Search results for: "Generosity"
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- Metta… through generosity, virtue, meditation. When you can think in this way, you realize that goodwill isn’t something that requires you put on rose-colored glasses or send out pink clouds or cotton-candy of nice thoughts. It’s extremely practical. It’s essential. It’s what allows you to live safely in the world.
- Ready for Death… by doing good in terms of generosity, virtue, meditation, creating opportunities for good places to go, and also by working on the skills you’re going to need at the moment of death. Just sitting here meditating as you want to stay with the breath, other thoughts come up that can wander away and lure you to wander away. You have to say, “No …
- Death & Goodwill… conviction, virtue, a healthy sense of shame, compunction, learning, generosity, discernment. These are all things you can work on for your long-term welfare and happiness. You should work on them now, while you have the chance. So recollection of death helps with your thoughts of goodwill. Thoughts of goodwill help you with your recollection of death. Both together help put things into perspective …
- In the Land of Wrong View… In one sense, he meant that it was a matter of letting go from the beginnings of generosity all the way to the letting go of the most subtle defilements. It’s also one thing clear through in the sense that we can always look for the skillful option, always have trust that there is a skillful option—that if there’s anything unsatisfactory …
- Circumspection… Be circumspect in the way you develop your generosity, the way you develop your virtue, the way you develop an attitude of goodwill. We’re not here to connect with everybody. That’s an idea that has its roots back in European Romantism: the idea we’re suffering because we don’t connect with all our fellow humanity. Well, there are some people you …
- Four Virtues… As one of the forest ajaans once said, Dhamma is one thing clear through, starting with generosity and going up all the way to the noble attainments. So as you’re working on your precepts, maintaining them throughout the day, it’s an important element in training and developing the mind. The second kind of virtue is restraint of the senses. The mind goes …
- Faith in the Buddha… And the things that the Buddha has you believe are all things that are good, starting with generosity, goodwill, gratitude: things we’ve already sensed have a certain goodness to them. The Buddha confirms that but he says that the goodness goes much further than you might think. These are good propositions and they’re worth taking on, because look at what life is …
- The Samsaric Mud Fight… It can be a form of generosity. But you have to realize that people have their choices, too. They can choose to follow along with your idea of what’s good or they can choose not to. The Buddha never said that we’re here to clean up the mud fight. We’re here to get out of the mud fight. And your idea …
- Your Gyroscope… When you learn to be generous with material things, that becomes a quality of generosity in the mind. When you use your status to help other people, that becomes a quality of compassion. The qualities you develop are the only things that really stay with you, even past death. When you meet with praise and criticism, you can develop the wisdom of looking at …
- Being Reliable… With things like generosity and virtue, the help really obvious. With goodwill it’s obvious. When you’re mindful to be looking for happiness inside, you’re not taking anything away from anyone else, and you’re becoming a better person. Similarly, the energy you transmit into the world is a better energy. The things you do—coming from mindfulness and concentration and discernment …
- The Thinking Cure… You start with generosity. When you make up your mind to give a gift, you’re imagining yourself as someone with something to spare. Up to that point, you may have been thinking that you’re hungry and lacking, and all you could think about was gaining, gaining, gaining, getting, getting, getting. But when you allow yourself to think that you have more than …
- The Skill of Happiness… That’s what the chants on goodwill are for, along with the practice of generosity, the practice of virtue so that we’re not harming anybody. But the prospect that there could be something that doesn’t change and that is true happiness: That captures our imagination, makes us curious. Is this true? When the opportunity is there, you don’t want to let …
- Ven. Ananda’s Awakening… You come to the practice ideally with a sense of joy, which may be a mental joy based on generosity and virtue, but it also can translate into a sense of physical ease—and that’s what you can spread through the body. The Buddha talks about spreading a sense of rapture, a sense of ease through the body. It’s not just a …
- Goodwill Is Respect… for happiness, there’s no way we can survive without it, so let’s look for happiness in a way that’s responsible. The Buddha lists three ways that are responsible: generosity, virtue, and meditation, learning how to turn within and finding the resources within our body and minds—our many minds—to see what we can develop that would lead to that happiness …
- Is the Buddha’s Wisdom Selfish?… Like the precepts, like the practice of generosity, it’s a universal gift.
- Meaning & Happiness… qualities like generosity, virtue, renunciation. As we’re sitting here right here, right now, that’s a type of renunciation: Renouncing our fascination with sensual pleasures and looking for something deeper. Discernment, endurance, effort, truthfulness, determination good-will, equanimity: These are all good qualities to develop inside. And a life devoted to developing them is a meaningful life. It heads some place. A life …
- You Are Not Redundant… by looking for happiness in ways that are harmless. This is something of inherent value. Wealth doesn’t have inherent value, nor does status, nor does praise, nor do sensual pleasures. Generosity has inherent value. Your virtue has inherent value. The development of good qualities in the mind has inherent value, and so you can choose to take part in that value yourself. There …
- Fire… But even on the way there, the treasures that we build into the mind – our conviction, our virtue, our sense of shame and compunction, our learning, our generosity, our discernment – are treasures that no outside fire can burn. Just make sure your inner fires don’t burn them up, and you’ll be safe.
- 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 …
- Goodwill Permeates the Dhamma… The Buddha lays out some principles out for us in terms of generosity, virtue, and meditation, or virtue, concentration, and discernment. But for a lot of things, we’re going to have to depend on our own powers of observation: looking at our actions, looking at our intentions, being very honest with ourselves about our intentions. Don’t do anything that you anticipate would …
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