It’s not that the Buddha didn’t encourage generosity or helping other people, but he encouraged it that it be done with a volunteer spirit. Just as we’re under no obligation to the Buddha, we’re under no obligation to the …
- Peace Requires Character… to see that your happiness cannot depend on their suffering, so you have to figure out how to find happiness that harms no one. It ultimately comes down to three things: generosity, virtue, and meditation. You learn to take pleasure, not in eating all the time, but in giving things to other people. This may go against the grain, but when you begin to …
- Inner Strength, Inner Wealth… Another form of wealth is generosity: not only in the sense that when you’re generous, things come back to you—in other words, the good things that go around come around—but also in the sense that the state of mind that comes with generosity is a large, wide-open state of mind. If you think about the needs of others and not …
- What We Have in Common… The fourth quality is generosity. If you have something to share, you share it with the group. This creates a sense of camaraderie. I have a student who, years back, was living up northwestern Thailand, out in the woods. And there was a sizable group of monks scattered around in the woods. Once every month or so, someone would come and bring provisions for …
- Dhamma for Laypeople… He starts out with emptiness, but they complain, “That’s a little bit too high for us.” So the Buddha teaches them generosity and virtue. The two stories provide an interesting contrast, and get at an issue that’s really important. We see that many of the teachings in the Canon are addressed to monks, but to what extent are these teachings appropriate for …
- Heedfulness… that giving really is true; generosity is true; gratitude is a worthwhile emotion. In other words, when people helped you, it was their choice to help you. Often they had to go out of their way and face a lot of difficulties. For that they deserve your gratitude. If everything were predetermined, there’d be no need to be generous, because things would just …
- Withstanding Pleasure & Pain… That’s your generosity. But you have to figure out how much energy you have, and how much you can increase the level of your energy. This is where concentration practice is very useful. If you’re less likely to be weighed down by pain and distracted by pleasure, the mind has more strength. It’s able to do more things then it could …
- Strength from the Basics… virtue, generosity, meditation are really important things, and you want to have them always at hand. When your strength is down as you’re getting sick, you remind yourself: Stay with the breath. The breath is always there to help you. If you find yourself getting into an unhealthy breathing rhythm, where can you focus to get out of it? Focus your attention on …
- Freedom & Security… having listened to a lot of Dhamma, generosity, discernment. These are the three positive treasures. “Listening” here means not only listening but also, when you hear something really good, trying to memorize it. Then you think about it, analyze it, try to come to an understanding of what it means and how it applies to your life. This is a treasure in that you …
- For What It’s Worth… It’s based on acts of generosity, acts of virtue. When you train the mind to be generous and virtuous, it’s a lot easier to watch. If you’ve been dishonest about things, lazy about things, harmful in your behavior, it’s very easy to put up walls of denial. And when you’ve got walls of denial, how are you going to …
- Determined to be Happy… All the forms of goodness—generosity, virtue, meditation—are totally harmless and they’re based on goodwill. With generosity and virtue, that’s easy to see: When you give to others, they’re happy. When you abstain from harming them, they’re happy. But especially meditation—getting the mind under control so that your greed, aversion, and delusion don’t take over: That’s …
- The Buddha Teaches a Yakkha… truth, self-control, endurance, and relinquishment or generosity. One of the reasons Ajaan Suwat liked this story was because the Buddha was compliant. He wasn’t stubborn, but when it came to what was proper, he stood his ground. This was very much the character of Ajaan Suwat: He was compliant in a lot of ways, but when it came to a matter of …
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