Search results for: "Generosity"

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  2. The Range of Our Responsibility
     … She went to see her teacher, and the teacher said, “Reflect back on your virtue; reflect on your generosity.” His meaning was for her to remind herself that she did have virtue and she had been generous. But she started thinking, “Well, the fact that my meditation isn’t going well is a sign that I haven’t been virtuous and I haven’t … 
  3. Strength of Mindfulness
     … And part of the practice, of course, is generosity, virtue. You give things—you give of your time, you give of your energy, you give of your knowledge; you’re happy to share what you have—and then you refrain from harming. These are things you want to keep in mind at all times. Otherwise, the path won’t develop and you won’t … 
  4. The Carpenter’s Adze
     … You can reflect on the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, on your own generosity or your own virtue when you’re feeling down. Reflect on death when you’re feeling lazy. Learn how to read your mind by watching what it does, how it reacts to different types of training. After all, the carpenter himself has to do that. He’s not focusing … 
  5. The River Gauge
     … You’re practicing the precepts, you’re practicing generosity, you’re with people who want to meditate as well. The more harmony we can have in the group, the easier it is to draw joy from the fact that we’re here as a group, meditating. Whatever you find that gives you a sense of joy will make that attitude of patience and equanimity … 
  6. Path & Goal
     … The ones that give energy are the things like recollection of your virtue, recollection of your generosity, recollection of the devas, realizing that the qualities that make a person into a deva are qualities that you have in yourself, so you’re headed in the right direction. That can lift you up. Things that steady you are contemplation of the body in terms of … 
  7. Recovering Your Balance
     … Think about the goodness of your generosity, the goodness of your virtue. You can think about the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha. One of the really fine things about Buddhism is that it was founded by someone who knows what it’s like to make a mistake. Even in his last lifetime, the Buddha made a huge mistake—six years of tormenting himself … 
  8. The Buddha’s Relationship Advice
     … The first quality is generosity—giving of things, giving of your time, giving your knowledge, giving of your forgiveness—so that you’re not totally on the receiving end. The second quality is kind words. This doesn’t mean speaking sweetly all the time. There will be times when you have to make criticisms, but you try to do it in a way that … 
  9. Factors for Stream Entry
     … conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. Those are the qualities you should look for in someone you want to study from. If they don’t have conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, you don’t know what they have conviction in: something, someplace else. If they’re not virtuous, you can’t trust that you’re safe around them. If they’re not generous, you … 
  10. Training in Happiness
     … For instance, he says you’re going to find happiness in generosity. Now, as little kids, we were much happier to get than we were to give. But over time we’ve learned that when you give things to other people, there is a deep happiness that comes. You feel good about yourself. You feel good about the other person. You feel good about … 
  11. Respect as a Sign of Intelligence
     … good in your generosity, good in your virtue, good in your meditation. That’s the kind of happiness that feels good deep down inside. It’s a happiness that’s worthy of respect. So have a strong sense that your happiness is something very worthwhile. Take it seriously, not in the sense of being grim but in the sense of really wanting to do … 
  12. A Thread Out of the Maze
     … Think of how you’ve benefited from the generosity of others, how it’s been such a good force in your life, and now you have the opportunity be generous in return. Think of the times when people could have harmed you but they didn’t, and now you have the opportunity to develop that quality, the quality of restraint, the quality of virtue … 
  13. Secluded from Sensuality
     … He starts with generosity, with virtue, and the rewards that come from developing these qualities in your mind. You get to the sensual levels of heaven but then you fall. You get carried away with your instantaneous sensual pleasures, and the integrity of the mind, the character of the mind, begins to erode. You get used to having whatever sensual pleasure you want, and … 
  14. The Gift of Meditation
     … All of the goodness we do in the practice—in terms of generosity, virtue, concentration, discernment—is the kind of goodness, the kind of happiness that spreads around, that doesn’t have clear boundaries—which is what makes it special. As the Buddha said, when you look after yourself, you’re looking after others; when you look after others, you’re looking after yourself … 
  15. Good Traditions
     … doesn’t give any really lasting benefit, and actually can cause harm if you get addicted to it. So you want to look inside to develop good qualities of the mind. Generosity is one of them. The purpose of being generous is to develop a sense of kindness, a sense of wanting to help other people, realizing that you have more than enough and … 
  16. Nibbana Is Better than You Think
     … This is why, when the Buddha was introducing the four noble truths to lay people, he would start out with the goodness of generosity, the goodness of virtue, saying that these things do have meaning. But then they get rewarded. Many people who are generous, many people who are virtuous, go to the heavenly realms. There they get complacent and then they fall. So … 
  17. Take the Buddha Seriously
     … Or you could say it starts with the act of generosity. Part of you wants to hold on to something, and another part realizes that there’s a greater happiness that comes from giving it away. The first voice may say, “Well, I’m going to be poor, I’m going to be lacking.” And the other voice says, “What? Lacking in what?” Maybe … 
  18. Look after the Source
     … That’s your perfection of generosity. You try to be harmless: That’s your perfection of virtue. And that’s where you should focus your attention: on the good qualities you’re developing, both because they’ll lead to your true happiness, and also because a mind that’s imbued with these good qualities is going to come up with words and actions that … 
  19. Beyond Imagination
     … When you’re practicing generosity, you can use your imagination in how you’d like to be generous: the things you’d like to give or do as a gift. There’s a wide range there. As you practice virtue, you find yourself challenged in different ways—specifically around the precept on lying, which is probably the most important of the precepts—because there … 
  20. Nobody’s Servant
     … Conviction, conviction in the principle of karma, that your actions really do make a difference; generosity; learning the Dhamma, and discernment. All these things are goodness inside, and we develop them through the meditation and also through learning the Dhamma, stocking ourselves inside with good things, so when things outside are lacking, we’re not poor. We’re wealthy with internal wealth. That makes … 
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