extolling the virtues of generosity!
sova
delocalized fractyllic harmonizing Veteran
Hi everyone!
Generosity is awesome!
The Buddha said, "When you see someone practicing the Way of giving, aid him joyously, and you will obtain vast and great blessings." A shramana asked: "Is there an end to those blessings?" The Buddha said, "Consider the flame of a single lamp. Though a hundred thousand people come and light their own lamps from it so that they can cook their food and ward off the darkness, the first lamp remains the same as before. Blessings are like this, too."
On (always) sharing:
If beings knew, as I know, the fruit of sharing gifts, they would not enjoy their use without sharing them, nor would the taint of stinginess obsess the heart and stay there. Even if it were their last bit, their last morsel of food, they would not enjoy its use without sharing it, if there were anyone to receive it.
Sometimes I find it personally very helpful to look over the Six Perfections.
- Generosity.
- "Ethical Discipline" which I'd rather call something like.. proper positive vibrational conduct ... still working on good english renderings!
- Patience.
- (Enthusiastic!) Effort.
- Concentration (which you might call "ability to gather" or "ability to concentrate" after serenifying/tranquility'ing your mind/environs)
- Wisdom.
One of the coolest things I have heard spoken and have just started to learn is that each perfection has all the other perfections in it. Patrul Rinpoche said something to this effect.
Thus, there is "patience of generosity" and "wisdom of generosity" and so forth...
Be well and help extol the great merits of generous giving.
Comments
Gratitude for the teaching.
Cool and true.
Great post. Thanks for sharing. Generous.
We can be generous with time, with example (teachers, sangha, developed practitioners). So many ways. Ethical discipline is partly restraint of mind body and impediments. It is why teachers without this generous quality are takers not givers.
A generous person takes away our ignorance, not provides their own . . . However most people cling to their ignorance, hence the generosity of patience . . . and so on ...
each perfection has all the other perfections in it
The Buddha spoke at length about Generosity in all of its manifestations. It is a perfection because it opens our hearts. One of the harder aspects of this perfection practice is being able to offer ones generosity by being able to receive another's giving, that is, allowing generosity not by giving, but by receiving.