Search results for: "Generosity"
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- The Search for Happiness… For example, one of the actions that the Buddha says leads to happiness is generosity. He starts out by saying, “Give where you feel inspired,” which emphasizes the freedom of generosity. But then he talks about how generosity can be practiced with relative levels of skill. Some motivations for generosity are higher than others. Some ways of giving are better than others. You give …
- Merit & Skill… We are generous because we want to gain something out of the generosity. There is a sutta where the Buddha ranks the various kinds of motivation for generosity. The lowest one is, “I’ll get this back with interest.” From there it goes to progressively higher ones. The middle one, interestingly enough, is because it feels good to be generous. You delight in the …
- Warm Your Heart… In some ways, we see this most clearly in generosity, because—of the different forms of merit-making, or goodness-making—generosity offers the biggest range for you to be creative. You can come up with all kinds of creative ways of being generous. And the Buddha encourages you: He says, “Give where you feel inspired, where you feel it would do the most …
- Directly & Indirectly to the Breath… This is one of the really nicest things about the Buddha’s sense of generosity, that generosity is free. There are no shoulds around generosity. You give where you feel inspired. A lot of people lose sight of that. They say that as Buddhists we have to do this, we have to help here, have to help there, that it’s somehow our moral …
- Limitless Compassion, Limited Resources… When you act on compassion, it’s actually a type of generosity. And generosity is a necessary part of the path, you can’t simply think thoughts of compassion or goodwill and not act on them at all: That’s hypocrisy. You’ve got to act to some extent. But the extent to which you’re able—in terms of your monetary resources, in …
- Happiness Comes from Inner Strength… training in generosity, in virtue, and in developing goodwill. With generosity, it’s a matter of realizing that we have more than enough. The mind-state that says, “I don’t have enough. I need to take something from outside”: That’s creating hunger right there, weakness right there. And that, in and of itself, causes stress and suffering. But when you realize that …
- Interdependence… Watch out for that! The same with generosity: Generosity can have its bad side as well, when you start giving in ways that are not skillful, giving in ways where you harm yourself or harm the recipient. Discernment helps you see that and gets you to stop doing that. So, discernment is not just a matter of watching things coming and going and saying …
- Opportunities Everywhere… There’s a passage where the Buddha talks about how much more merit there is in meditation than in the precepts and how much more merit there is in the precepts than in generosity, but you can’t really get anywhere in meditation without generosity or the precepts. These are necessary; these are part of the foundation. They develop the qualities you need for …
- Practicing from Gratitude… Everything is the result of someone’s generosity—the land of the monastery, all the things that have been built in the monastery, all the activities that keep the monastery going. It’s all the result of generosity. And ideally, the purpose of all that generosity is to give us an opportunity to practice. Anyone who wants to come and is sincere about the …
- A Graduated Discourse… After all, the benefits of generosity are both social and individual: social in the sense of how other people respond to your generosity; individual in the quality of the mind that you develop. It’s like living in a very large house as opposed to living in a narrow, little apartment. There’s a lot of space in a generous mind. If the Buddha …
- Kind & Happy… As the mind begins to open up, as you get more generous and broader in your generosity, the mind itself feels more spacious. It’s a more comfortable mind in which to live. You’re not always concerned about not having enough for tomorrow or the next day. You begin to connect to this network of generosity. You begin to realize that there’s …
- Inner Wealth… You want to make sure that you’re not abusing their generosity. There are a lot of rules around this for the monks, but it’s more that just rules. There’s an attitude you should foster. You’re happy to receive other people’s generosity. You appreciate the effort they put into it, so you don’t want to abuse it, even if …
- Ekaggata… So a basic part of the training in terms of generosity, virtue, meditation, is becoming more sensitive to your own actions. It’s interesting to note that when the Buddha starts out talking about the principle of action, he does it in the context of two particular types of action: gratitude and generosity. After all, what does gratitude mean, if not realizing that the …
- In Memory of King Rama IX… Whereas if your happiness depends on generosity, nobody loses, nobody’s resentful. It’s a safe form of happiness. And you don’t have to wait until the next lifetime to see the benefits of generosity. It comes immediately in the sense of spaciousness in your own mind—that you’re happy to live in a society where you can share, and there’s …
- Noble Treasures… Generosity is generosity of spirit. You can express it through giving material things, giving your time, giving your energy. It’s an expansive quality of mind and it brings with it a sense of wealth: You realize that you’ve got more than you need and you’re willing to share. All of these qualities are noble treasures, things you can take with you …
- The Bowl of Oil… It includes generosity and virtue along with the meditation, and so be happy in other people’s generosity. Now is a good time for us to practice our generosity, too. Especially for those of us who live here long-term, there’s a common tendency to start getting possessive about the place. And this is a good reminder: We’re not in this alone …
- Happily on the Path… The act of generosity in and of itself is a happy act. Generosity here means, of course, voluntary generosity—not the type where you’re forced to give a present because it’s Christmas or a birthday or something, but simply out of the goodness of your heart. You want to share and you have more than enough. Sometimes you may have very little …
- Spread Goodness Around… But in the case of generosity, virtue, and meditation, there are no divisions, no boundaries. The happiness spreads around; the goodness spreads around. Take generosity for example. Usually it’s a matter of giving material things, but it also covers generosity of other kinds as well. You give of your knowledge, you give of your time, you give of your energy, you give your …
- Wise about Happiness… When the Buddha explained the four noble truths, often he’d preface them with what he called a graduated discourse, talking first about generosity, and then virtue, and then the rewards of generosity and virtue. Only when he saw you were secure in those ideas would he be willing to talk about the drawbacks of the rewards. Some people go straight to the drawbacks …
- Thinking Your Way to Stillness… recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, virtue, generosity, and devas. He said to keep these things in mind while you’re living at home with your children and you’ll find that it will lead the mind to a sense of well-being, a sense of confidence, and from that sense of confidence the mind will eventually get concentrated. So these are …
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