Search results for: "Generosity"
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- When You Practice on Your Own… He’d start with what’s called the “graduated discourse.” He’d start talking about generosity, acts of giving, and then virtue. Then he’d talk about heaven as a place where generosity and virtue are rewarded with sensual pleasures. If you’re listening to this teaching, and you’ve been practicing generosity and virtue, you feel good about what the Buddha is saying …
- Building Character… There’s the list of the perfections—generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance—all those good Capricorn virtues; truth, determination, goodwill, equanimity. As Ajaan Fuang liked to say, when the Buddha was born in all his many lifetimes up until he became a Buddha, he was born for the sake of mastering these perfections. The list of good spiritual materialism in the suttas is …
- The World Is Swept Away… But if you leave behind some generosity, it goes with you; and the generosity you’ve left behind helps other people. So as you pursue the perfections, you’re not the only person who benefits, but you know for sure that your benefits are yours, and they do lead to something that goes beyond the world. As we chanted just now: The world is …
- Determination… There’s more to the practice than just meditating.” She said, “Go back and look more carefully.” And sure enough, the people were practicing generosity, they were practicing virtue, they were teaching their children gratitude. The woman who was doing the study began to realize that there’s more to the practice than just sitting here with your eyes closed. We’re developing all …
- Being Right… As for the other three qualities, one is generosity. You share what you gain. You’re generous not only with material things, but also with your knowledge, your help, your forgiveness. The next quality is that you have your views in common. Your idea of what’s right and wrong is something that you all hold in common. And the sixth quality is that …
- Choosing & Watching Your Choices… I have no choice.” But instead, you say, “Well, as an experiment, give it a try.” This is one of the reasons why we start with generosity, because generosity is one of the first places we notice that we do have freedom of choice. We’ve got something, and we can keep it if we want, or we could give it away. You realize …
- 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 …
- Look After Yourself with Ease… All the skills of the path—generosity, virtue, meditation—are there for you to learn how to become more independent in looking after yourself, more capable of looking after yourself even in difficulties, so that you don’t have to be a burden on others. And your happiness doesn’t have to depend on conditions being just so. There’s a passage in the …
- 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 …
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