Search results for: "Generosity"

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  2. Make Yourself Small
     … After generosity and kind words, then there comes genuine helpfulness. You see what the other person really needs, and if you’re in a position to provide it, you go ahead. You don’t make a show of helping them just to make a good impression on them. You don’t do it for their sake or anyone else’s sake. You do it … 
  3. A Doctor’s Strategies
     … If you’re feeling down on yourself, think about your generosity, the things you’ve given to other people in the past when you didn’t have to. Think about your own virtue, the times when you did the right thing even though it was hard. These are in the traditional list of what they call recollections—meditation as thinking. Because, the Buddha points … 
  4. Mindful of the Buddha’s Shoulds
     … When the Buddha recommends generosity, recommends virtue—these are things that you choose to do because they’re worth doing. That’s a value judgment. Then you get the mind into meditation. Even a simple practice like goodwill is a mindfulness practice—you’ve got to keep reminding yourself to do it. Goodwill for all beings doesn’t come naturally. You focus on the … 
  5. Stay Principled
     … It’s because you can make choices that there is a virtue in generosity. It’s because you have the ability to make choices that you owe gratitude to your parents—because they made choices, too. People who’ve looked after you chose to be helpful, and you always have to appreciate that, have gratitude for it. If you don’t have gratitude for … 
  6. Kindfulness
     … You start with generosity, which obviously benefits other people, but you benefit as well. The mind grows larger, more expansive, more able to include other people in your consideration. The same with the precepts: You refrain from harming other people. That means you have less remorse to deal with inside. If you’re going around intentionally hurting this or that person, and then you … 
  7. Furnishing Your Home for the Mind
     … Without it, we wouldn’t be able to meditate, we wouldn’t be able to practice generosity. So he’s not down on the body. When we’re meditating here, we’re trying to fill our awareness with good breath energy throughout the body. So it’s not that the body is a bad thing. It’s just that you have to learn how … 
  8. Why We Practice the Way We Do
     … Now, you start that with the practice of generosity and the practice of virtue. You try to get rid of your greed and your stinginess—the narrowness of the mind that doesn’t want to help other people—by being generous with your time, generous with your things. That way, you develop skillful qualities in place of unskillful ones. The same with the practice … 
  9. Filling in the Buddha’s Outline
     … the wrong view that your actions don’t make any difference, that generosity isn’t worthwhile, that gratitude isn’t worthwhile, that nobody knows what happens after death so who cares. Those are things you have to avoid across the board. As you get into the four noble truths, especially when you get into the noble eightfold path, there are specific instructions on how … 
  10. Clinging & Feeding
     … As the Buddha said, you want to be aware of your conviction, your virtue, your generosity, your discernment, your level of learning, your level of ingenuity. Have you developed these skills to a point where they really can lead to awakening? As for the self as consumer: If you ever feel tempted to leave the path, you remind yourself, “Hey, I got on this … 
  11. Determined to Stay with the Breath
     … The third quality is generosity, relinquishment, learning how to give things up. While you’re sitting here meditating, there are a lot of things you can’t do. Remind yourself that you’re making a trade. A lot of the other things you could be doing right now really don’t amount to much. And here you’re training the mind: the most important … 
  12. A Tradition of Ingenuity
     … How meticulous are you about your precepts? And how about your generosity? Are you truly generous with the things you have? And not just things: Are you generous with your knowledge? Are you generous with your time? Are you generous with your forgiveness? Then there’s learning. How much do you know about the Dhamma? The Buddha said you want to take what’s … 
  13. The Power to Transcend Suffering
     … He gives us the tools—starting with practicing generosity and virtue, as ways of creating a sense of well-being, a sense of esteem in ourselves. These things strengthens the mind in the face of suffering. And then there’s the practice of meditation. This strengthens the mind as well, but it also makes the mind a lot more sensitive, so that we can … 
  14. The Walls of Ignorance
     … a technique and hope that the technique will reveal everything to you. You have to reflect on what the Buddha taught about the principle of action, the principle of its results. Generosity, virtue: All the teachings form a coherent whole. Even the teachings that we tend to regard more as the religious trappings around Buddhism are really integral to the practice. For instance, the … 
  15. Thinking About Rebirth
     … the perfection of generosity. The same with status, the same with praise: If you gain status, if you gain power, can you use that power in a way that actually will leave you with some skillful kamma, with some good mental qualities? Most people don’t. Once they get some power, they want to use it for whatever. They think it’s theirs, and … 
  16. Equanimity
     … It’s like the practice of generosity: You want all beings to be happy, but you only have so many resources in terms of your wealth, your time, your energy. So you have to take that into account and focus your energies on areas where you can be of most help. This is why I said earlier that equanimity is your reality check. It … 
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