Search results for: "Generosity"
- Page 23
- Cleaning Out the Stables… He talked about generosity and virtue. These are all really great skills to develop. He talked about the rewards, particularly the rewards that come in heaven: the best place you can be reborn in. But then you realize it’s almost like it’s a fiendish trick. You work so hard at being good—being generous and virtuous, getting to a place you want …
- Mindful & Grateful for Lessons in Freedom… The Buddha starts with generosity, pointing out that it is an act of freedom. In that moment when you’re generous, you’re free from your greed. You’re free from your attachment. You’re able to rise above these things. You get a sense of your worth as a person and that there’s a higher level of happiness that comes when you …
- Happy to Be Here… We train it through generosity. We train it through virtue. And we train it through meditation, like we’re doing right now. You give it something good to think about—something that’s easy, nearby, that can be restful, soothing. The breath. You can breathe in lots of different ways. You can engage in short breathing, long breathing, fast, slow, heavy, light, deep, shallow …
- Near to the Buddha… the practice doesn’t require suffering frustration all the time. There may be some times when it’s hard, but you’re being asked to do what? Honorable things, good things: generosity, virtue, developing the mind in meditation. All of these are good things to be doing. And in doing them, you get close to the Buddha. If you drop them, you’re far …
- Straightening the Arrow… seeing the value of generosity, seeing the value of virtue. Getting the mind in concentration, the Buddha said, is a perception attainment. You have to maintain the perception of breath and choose the proper perception of breath so that the mind can settle down with it, so that you don’t forget and wander off someplace else. The perception is the marker that keeps …
- Brahmaviharas at the Breath… Developing happiness through generosity, virtue, meditation, is a way of developing happiness that spreads around, and the dividing line between your well-being and other people’s well-being gets dissolved. So try to bring these attitudes to your meditation, develop them in your meditation, so that you become more sensitive to which of the attitudes is appropriate at any one time, and to …
- A Mind Without Inertia… Find the happiness that comes from generosity, the happiness that comes from virtue, from being principled in your behavior, and the happiness that comes from meditation. He compares these things to food—and particularly the sense of wellbeing, rapture, and refreshment that come from getting the mind into a good strong concentration. That’s your food and nourishment on the path. It gives you …
- Acceptance Isn’t the Issue… So appreciate it when other people are delighting in their generosity. Have some respect for them. If you can’t have respect for other people’s good actions, it’s going to be hard to have respect for your own, and this will be debilitating. As the Buddha said, thoughts that “I am a good person” or “I am a bad person” are the …
- Something Good to Cling to… We hold on to the concentration, we hold on to the practice of generosity, virtue, we hold on to our discernment, because these things enable us to strengthen the mind and give us a good place to stay as other things in the world come and go, so that as the other things that we tend to hold on to and we tend to …
- Saṃvega & Pasāda… try to cleanse your mind. What’s selfish about that? You’re willing to replace our common habit of feeding with one of giving. Instead of taking in, you distribute out. Generosity, of course, is giving material gifts. Virtue is said to be the gift of safety. You may not be able to protect everybody from other sources, but you are protecting them from …
- The Perfection of Freedom… word for that. The Pali word parami means what’s foremost: what’s of foremost importance in your life. But none of the qualities in the list can be totally perfected. Generosity: You can’t be perfectly generous, because there are constraints on what you have to give. Virtue: You can’t be perfectly virtuous. Even if you hold by the five precepts, the …
- Where the Brightness Is… The Buddha starts you off with generosity, asking to look at things you have and asking yourself: What would be good to share? That reminds you that you do have the choice. You don’t have to keep trying to hang on to things or grab things or trying to take things away from people. You also have the choice of sharing. As you …
- Delight… Sometimes they’re neutral thoughts, sometimes they’re relatively okay—they might be thoughts about generosity or thoughts about other good things—but sometimes they’re just downright embarrassing. You wouldn’t want to think that that kind of thought could be going to go through your head. And so one of the customs of the noble ones is to learn how to develop …
- Vows… So even though we’re living in a land where it doesn’t rain much during the rains retreat, we can still make use of the tradition to decide that for the next three months we’re going to try to do something special with our lives, in terms of generosity, virtue, or meditation. The word meditation here, bhavana, means developing. You’re trying …
- Analysis of Qualities… This is why we have those other meditation topics—like recollection of death, recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, recollection of your own generosity and virtue—to incline the mind to see the importance of getting trained, settling down, developing some concentration. That’s one thing you have to watch out for in the mind. The other thing you have to …
- Honest & Observant… The Buddha teaches you to be generous and to reflect on your generosity. The same with virtue: You follow the precepts and reflect on what it means to follow the precepts. This quality of being reflective: That’s where you’re going to learn. When you’re being generous, watch the mind to see what its motivation is, to see the parts of the …
- Harmony… As Ajaan Lee used to say, “When you live in a monastery, make your eyes as big as the monastery.” See where you can help—in line with that principle of sympathy, generosity, goodwill for one another. Be active in trying to make sure that harmony is something that’s maintained, because it’s so easy to destroy it. As I said, with a …
- Complexities of Karma… not just meditation, but also generosity and virtue. That way, your mind is under control, and you have good opportunities waiting to open up for you. So the Buddha’s policy for living a good life—and that includes managing a good death—comes down to some very basic things: Be generous, be virtuous, develop thoughts of goodwill in your mind, and then try …
- Meticulousness… It’s your way of showing respect for other people’s generosity, showing some gratitude for the fact that people have built this place. Everything we have here—you look all around you—it’s all a gift: the building we’re sitting in, the land we’re sitting on. All these things are gifts. So you should have some respect for them. And …
- In Harmlessness Is Strength… to rely on ourselves. If we’re going to find happiness in life, we have to develop the qualities of the path: virtue, concentration, and discernment. Or to develop meritorious activities: generosity, virtue, and meditation. In the course of doing that, we develop a very strong sense of self, a healthy sense of self. But as the practice develops, we find that the sense …
- Load next page...
