Search results for: "Generosity"
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- Disconnecting… The Buddha says that the path requires generosity. If you don’t have a generous mind, you can’t get into right concentration—and forget about genuine discernment. So generosity is something that you can do well. This is how you create good interconnections. Instead of feeding and taking in, you’re giving, distributing out. It’s the opposite. The same with the precepts …
- Responsible for Your Goodness… The Buddha talks about how the different levels of generosity that come along as we’re practicing get higher and higher until finally we get to the state of awakening. Then generosity is just a natural ornament of the mind. In other words, the goodness we do for other people at that point isn’t done because we want something out of them, or …
- Balanced Meditation… It’s also helpful to think about your own past generosity, your own virtue. These are topics that give you energy, because you realize that your birth as a human being hasn’t been a total waste. You’ve done good in your life. Of course, those two topics can get old and stale if you don’t keep on doing good, which is …
- Guardian Meditations… about generosity and virtue, the rewards of generosity and virtue in heaven, the drawbacks of those rewards, and then how to see renunciation—in other words, the pleasure of concentration—as rest for the mind. You can imagine, being someone who was a hired killer, listening to this Dhamma, being the focus of that teaching. I’ve always thought it was a shame that …
- Nobility Is the Best Policy … After all, you can use your wealth to develop the perfection of generosity. You don’t have to give it all away. In fact, he doesn’t recommend giving it all away. He says you use it to provide for your own enjoyment, for the enjoyment of your family, to put some away for the future, but then also to give it, to be …
- Ways to Think… Mundane right view focuses on kamma and rebirth, and specifically on the value of generosity on the one hand, and gratitude on the other. Most of us, when we first hear the teachings on kamma, tend to think about punishment. You hear that you’re going to suffer from the results of your past bad actions, and the first thing that comes to your …
- A Heart Wider than the World… This leads into the next set of perfections, which have to do with relinquishment*:***** **basically, generosity and renunciation. You regard your material wealth as a tool for building the perfections, not just as something to be enjoyed in and of itself. You do enjoy your wealth to some extent, but you realize you can’t waste it all that way. You invest it—in …
- Stepping Out of Yourself… And by measuring your generosity, it’s not in terms of how much you give, it’s more your willingness to give to people you find inspiring. Then there’s virtue, your ability to avoid harm to yourself and harm to other people. It’s all about training the mind. And here there’s no competition. We may see that other people seem to …
- The Prison Break… That’s why we have the practice of generosity, why we have the practice of virtue. You’re training the heart and mind in the basic habits you’ll need as a meditator, and you want a good foundation. Now, it’s not the case that you have to wait until your foundation is good before you start meditating. You meditate while you’re …
- Wisdom Through Training… with very simple things like generosity and virtue. The act of being generous develops good qualities in the mind. The determination to realize what principles of action you want to follow because they’re harmless and the things you want to avoid because they’re harmful and then sticking with that: That virtue develops good qualities in the mind as well. You need to …
- A Noble Path… that you want to make sure they enjoy the fruits of their generosity many, many times over. There’s no place at all in the Canon where the Buddha says you practice the path selfishly or just don’t worry about others, just go for your own well-being. It’s impossible. He gives the image of two acrobats. One acrobat is standing on …
- Metta Metacognition… You realize that goodwill is a form of generosity as well. You do it not because people deserve it, but because it feels good to do it, and you’re going to benefit in the long term. After all, if you have ill-will for anybody, you’ll find it easy to do things that are unskillful, and that’s going to come back …
- Refuge for All Beings… You try to treat them with generosity. You treat them in a virtuous way. In other words, you abstain from harming them. And you have goodwill, expressed the thought, “May this person understand the causes for true happiness and act of them.” Because it is through that person’s actions that that person is going to be happy or not. It’s the same …
- Treasure Island… Then there’s a treasure of generosity. You make a habit of being generous not only with material things, but also with your energy, your knowledge, your time. When you do, you broaden your mind. You make your mind more spacious. You’re not just here grabbing things. You see that you have something that other people can use with benefit and you’re …
- Strong Through Admirable Friendship… The same goes for the third quality, generosity: People who are not generous tend to believe that the important things in life are material things, and their main concern is getting as much as they can. But then, as the Buddha pointed out, those kinds of treasures are subject to fire, subject to floods, they can be taken away by kings and thieves and …
- A Sense of Yourself… So ask yourself, how consistent are your precepts? The third quality is generosity. This applies not only to being generous with your things, but also generous with your time, your energy, your knowledge, your forgiveness. You might ask yourself, where do you find it difficult to give things up? And why? Forgiveness is one of the big issues. Learn to forgive yourself for your …
- Virtue Contains the Practice… You learn to be grateful for the generosity of the person who gave it and try to put it to the best use possible. So what is the best use possible? You start by looking at your own actions because that’s where the teaching is aimed. You look at the results of the actions you’re doing right now to see if there …
- A Healthy Attitude Toward Happiness… This tradition of having merit-making ceremonies like this where people practice generosity all for a common cause, is a tradition goes way back in Buddhism. We’re carrying on a tradition that goes back thousands of years, where people are getting together for a good purpose. Instead of getting together to argue or whatever, we’re getting together to work together on a …
- Faith in Goodness… When the Buddha explained karma, the first things he pointed to were generosity and gratitude: basic, basic forms of goodness—the implication being that if you have faith in goodness, you should have faith in the principle that we do have choices, and that the choices will give results depending on the quality of the motivation behind the choice. When talking about having faith …
- The Energy You Broadcast… thoughts of generosity, thoughts of gratitude, thoughts of virtue, thoughts of harmlessness. When you’re sending out that kind of energy, that’s a lot of what gets reflected back. It creates a better atmosphere, a better environment in which to allow the mind to settle down and really get still inside, so that you can send out even better energy. Of course, you …
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