Search results for: "Generosity"
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- Non-Reactive Judgment… In the beginning, we work with generosity and virtue, and we want to be clear about what we’re doing, when we’re in line with our precepts and when we’re not. I got another phone call this morning from someone who, in a fit of real anger, had intentionally killed a mosquito. Even though it was a very small animal, the fact …
- Things As They Function… In other words, we practice generosity, we observe the precepts, and that trains the mind. Then we use that trained mind to look deeper into the mind. But it’s never a question of just sitting there and looking at whatever comes up in the mind. You’re trying to get the mind to act in as skillful a way as possible in its …
- The Context for No Context… We’re living off of other people’s generosity. Always keep that in mind. I’ve been told over the past week or so that people have been very careless about leaving the lights on. You may have noticed that the generator gets turned on every morning automatically when the batteries go too low. Solar electricity is essentially free, but when we use too …
- Alone with Your Mind… how fortunate it is that we’ve found a teaching that was discovered by someone who in the course of finding the truth was able to find true happiness—who needed nothing from anybody else and so, when he taught, he was engaged in a completely pure act of generosity. This is what he shared. This is what he discovered after having fought the …
- Dhamma in Line with the Dhamma… It starts with meditation, although meditation lies in a larger context where you’re learning to be generous and virtuous as well—practicing good qualities and seeing how happiness comes from being generous, from being virtuous, from being willing to follow whatever the dictates of your sense of what the appropriate way of generosity would be, and the dictates of the precepts as to …
- Noble Treasures… This is what the next treasure is about, i.e., generosity, the willingness to give, seeing that you’ve got something you’d like to share. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a material thing. It could be that you give of your time; you give of your experience; you give of your energy; you give forgiveness. This willingness to share, in itself …
- Delight… As the passage that we chant says again and again, “It’s admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end.” We start with good principles like generosity and virtue, we move on through concentration and discernment, and arrive at a goal that’s absolutely excellent. So, when your defilements want to get you to delight in other things, think about …
- A Haven for Inner Wealth… And there’s generosity: realizing that you have more than enough. In other words, through your good intentions you’ve been creating lots of good things, and you can share them with other people. That lightens the mind, it expands the mind. There’s a sense of well-being that comes with that. That well-being, again, becomes food for the mind. It encourages …
- Refuge in an Admirable Friend… The Buddha goes on to talk about other qualities that you want to emulate in an admirable friend, such as conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. There’s even a passage where he adds the quality of learning. It’s good to read about the Buddha on a regular basis, to remind yourself that we live in a world where there has been a Buddha …
- Varieties of Mindfulness… This doesn’t mean that you have to reflect on examples of perfect virtue or perfect generosity. Reflect on what you’ve been able to do as a means of encouragement. So there are topics of recollection to deal with just about every direction the mind can go when it falls off the path, topics of recollection to bring it back onto the path …
- Respect for the Path… virtue, concentration, discernment, based on generosity. So you show your respect for yourself by showing respect for what you do. Be careful in what you do, because it will have a big impact on not only the present moment, but also the future. When you take on the precepts, you’re being careful in what you do. No killing, no stealing, no illicit sex …
- Inconstant, Stressful, Not-self… our generosity, our virtue, our meditation. On the other hand, we have to reflect that we’re going to die, too. Where are you going to put your energy, where are you going to focus your time, however much time you have left? Because you don’t really know how much time you have. The Buddha says that the only people who are really …
- Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing… term welfare and happiness?” Now you can interpret that on an external level, but you can also interpret it on an internal level. The external level is the practice of merit. Generosity leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Virtue leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Developing attitudes of universal goodwill in the mind leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Those are …
- Pissing on Palaces… What we’re living for as meditators is to develop the qualities—in some cases they’re called the noble treasures—of conviction, virtue, a sense of shame and compunction over the idea of doing something harmful, the willingness to learn, generosity, and wisdom. These are qualities of mind you can take with you, and you don’t want to scrounge around for them …
- Inner Refuge Through Inner Strength… For instance, as you’re sitting here meditating, you don’t have to think about generosity or virtue too much, except when you find that it gives you strength. Your sole concern right now is to remember that you want to be with the breath. And you keep reminding yourself that you want to stay here. Together with mindfulness, there’s alertness: You watch …
- Suffering Is a Feeding Addiction… You can feed it off generosity. You can feed it off virtue. You can feed it off concentration—all the good things that the Buddha set out in the path. This is why the path is an eightfold path. It requires all eight factors for it to do its work.
- Willing to Learn… Translate the skills of generosity and virtue into meditative skills. Then work on the more refined skills that come from just sitting here with the pain, sitting here with the stress in the mind, and realizing that the physical pain doesn’t have to stress the mind. You’re doing something wrong if you let it stress the mind. It’s not that you …
- Capable… But because of what the devas said, it’s become a tradition in the Buddha’s teachings that if you make merit—the devas limited it to the people who make merit by being virtuous, but other people have expanded it to include making merit through generosity—then you can make a determination. You can dedicate the merit to a particular result that you …
- Bless Yourself… Some of us have a lot of generosity in our background. Some of us tend to be more intelligent in a book-learning sort of way. Others have intelligence in other ways. Part of the Buddha’s wisdom was realizing that he could take you from wherever you are and, if you followed his instructions, he could get you to where he was. This …
- Recollection of the Buddha… an admirable friend, a person of conviction, generosity, virtue, and discernment. That’s the kind of friend we want to develop outside, and the kind of friend we want to develop inside, too, so that we can be our own best friend. As we sit here and meditate, we can make it a pleasant pastime—doing it every now and then—or we can …
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