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Meditation: Practice as Generosity; Generosity (2/5) Dana As An Act of Liberation

Guided Meditation

Greetings, friends. Greetings, whatever time zone in the world you are joining from. Dear sangha, greetings and welcome to you.

So today we continue our exploration with the theme, letting our hearts and minds swim and relish the theme of generosity. Exploring generosity, the inner, not just the outer dimensions, but the inner dimensions of it, which are said to be liberative, part of the path of liberation, and actually part of the practice of liberation itself.

So, with an attitude of generosity towards ourselves, given that we are giving ourselves this gift, giving ourselves this gift of time, this gift to sit together in sangha, let us begin. Let us begin our meditation together.

I invite you to find how you can sit comfortably. And if this body, this moment, needs to lie down or stand, that's okay too. Those are fine positions of practice as long as the spine can be straight, there can be a sense of wakefulness.

Allowing your bottom to really land in the chair, in the cushion. To feel the contact, to feel how you are supported, how this body is supported. Being held.

If you're sitting in a chair, on a cushion, let your spine rise up on its own. Rise up with integrity. Sitting tall. As if there is an invisible string connected to the top of your head supporting you. Kind, generously supporting you. You don't have to push up the spine. Supported by the chair, the cushion on one end, and you invisibly invite it upward, as if to the heavens.

And your muscles, your muscles can relax. The soft tissue of your hands, your wrists, your arms can give their weight to the earth. Supported.

Your feet touching the earth, your legs, you're sitting on the cushion. Giving your weight, offering your weight to the earth. "I am here, dear earth, I am here." As if your weight, as if this body is kissing the ground, kissing the earth. As if it were a prostration. Sitting in meditation. Sitting tall in meditation. Let your body, your feet, your legs, your bottom kiss the earth. Offering your presence.

As we kiss the earth with our bodies, the earth, "May I be of service today. I offer you myself, this practice in this moment." Am I sitting? I offer my practice.

So letting the breath find you. Letting the breath find your body. Settle in the lower abdomen. The center of gravity to be low, not in the head, and not in the nostrils today, or the chest, but lower. Lower.

Greeting the breath, the air. Does it find this body, nourishes this body with oxygen? Appreciatively, generously, graciously receiving the breath, the air, support from the earth.

And offering, generously offering your wholehearted intention in this moment. A presence for cultivating goodness. Offering our hearts, our minds, our heart-minds in goodness to the world. To this interconnected web of humanity, to the earth.

As a descendant of so many ancestors who have passed down, have offered their lives so much. Here we are. This being who is me. Our presence, our intentions, our goodness—the best gift we have to offer ourselves, and to be of service to others.

Each breath, both a receiving and a generous offering of this life force. Offering our practice, our goodness, as our practice is goodness. The goodness of our practice, offering it generously. A service.

If and when we find our mind thinking, entangled, maybe lost in thought, it's okay. It's okay. Can we have generosity for our minds? For our poor minds, our distracted, thinking minds. "It's okay, dear. It's okay." Generosity of spirit towards ourselves.

And knowing that simply showing up and doing our best, even if we deem it to be distracted or whatever, is an offering. Is a gift. Showing up is a gift to ourselves and others. So showing up each and every second, again and again, with ease. Our practice, our practice is generosity to ourselves and others.

And for the last moment of the sit together, relinquishing, letting go of any judgments that might have come up. "Oh, I was sleepy, I was distracted." Whatever. No need. Not helpful. Letting go and appreciating, graciously appreciating that I showed up. Yay!

Appreciating with gratitude the gift of aligning our actions as best as we can, our outer actions, actions of the mind, speech, and body, with our intentions, with our wholesome intentions as much as you are able to. You showed up. Yay! Not attaching, not clinging to the outcome. Letting go.

Trusting, trusting that goodness has been generated in our practice. Our practice is an act of generosity. Giving this time to ourselves, cultivating our hearts and minds for others. May our goodness generated here collectively be of benefit, of service, in ways we cannot fathom, to ourselves and to all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free.

Thank you for your practice.

Dharma Talk

Greetings, greetings, sangha. So today is the second day of our exploration with the theme of generosity. Dāna^[1] in Pali. And to follow up from yesterday, the word dāna, d-a-n-a, many of you are already familiar with this word, refers both to the act of giving and also refers to what is given.

And there is a similar word that I briefly mentioned yesterday, which is one of my favorite words actually in Pali. And the word is cāga^[2], and it's spelled c-a-g-a. Which refers to a quality of mind-heart, mind-heart being the citta^[3], the quality of mind-heart. So it's the quality of feeling generous. There's a sense of generosity of spirit. Cāga is also translated as relinquishing, as letting go, because it is the same movement of the heart. When the hand opens up to give something to someone else, it is letting go of it. It is letting go of it for the benefit of someone else. So that motion of the heart, that motion of the body is the same. It is the same as the movement of liberation. It's the same movement of awakening, of letting go, of liberation. Which is why dāna, generosity, is such an important practice.

Such an important practice. As I mentioned, the Buddha taught dāna as a primary practice, especially for lay practitioners. And it shows up in the triad, an important triad of dāna, sīla^[4] (ethical conduct), bhāvanā^[5] (meditation practice, cultivation of the mind and heart). So dāna comes first, and then ethical conduct, and then meditation. So that's one important triad. And you might have been familiar with another triad of practice, which is sīla, samādhi^[6], paññā^[7]. Again, ethical conduct, samādhi (concentration or calming the mind), and paññā (wisdom). So that's a related triad here. A different way to enter and hold practice, just as an important one. They're both as important.

So dāna, this inner and outer dimension of generosity being paralleled with the same movement of the heart that we cultivate towards liberation, freedom, letting go. So let's consider some of the similarities.

So with liberation, with letting go, with non-attachment—which actually sometimes we think of letting go like, "Oh, I have to let go. I have to let go. This Buddhist path thing tells me not to be attached. I'm supposed to be unattached." And it sounds so dire. Sounds so heavy. Like, "Oh, be unattached." Sounds so grim. "Be unattached, let go of everything," right? However, the way to think of that is the same way we think of generosity. It's the same spirit. It's the same idea. That's why letting go, liberation, and dāna, generosity, are so related, and one really supports the other.

Dāna supports liberation because it's the same movement of the heart. Dāna, generosity, is not a dire—well, it's not supposed to be a heavy thing like, "Oh, I have to be generous, I have to give." That's not the spirit for generosity. And you know from your own generosity, which is really a movement of the heart. When you feel moved, when your heart feels bright, it wants to offer. It wants to offer something that you have. Your time, your skills, your resources. Maybe a smile, maybe a compliment. Letting go of something, some resource, for the benefit of someone else. And there's a joy, there is a delight, there is a happiness in that giving. And the receiver, in this case, in the case of dāna, often there's a receiver. The heart is uplifted and joyous. And we'll talk more about the joy of generosity tomorrow, and I'll share some research studies also.

So with dāna, there is this sense of delight, of "Yes, I want you to have this. I want you to have this. Please have this. Yay!" There's the sense of celebration of letting go. There is this brightness of letting go. "It's okay that I don't have this thing anymore. Yay! It's giving me more joy, my heart is freer that this thing, somebody else has it now." So consider this practice, or this sense, this feeling of generosity.

Now, for liberation, it's the same movement of the heart. "Yes, I'm going to give away this tightening attachment, this wanting this thing, because it's yay! For the benefit of all beings, for the benefit of myself, for the benefit of... in ways I can't even fathom. For liberation, for nibbāna^[8], I grant this. I give it away. I release it." So you see the two movements of the heart, of dāna and liberation—letting go for the benefit of liberation—are the same. They both are inspired from the same movement of the heart. The same brightness. The same letting go. And it's not a tight letting go, otherwise it doesn't quite work that well. But it's a bright, "Yay!" For the benefit of myself, for the benefit of all beings. For these other dimensions of freedom, ease, I let go. I let go of greed, hatred, delusion. I let go, and I offer myself. I offer my heart, my purity, my goodness, trusting there is goodness and purity to the world.

And here again, dāna is a practice that supports liberation. "I offer this. I offer something that I have. I offer some thing that I quote-unquote possess." And again, we are only custodians of everything. We don't own stuff in this world. We're just passing through. So this thing that I'm a custodian of for a limited time, I give it away. It generates a practice.

So it is said that practicing generosity—actually giving, making it a habit to give things away, to offer, to make offerings—can help this inner dimension of generosity to be cultivated. This inner dimension of non-attachment to be cultivated. And of course, it's a virtuous cycle. When we have the inner dimension of generosity, when our hearts don't hold tightly and are aware of opportunities to help and support, oh yes, then the outer act of dāna, generosity, comes a lot easier.

Another way that it is said, and Bhikkhu Bodhi^[9] puts it this way: generosity, dāna, connects with the path, connects with the goal of the path, which is liberation, as I briefly mentioned, with the destruction of greed, hatred, and delusion. Because when we're cultivating generosity of spirit, of course, generosity is the antithesis of greed. Greed is holding on, grasping. And the opposite movement of the heart, movement of the mind, is releasing, letting go. So the practice of generosity is the antonym to greed.

So that's one of the poisonous roots. How about hate? Hate is this sense of ill will, not liking people. Again, generosity brings up this sense of mettā^[10]. In fact, this is an amazing practice I learned years ago studying the Visuddhimagga^[11] (The Path of Purification), a book where there are ten practices listed if you're angry at someone, where there is ill will with someone. How to work with the ill will, there are ten things mentioned. The last one—if nothing else works, the last one was to give them a gift. And when I saw that, I was astounded. What? Give someone a gift? And it makes sense. It actually makes sense. Try it. And it's for the liberation of your own heart. If you're angry at someone, give them a gift because it opens, it shifts something in your heart. When you give someone a gift—I've tried that actually, and yes, it's for the liberation of my own heart not to have ill will towards anyone—giving a gift shifts something. This act of generosity, dāna, it dispels hatred.

So greed, hatred, and confusion. And again, there are outer dimensions of generosity. There are visible dimensions of, yes, transferring this item from one person to another. But there are other dimensions—that it dispels delusion, thinking that it is ours, that there are boundaries, that we're not all connected. So in many ways, it dispels delusion in ways we cannot even fathom. So the practice of generosity, the practice of dāna, supports liberation in ways we cannot imagine, which is why the Buddha espoused it so much.

So my invitation for today, if you would like to take it on—you don't have to, this needs to come from the heart, it's not an act of "should"—if you're inspired, find an opportunity today to be generous with someone. It could be your time. Could be maybe pick up the phone and call a friend, see how they're doing. Maybe it's with your resources, maybe it's something you have, or whatever you decide. But see if you can find one opportunity to be generous today and observe. And we'll discuss more about these observations and the inner workings of dāna.

So thank you for the generosity of your practice and your presence. May you all be well, safe, and free.