This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Introduction

And we'd like to thank Nolitha for joining us all the way from Johannesburg, South Africa. For those curious, it's 8:00 p.m. there now. And as we're transitioning from the winter to the spring here in California, in South Africa they're going from summer to fall, so it's a good transition period for everyone.

Nolitha Tsengiwe is a guiding teacher at the Dharmagiri Retreat Center in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She will be completing a four-year teacher training under IMS and IRC^[1] in May of this year. Nolitha is a student of Kittisaro and Thanissara^[2], who are students of Ajahn Chah^[3].

Growing up in a culture underpinned by the principle of ubuntu^[4], which means "I am because we are," and where the power of generosity is greatly appreciated, being introduced to Buddhism and living in a place where there aren't many Buddhists felt like coming home for her. Nolitha is also a single parent to a 23-year-old son in a culture where villages help to raise their children. So thank you very much for joining us, Nolitha.

Generosity: Sustaining & Deepening our Wholesome Intentions for Freedom

Thank you, Kevin. I'm delighted to be here. The theme I've chosen for reflection is generosity.

Under the theme of generosity, I'm going to talk about giving and sharing, a key practice in Buddhism. In all Buddhist traditions, it is called dāna^[5], that's the Pali word for giving. I'll also talk about training in ethics. The Buddha referred to training in precepts as the great dāna; it's another form of giving. I'll also speak about relinquishment, letting go. The Pali word for relinquishment is cāga^[6]. Letting go is also a form of giving. And lastly, I will talk about forgiveness. Forgiveness is a form of giving where we give each other fearlessness when we forgive.

The cultivation of generosity is really the foundation for training of the mind. It is the foundation for mindfulness and wisdom for liberation.

I notice the words I'm using: giving and sharing, precepts, relinquishment, forgiveness. These words can bring up interesting experiences in the heart. They can bring up discomfort. I know for a long time for me, the words precepts and relinquishment would bring a sense of terror to my heart. I don't know what it is like for you; maybe you're well ahead on this path, and these words bring joy to your heart. That's what they are aimed for actually, to bring joy.

Generosity and Connection

I'm going to start off with a story that for me highlights the beauty and the grace of generosity. A friend of mine I teach with here in South Africa, Moira, shares a story about being in Zambia. Zambia and South Africa share a border. So she says here she is in some village in Zambia, driving on a dirt road. The car starts to give her problems. She drives on and suddenly notices that there's this homestead near the roadside and there are scrap cars, old cars in the yard. She decides to stop here, thinking this would be the kind of place that can give her help in fixing her car.

At the homestead, she's welcomed by an old man. She notices children playing in the sand and also notices signs of great poverty in this household. She mentions seeing a few chickens without any feathers. So she explains her need, and the old man organizes all the boys. They look at the car, and the car is fixed. About to leave, Moira offers this old man some money. He says no. She then offers some fruit in the car. He says no, and she says, "But it's for the children." He says no, and then he says, "If we can't help each other, that would be really sad, if we just cannot just give help."

For Moira, this was a new experience. Moira is a white person, the old man is black, and I'm mentioning the race here because I'm joining you from South Africa and issues of race are still a big issue. Moira shares that from this experience she felt deeply connected, and she also mentions that she felt like she didn't deserve that connection. Acts of generosity allow for these benevolent connections with each other.

Generosity, acts of kindness, giving, sharing—this is what the Buddha has to say about sharing: "If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given, nor would the stain of selfishness overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, their last mouthful, they would not eat without having shared, if there was someone to receive their gift."

Ubuntu: A Culture of Giving

When growing up, the practice of generosity was truly a way of life. I remember that growing up in a more rural, countryside part of South Africa, there would always be an extra plate of food set aside in case there was a visitor or someone passing by who could be offered a meal. I also remember that there was no time that we were ever a nuclear family only. Our home was always a home to many cousins, aunts, and uncles. Sometimes I wouldn't even know how we were related to that person who was there to share our home for as much time as she or he needed to be there.

My parents were doing what their own parents did. So I know a lot about this kind of giving—I must admit though, moving to the city and getting urbanized brought less and less of this kind of generosity.

I know generosity personally, but I also know generosity at a country level. The world often wonders, how did South Africa manage a bloodless transition from apartheid to a black-led government? Many think it was because of Nelson Mandela. Rightly so, he did play a critical role in what the world thought of as a miracle, a miracle that gave hope to the whole world. To us, it wasn't a miracle. This was so because the African culture is underpinned by the principle of ubuntu, "I am because we are." If I cause you harm, I'm causing harm to myself.

Steve Biko^[7], the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, a struggle hero who died at the hands of apartheid South Africa, is speaking to this principle when he says, "Our contribution to the world would not be in technology. Our contribution in Africa to the world will be to give the world a humane face." To be fully human is about being generous, giving, sharing, and forgiving.

Archives of Kindness During Crisis

In this country, I also notice that we're really great at coming together at times of crisis, and this has been the case during the crisis of COVID-19. I have a few stories to share with you about these acts of kindness shown by people not only here, but really everywhere. This is what people have done: they've remembered what it is to be fully human by giving support in any way that they can. We know medical care and related professions would even risk their lives to save lives.

I have a friend who's an academic. She had the task of collating these local stories of kindness during this period of COVID, and she's actually in the process of compiling a book titled Archives of Kindness. She asked a number of us to choose our five top stories. These are two of the five that I'm going to read to you.

Candice in Cape Town, in Franschhoek^[8], writes: "I've been living in Franschhoek now for 12 years. We are a small village, but as with most places in South Africa, we have a polarized society of the wealthy and the poor, some of whom live in the township setting. For a small village, we also have a hugely successful and vibrant hospitality sector, which means we have many hardworking people in all levels of an industry that was some of the hardest hit during this lockdown. Over the years, I've been amazed at how many people have done extraordinary things in their private capacity because it's the right thing to do, like building schools and sports centers for poorer communities. But during this crisis, we reached a whole new level. So many people contributed and did awesome things, coordinating relief, turning restaurants into food kitchens, checking out that everyone was okay in all different parts of the town."

A lady from the township of Diepkloof^[9] here in Johannesburg writes: "My landlady is an angel. She has given us a free stay for two months, all five of her tenants. She's unemployed and depends on rent, but she's seen how we're all struggling in the yard. She says we will share whatever food we find. She is now trying to find someone to donate nappies^[10] for my son. I'm embarrassed; she's an old lady. During this time, she has the strength I'm lacking. She is my hero and a mom to all of us. May God give me strength to pay it forward one day."

These are joyful stories. This is what happens to the heart when there is generosity.

Virtue, Nature, and True Connection

The Buddha, when teaching new people the practices, would mostly start off by teaching about generosity. He would then proceed and teach about precepts. Only then, when he had the sense that these teachings of generosity and training in ethics had landed, would he introduce meditation.

Ajahn Chah says on this theme: "With virtue as a basis for everything you do, your mind will become kind, clear, and quiet. Meditation will grow easily in this environment."

So through the practice of generosity and virtue, we can recover the connection with ourselves, with each other, and with mother nature. Through generosity, we recover the heart's potential for sensitivity, the heart's potential for opening.

Baba Mandaza^[11], who lives in Zimbabwe—Zimbabwe also shares a border with South Africa. Baba is known as an international peacemaker. He is a guardian to our center here, Dharmagiri, founded by Kittisaro and Thanissara. When they speak about Baba, Kittisaro and Thanissara talk of him as a contemporary of Ajahn Chah. Baba says we have been disconnected from ourselves and disconnected from each other because we are disconnected from nature. And because we are disconnected from nature, we take whatever we want from nature without giving back.

As a world, we are in an ecological crisis because we do not see ourselves as part of nature. We abuse nature for our greed, and our greed is endless. Through this, we lose this heart sensitivity, the intuitive intelligence. It is said that we are the only species that destroys its own habitat. We have lost connection with the goodness of the heart, and I think we're paying a price for this.

Disconnected from each other, disconnected from ourselves, we feel separate. We create "us" and "them." In Martin Buber's^[12] language, we create I-It relationships. It is through the cultivation of these practices of generosity that we can recover what Martin Buber calls the I-Thou relationship, the I and We relationship. With the "we" identity, we can remember the truth that we all suffer and we all want happiness. Our sense of conscience and concern can be reawakened.

Generosity as Relinquishment

I'm going to talk about generosity as relinquishment. Relinquishment is a form of letting go. In letting go, we let go of greed and craving, which the Buddha has identified as the cause of our suffering—the Second Noble Truth, that we suffer because of craving. The task in this path of freedom, for liberation, is to let go of the craving. Practices of giving can support us, help us to let go.

Craving has no end; it feeds itself. It is through understanding, it is through these practices that we can release craving. What underpins craving is ignorance, confusion. See how we can look for this heart's longing in wrong places when we follow sense objects to satisfy our craving that has no end. Desire feeds itself. We look for fulfillment in sense experience. Sense experience changes. What is pleasant becomes unpleasant.

There's a story I delight at about this confusion of looking for fulfillment in the wrong places. It's the story of Nasrudin^[13]. Nasrudin is a Sufi mystic. He's sitting outside in a ruby and spice shop, and he's eating these hot chilies. His eyes are watering. A friend comes by and says, "What are you doing eating these hot chilies with your eyes watering, and you're sweating?" Nasrudin says, "I'm looking for the sweet one."

This is what we do, you and I, right? We look for the freedom which is the longing of the heart. The heart longs for freedom, freedom from greed, hatred, and delusion.

Forgiveness as Fearlessness

Lastly, I'm going to talk about forgiveness as a form of giving. How is forgiveness a form of giving? When we forgive, we give fearlessness. When people know that we hold no grudges, we hold no ill will when we have been the victims, it gives relief. It gives happiness.

I know personally about this kind of relief that comes from one who I have harmed holding no ill will towards me. I can't remember what year it was, but it was the year that Nelson Mandela died. I leave home, and I notice a feeling of anxiety. Maybe 10 minutes after I left home, my phone rings. I'm driving, and I answered the phone. Within no time, between that moment of answering the phone whilst driving, I drove into a biker.

I get out of the car in shock, and this man is on the ground. I can tell he's in great pain. I go near him, and he is screaming at me: "You were on your phone!" In no time, other people stopped to check what was going on. I remember just at one point I had a feeling that was running across my heart of fear. In that moment I was thinking, "Oh, this is going to become racial^[14]." I look around; people here are black, it's me and the security guard.

I offer to take the man to the hospital. He refuses; he's still screaming at me. An older white couple decides to take him to the nearest hospital. I wait for the police. I wait and wait, and then I decide to go to the hospital. I get to casualty, and he's with medical staff. I sit across from him; he's laying down on a bed. I take a chair and sit right across from him. When I maintain eye contact, he ignores me. At some point, he says, "You don't need to be here. You can go where you need to go." My response to him is, "I want to be here and I'm really sorry." I continue to just sit there.

At some point, I decide I have to go and report this to the police. As I'm about to leave, he says to me, "Tell them that you were on a cell phone." I'm thinking, "Oh, interesting." I go and report the case. I come back to the hospital, and he has been discharged. Apparently, he suffered really serious injuries: a broken collarbone and a crushed ankle.

Now what do I do? I decide to go to a grocery store. I buy food, I buy flowers, I buy a bottle of red wine. I organize a script for strong painkillers, go to the pharmacy, and I get the medication. Only at that point did I realize, "Oh, I must have decided that I'm going to visit him at his house." He had given me an idea where he lives. So I drive there and then I get to the boom gates, and they call him. "Nolitha is here."

He allows me in, and as I'm parking my car, he comes out. One of his arms is on a sling. With his free arm, he hugs me and places a kiss on my cheek, and then a smile at me. I say, "Are we good?" He smiles. People come and visit, and he introduces me as the one who drove into him. People are not sure how to respond to this.

To cut a long story short, about two weeks after that incident it was Mr. Mandela's funeral. I had been checking on him daily just to find out how he is. Most of that first week he was in terrible pain, couldn't even work, and this is a man who works for himself. So with Mr. Mandela's funeral, I'm watching it with him from my home over a meal. We talk about South Africa, we talk about racism. And from that experience, I had an experience of what it is to be forgiven. I know what it is to be offered fearlessness.

At a country level, we know the power of forgiveness through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)^[15], where people who had committed serious atrocities of harm—police, soldiers, and law enforcement officials during the period just before the first elections in South Africa in 1994—post-elections, the TRC was instituted. Those perpetrators were brought together with their victims and had to tell the victims all they had done under the apartheid government. It was an intense, intense experience where the victim and the perpetrator are given an opportunity to find each other through forgiveness. I think that particular practice gave hope not only to us as South Africans but to the world.

I mean, our problems are not over as a country by any long shot. Much as we are led by a black government, we are stuck in material structures of white supremacy. The poor in South Africa has a black face, and there is ongoing corruption. But I know my fellow South Africans; we do come together during times of crisis.

Nourishing the Dharma

Generosity is a foundation for the practice of mindfulness and wisdom for liberation. I think we all have opportunities, especially in these times; the world is on fire in many ways. We have the opportunity to cultivate generosity.

I'm going to end this reflection with words from Ajahn Chah on virtue and morality: "Virtue and morality are the mother and father of the dharma growing within us. They provide it with the proper nourishment and guidance."

So sustaining, deepening our cultivation of generosity is the way that we can nourish ourselves, each other, in this quest for freedom, freeing the heart from hate, greed, and delusion. Thank you, grateful for this opportunity to share these beautiful teachings of the Buddha. Kevin and Mark, I am happy to take some questions based on this reflection on generosity.

Q&A

Kevin: So if anyone has anything that they'd like to ask Nolitha, you can either raise your hand in Zoom or post your question in chat. We have about 10 minutes for Q&A. Jerry, you can go ahead and unmute yourself.

Jerry: Hi, Jerry Quiggan in Toronto. A bit away from South Africa, but a country I do want to visit, so thank you very much. I was interested in your last words about virtue and morality and the interrelationship of that with generosity. Recently I was in a situation—I'm a physician here—and a group was negotiating a lease with the landlord. Some of them had their income go down and wanted a reduction in the rent, asking the landlord out of generosity. They misrepresented the situation, and then proposed a letter which was not accurate. I refused to sign it. They pressured me to participate, and I told them they had lost their moral compass, that this letter was dissembling, and that I was disgusted.

I had just listened to a dharma talk about why we practice mindfulness—to develop an ethic to speak the truth and avoid the defilements of greed and delusion. I wondered whether I should have related it more in a generous way, saying, "Look, I feel it would be immoral for me to sign this letter," instead of projecting it onto the other person. Getting caught in trying to be generous and kind, but also courageous when you feel a group is going awry. Would you just speak to yourself and not tell someone else that they've lost their moral compass, even though you feel that they did? When you see unethical behavior in a group, should you identify and name it, or just say, "For me to participate in this is unethical"?

Nolitha: In the Buddhist teachings, this is training. So it is not about "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts" in that way. It's not very helpful. If it's training, it means all of us are going to fail. And we do fail to act ethically. And yes, you are right, the practice of mindfulness allows you to see that. It's hard to not see with a trained mind when you act in ways that are not ethical. And also in this practice, you can only start again. It's not about punishment; it is about developing, it is about training. So let's leave it to that, Jerry.

Kevin: Okay, we have time for one more. Miriam, you can go ahead and unmute yourself.

Miriam: Nolitha, I want to thank you for your generosity for sharing all that. I'm from the Congo, and I live in California. I'm really emotional because this is the first time for me to hear someone from Africa doing Buddhist teaching, so I don't feel alone. My struggle about generosity is that sometimes I feel like I'm not kind to myself when I'm not generous to another person. Specifically, I know some people who are gay in my community, but I know in African culture that's not acceptable. I really feel not generous when other people have strong ideas against that, but I don't accept them not being open-minded. That's the struggle that I have, and I don't know how to deal with that.

Nolitha: What is great, Miriam, is that you see what is going on, that you are struggling. So the encouragement would be to turn towards that experience of pain with kindness. With an attitude of openness and allowing. Because this practice of mindfulness is exactly about that; it is also about opening the heart towards ourselves and what we struggle with. That is what I would encourage you to do, because rightly so, we are products of our cultures. Some of these beliefs are part of our psychology. What mindfulness can help us is to see which of these beliefs are beneficial and wholesome, and which of these are harmful not only to others but also to ourselves. I would encourage you to really be gentle and kind to yourself in meeting with that pain.

Kevin: Next is Jill. Jill, you can go ahead and unmute yourself.

Jill: Thank you very much for taking the question. I need to share that for a very long time, the concept of forgiveness seems to have a very strong divine element to it. Something outside of just myself. If I had the power to forgive someone for a great harm, it seems very bold and outside of my own entity. Am I misunderstanding the definition of forgiveness?

Nolitha: Jill, when you say it's outside of your power, what does that mean?

Jill: That when true harm is done, I would not understand the motivation of that other person, or the deep reasons. Perhaps this is a leftover from the training of another religion, which was very rooted in the concepts of guilt and only God has power to do things. Even in my best of Buddhist moments, and my best efforts to feel generosity, I know I can change my feelings in my heart about this person who has caused great harm, but I feel that the true washing away belongs to a power greater than mine.

Nolitha: It sounds like you've answered your question then. So I'd encourage you to notice the experience of unforgiveness and open to that. Allow that. Be with the actual experience of unforgiveness, not making it right or wrong, but just meeting it with openness. With the sensations of the experience, not so much the thoughts, the stories. Stay with the felt sense of unforgiveness. So that's what I would advise as a practice, and really being gentle with yourself with that as well.

Kevin: Nolitha, there's a question in chat. I don't know if you have time for one more?

Nolitha: Okay, yeah, let me take it, Kevin.

Kevin: Cindy asks, "Nolitha, how do you practice generosity in an environment of racism and white supremacy? It has been present in this country since its beginning, and it is a very difficult thing to forgive and understand."

Nolitha: Just notice that in a moment. It isn't wisdom that's present for me in responding to that, but the fact that this person is thinking about forgiveness and just not knowing how is already a generous place to be. That there is a desire or a curiosity as to what forgiveness might look like in that situation. Stay with the idea of being with the desire to forgive.