Search results for: "Generosity"
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- Not-selfing Your Selves… the self who practices the precepts, the self who learns how to be pleased by generosity, all the selves that go with the different good qualities you’re trying to develop. You take them on in a provisional way, but also as a way of changing the balance of power inside. Even though the fights among the different selves inside can be one of …
- Generating Energy… These can be the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha, your own generosity, your own virtue. Sometimes putting the breath aside for the time being and thinking about these things can be very helpful. Thinking about the Sangha for instance: Think about all the ajaans and the success they had in the practice. Remember that they were human beings, you’re a human being …
- The Body Doesn’t Care… The Buddha talks about finding the essence in your body, meaning that you learn how to practice generosity, you use the body to learn about the Dhamma, you use it to practice virtue and meditation. This is where you can find something of essential worth inside the body. We had the question the other day at the Q&A, “What is the essence of …
- Goodness & Goodwill… There are a lot of people who don’t want to be persuaded into generosity or virtue or thoughts of goodwill. So you have to learn how to be sensitive to the situation. Think of thoughts of goodwill going out in all directions. Then test them, to see how genuine they are. There are two good ways of testing them. One is to try …
- Purity… It was an act of generosity. We weren’t sorting out persimmons to eat ourselves, it was to give to somebody we respect. But as the day wore on and the time became more and more important, the king’s boxes were carefully sealed away. Then the persimmons were going to go other places. The blemishes that we wouldn’t have accepted before, well …
- The Wear & Tear of Life… place. It’s not bad to want happiness. It’s not bad to want well-being. It’s simply something that you have to approach wisely. There are basically three steps: generosity, virtue, and meditation. These are ways of looking for happiness that cause no harm to anybody and actually spread well-being around. If your happiness depends on material gain, status, praise, sensual …
- Xtreme Drama… There’s a pleasure in generosity. There’s a pleasure in being virtuous. There’s pleasure in finding time alone with nature. All these are perfectly legitimate ways of looking for happiness, legitimate ways of gladdening the mind. The same with steadying the mind. If you find that your thinking is running away with you, you’ve got to figure out ways of just …
- Discernment Performs… There’s a sutta where a general comes to the Buddha and asks him to talk about the benefits of generosity in this lifetime, the implication being that he didn’t want to hear about anything beyond this lifetime. So the Buddha gives a list of the benefits that come when you’re a generous person, but he doesn’t stop just with this …
- The Treasure of Equanimity… There’s generosity. The act of giving a gift broadens the mind, makes the mind more expansive, as you take into consideration the needs of other people and try to help those needs. And finally discernment: the ability to see what’s skillful and what’s not, to see what is your business and what’s not your business. This is where equanimity and …
- Heedfulness for the Holidays… This is one of the reasons the Buddha would emphasize both generosity and virtue as a source of confidence. You go into groups of people who might be ready to criticize you, but you know if you’ve been generous and virtuous, whatever they’re going to criticize you about doesn’t really matter. After all, there are people in the world who will …
- Lessons from Stilling the Mind… This is one of the reasons why we practice generosity, practice virtue. As I said earlier today, if you’re going to watch your mind, the best mind to watch is a good mind—in other words, a mind that’s been doing good things, being generous, being virtuous, extending thoughts of goodwill to everybody. That kind of mind is easy to watch. You …
- Observing the Mind at the Breath… If something is disturbing the mind, what can you do to undercut it? Sometimes working with the breath directly will help with that; sometimes you have to bring in other topics, like contemplation of the body, goodwill, any of the recollections—the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha; recollections of your own virtue, your own generosity, to give yourself a sense of self-worth; recollection …
- Your Own Karma… recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha; your own past generosity, your own past virtue. You can recollect death when you’re getting lazy. Recollect the Buddha when you’re getting discouraged. Recollect the Sangha when you’re getting discouraged. Remember all the people who’ve trod this path in the past—people with lots more problems than you’re having right now …
- Our Sense of Self… That’s why we practice generosity; it’s why we practice virtue. When you learn to identify with a generous mind-state, you find you really enjoy it. It’s much more expansive than a greedy or stingy mind state. You learn how to withdraw from the greedy or stingy mind state. It may come up, but you decide you don’t have to …
- Success on the Path… And the practices he recommends that are inspiring are recollection of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha; recollection of your own generosity, virtue; recollection of the qualities of the devas, thinking about the fact that you’ve been developing those qualities as well. And you think about those themes as much as you need to get rid of that fever in the body …
- Values… You could think about your generosity or your virtue. Think about the times when you were generous and didn’t have to be. There was no compulsion, but you just simply wanted to share. It’s good to think about those times. Think about times when it was difficult to hold by your precepts, but you did. Or think about the *brahmavihāras, *or about …
- Choices… by the way you breathe, by the topics you think about, or by reflecting on the fact that you’re living a life of virtue, you’re living a life of generosity. You’re developing the qualities that the Buddha said will make you a deva: whatever theme you find is inspiring so that you’re happy to be here, because when you’re …
- Thinking Your Way to Stillness… There are also reflections on your generosity, on your virtue, on the fact that you’ve developed the qualities that make people into devas. Those are to remind you that you do have worth, that you do have potential in the meditation. These are some of the ways in which thinking is useful in the meditation. You analyze unskillful thinking and you try to …
- Admirable Friendship, Inside & Out… You ask them about their conviction, their generosity, their virtue, their discernment, and then you try to follow their example. Most difficult, of course, is the discernment. You find that it comes down to the questions they ask. Look at the Buddha teaching his son: At the very beginning, he said that if you’re going to do anything, look first at your intention …
- Acceptance & Equanimity… Like the Buddhist instructions on generosity: Give where you feel inspired or where you feel the gift would be well used. You may be inspired to want to see everybody happy, but as for your efforts to help other people to be happy, you have to focus them on places where they would be well used. And for that, you need equanimity, a more …
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