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Introduction

Greetings, I just saw in the chat people are greeting us from all over. Thank you to Lianda from South Africa, Sharon from Calgary, Taboo from India, and folks from Ohio, Seattle, and local Portland. It is pretty special to feel connected to such a wide audience, from Sweden, Chicago, Germany, Michigan, and Arizona. Nice. So, thank you.

Guided Meditation: Meditating with Generosity

To start this morning's meditation, we will begin with a little exercise that can serve as the beginning of the meditation. If you would like to take a meditation posture and slowly close your eyes, allow your eyes to rest in their sockets. Sometimes imagining, or actually looking backwards and downwards, can help those eyes, the sockets, and the muscles relax a bit.

Sometimes dropping the mouth open and then gently, slowly floating the teeth back together so they are just touching can help. Sometimes lifting the shoulders up in the direction they would go if they were tense, and then letting them drop, letting them fall. Then, gently as you exhale, relax the shoulders. Soften the shoulders and soften the belly. There might be a little feeling of vulnerability even with that soft belly. You can be tender and caring for that vulnerability, and breathe with it.

The exercise is to think about some time in your life where you did an act of generosity that felt nice for you to do. It might have been a very easy, simple, unselfconscious, not-a-big-deal thing that you offered someone, gave someone, or did for someone. Or it could have been big, but inside of you, you felt happy, useful, or peaceful. There was some feeling of goodness, rightness, or joy in this act of generosity. Perhaps you can remember how it felt in your body—maybe a little more ease. Or in your heart, your emotions, or perhaps a happy feeling in your mind. It doesn't have to be dramatic, just a little bit. Remember what that felt like for you.

Now imagine that that is the kind of generosity that you sit in meditation with. Imagine that you are giving and offering your attention and your awareness. Awareness is a gift, and providing it, making it available to anything, is a gift. Offer your attention to your breathing, to your body breathing. It is a gift for the body that it is known, seen, and experienced. You might think of it not as a duty or a chore to be aware of breathing, but as an act of generosity.

If you are feeling some strong mood or emotional state, what would it be like if the attention, the awareness, was offered to how you are feeling? Your presence is somewhat of a gift. Just like you would give your attention to a friend who needs someone to be with, it is an act of generosity to attend to oneself here in meditation. In a sense, mindfulness is not obligatory; it is voluntary. You are practicing offering and giving attention to your experience in the present moment.

As you are meditating, thoughts might take you away. Thoughts might distract you, and you might get swept into their world. A big part of what we let go of—for me, maybe the only thing we let go of in meditation—is thoughts and ideas. But in letting go of them, let it be a giving away and an offering up. Here too, there can be a feeling and motivation of generosity. Not aversion, not disappointment, not duty. Notice if you are caught up in thoughts, and give those thoughts away. Like you would give dandelion florets away to the wind blowing on the dandelion stalk, the puff. Or imagine you are holding a butterfly that lands on the palm of your hand, and you lift your palm flat and high, offering the butterfly the chance to fly away.

Sit with some modicum of generosity, knowing that we are doing a good thing for ourselves. We are supporting ourselves by offering attention to our experience and generously setting free our thoughts—in the sense of letting them go and giving them up. It is an act of generosity to let go.

Every time you begin again, give away your thoughts and offer your attention again. Not forcefully, not assertively, but as an offering. Offer it to your breathing, offer it to your body, or whatever else is happening. Offer to be open, available, present, and attentive. Letting go of thoughts is an act of giving. If you have another way of sitting with your experience that is better than being generous, by all means, be that way. But if being generous is better than the alternative, you might try sitting here with an attitude of simple generosity as a way of being mindful.

Closing Reflections

Coming to the end of the sitting, if we are settled and calm in meditation, there is a certain degree of freedom from compulsion, ambition, pushing ahead, and doing a lot. With that kind of ease and contentment, it is easier to be generous than not to be generous. There are times where simple acts of generosity are more useful to do than to hold back, resist, overlook, or rush ahead. A simple act of generosity is almost an extension of taking care of oneself; there is an ease to it.

May it be that we learn how to connect how we feel and how we are in meditation with an easeful, enjoyable way of living in the world with generosity. It could be very simple generosity. It doesn't necessarily mean giving things; maybe it is giving our smile or our attention. I believe there is a very close connection between the maturing of meditation and the non-obligatory impulse to be generous—to not hold on or cling to things, but to offer.

May it be that our meditation today allows us to go into the world with greater generosity, so that we can offer our love, our compassion, our care, and our generosity to others. May it be that this meditation that we do supports many, many people through how we live, speak, and think about others.

May all beings be happy.^[1] May all beings be blessed with generosity, support, care, and attention. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free, so that the goodness of their heart can also flow out into the world. May all of us be happy.