Search results for: "Generosity"
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- The Culture of the Practice… We’re living off the generosity of others, which requires that we develop an attitude of generosity as well. As the Buddha said, if you’re not generous, if you’re stingy with your belongings, stingy with your Dhamma, you can’t even get into right concentration, much less gain awakening. The fourth quality is discernment. It’s defined as penetrative knowledge of arising …
- The Power of Present Kamma… In fact, the Buddha, when he introduces karma, introduces it in a very positive way, connecting it with generosity and gratitude, both of which are really good parts of human life. The Buddha says that generosity has meaning because our actions have meaning. They have meaning in the sense that we choose to do things. That means that people have meaning, too. When we …
- The Gift of Goodwill… One of the Buddha’s phrases is, “May all beings look after themselves with ease.” Another is, “May no beings despise anyone or mistreat anyone.” In other words, we’re hoping that people will understand the causes for true happiness—generosity, virtue, meditation—and act on them. Now, that may bear very little resemblance to the world as we see it, but we do …
- To Delight in the Path… So you learn to take delight in doing good, being generous, helping other people who are generous, being with admirable friends—people who have conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. These things lift not only the mind, but also the heart. Remember, we’re training both the heart and the mind. In Pali, the word *citta *covers both. So the practice is not just a …
- Visakha Puja – True Homage… When you go out for alms, you realize that your practice is dependent on the generosity of other people. When you eat the food they gave, it’s incumbent on you to practice well. The Buddha says that one of the motivations for a person to practice, especially for a monk who’s practicing, is that by attaining the noble attainments, you make it …
- More than Just Letting Go… One of the ways you do that is through the meditation, of course, but you can also do it through generosity and virtue: seeing what’s a good gift of your time, something that’s going to take you out of yourself, and seeing what good what you can leave behind for the rest of the world. So the activity here goes in and …
- The Use of the Present… We’re never going to get a perfect society, but you find that the wiser you are in your generosity, the more consistent you are in your virtue, then the better the world you create around you. And it can be done without force, without imposing your will on other people. Generosity and virtue are the yeast that gets into a society and makes …
- Shoulds & Desires… Start with generosity: finding happiness by giving things out. Of course, you’ll be feeding off the happiness that comes from the act of generosity, but it’s an initial lesson in the principle that, with a lot of good things in life, the best ways to feed are to do the opposite of feeding: They’re to radiate something good out. The same …
- Inner Wealth… As a result, they can be more open with you and they’re more willing to be generous, because they know you’re not going to take advantage of their generosity. Discernment, of course, is the quality that informs all the other ones and keeps them in control: reminding yourself why these qualities are forms of wealth. Because as you develop the mind in …
- Daily-Life Dhamma… truth, self-control, stamina, and generosity. The spirit’s impressed, and he takes the Buddha as his refuge. In the Dhamma textbooks in Thailand, they call these four qualities laypersons’ Dhamma. But there’s nothing in the list to indicate it’s just for laypeople. It’s for monks as well. As you develop these qualities in your daily life, they’re going to …
- What You Don’t Like About Yourself… Now, when the Buddha taught karma and rebirth, he also taught generosity and gratitude as being essential parts of the teaching on karma. In other words, because there is karma, generosity means something. You make the choice to be generous. When someone is good to you, they’ve made the choice to be good to you, so some gratitude is appropriate. These two attitudes …
- Take Responsibility for Yourself… We’re living here, as I said, off the generosity of others, which means that we should take good care of their generosity. Make sure it stays in good shape. Make sure it stays clean and neat. After all, you want to create a clean and neat mind. If your mind is a mess, how are you going to straighten things out? How are …
- Push Yourself… This is why the path begins with generosity. Generosity requires that you give first before you get the rewards. All too many people want to see the rewards first. “Show me the rewards, then I’ll practice.” But it doesn’t work that way. It’s like going to a corporation to get a job and saying, “Okay, pay me first, give me a …
- Empathetic Joy Is Ennobling… It shows a real generosity of character, a generosity of heart. You’re developing a perfection. Otherwise, you’re going to allow people to have happiness only up to your level at best. What kind of attitude is that? Very narrow. And if you’re envious of people who are happy, that means when the time comes for you to be happy, have good …
- A Sense of Well-being… This is why the Buddha teaches us to practice generosity, to observe the precepts, because the intentions that go into generosity and virtue are skillful in and of themselves and also allow us to see more and more of what’s going on, to gain an appreciation of how much our intentions do shape everything. When we’ve made a practice of generosity and …
- A Mind Larger than the World… The third quality is generosity. Generosity here can cover giving up unskillful attitudes; it can cover the act of actually giving and also renunciation. As I said earlier, renunciation is giving up your fascination with sensual thoughts. You find your happiness instead in the practice of concentration. You want to have the concentration as your food as you go through life. Of course, you …
- Investment Strategies… This covers not only generosity with your material things but also just generosity of spirit: being generous with your time, generous with your forgiveness, generous with your goodwill. There’s a story of a man who had been through an operation and he saw the effect on his memory as he got older. People would come to see him and they’d say, “I …
- The Joy of Heedfulness… Meritorious actions, of course, are generosity, virtue, and developing goodwill. Skillful actions have to do with the ten guidelines: no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no divisive speech, no harsh speech, no idle speech. And then for the mind: no inordinate greed, no ill will, and developing right view. These are the things that you shouldn’t underestimate. They can do …
- Contentment… Everything here comes from someone’s generosity. Nobody was forced to give anything. Nobody was giving anything out of a sense of obligation. They gave out of the goodness of their hearts. So we should learn to be grateful for everything that comes our way and learn how to express that gratitude by delighting in developing skillful qualities and delighting in abandoning unskillful ones …
- The End of the World… But you have to remember that to find that spot inside, generosity is one of the prerequisites, one of your inner treasures. We don’t leave the world by trashing it. We develop generosity, we develop virtue, all the things that make human life good. But we do it in such a way that gets us out, because outside the world is a lot …
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