The practices of bodhisattvas—four types of generosity

• Four types of generosity based on what is being given
• Overcoming the tight mind of miserliness
• The generosity of giving material things
• How a sweater was a lesson on giving
• The generosity of giving protection
• The generosity of giving love
• The generosity of giving the Dharma
• Questions and answers

The practices of bodhisattvas—generosity (download)

The first talk can be found here.

We will continue tonight with what we started discussing last night. All the people who couldn’t remember the six perfections decided not to come. [laughter] Can you remember the six perfections? They are generosity, ethical conduct, fortitude, joyous effort, meditative stability, and wisdom. Now the trick is to learn how to practice them. And to know how to practice them, we have to hear teachings about them. That’s what we’re doing tonight.

Taking refuge

Let’s start as we did last night with taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and generating the bodhicitta motivation so that we know what path we’re following—the Buddhist path—and why we’re following it—to become buddhas so we can be of the greatest benefit to all beings.

Remember, when we’re reciting this, imagine in the space in front of you Shakyamuni Buddha surrounded by all the other buddhas, bodhisattvas, arhats and various holy beings. They are all looking at you with compassion and acceptance and the wish to help you and lead you on the path. And then you imagine surrounding you are all the other sentient beings—ones that you like, ones you don’t like, and ones that are strangers that you usually ignore. Everybody is there, and you are leading them in turning to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha for spiritual instruction. 

If there is a family member or friend who you think would really benefit from meeting the Buddha’s teachings, when you do these prayers and visualization, imagine that friend or family member with you, and you’re leading them in taking refuge. Take a moment and do the visualization. Then we’ll go into a few moments of silent meditation, and you can observe your breath for a moment and let your mind settle down, or you can think about the four immeasurables and really generate a motivation to practice them.

Cultivating our motivation

We are not here to gain some information to teach to others so that we become rich or famous. We’re here because we really care about each and every living being, and we want to be of as much benefit as we can to them. Knowing that as ordinary beings we don’t have a lot of capability to be of great benefit, we want to obtain full buddhahood so that we’ll have the compassion, wisdom and power to be of great benefit to living beings. Contemplate that motivation and make it your reason for being here tonight.

Four types of generosity

Today we’re going to start talking about the six perfections, the six paramitas, individually. We’ll begin with generosity because it’s the first one. I’m reading from the book Courageous Compassion, and this is volume six in a ten volume series of books written by His Holiness the Dalia Lama, assisted by me. It covers the entire path, so it’s going into more depth than an introductory book, but it’s not as complicated as if you were picking up a translation of a philosophical text that was originally written in Sanskrit or Pali. 

Last night we talked about what generosity is, and it’s with a kind heart wanting to give to others. There are four types of generosity that depend on what we are giving. The first type is material, so that means our possessions, money, our body.  The second is giving protection when living beings are in danger. The third is the generosity of love given when people need emotional support. And the fourth is the giving of the Dharma. 

Giving materials things

We usually think of generosity of material things, so we’ll start with that. Before living beings can even think of practicing the path to awakening, they have to have their physical needs taken care of, so that means having food, shelter, clothing, medicine. It seems like we all understand that of course we should share these things and give them to other people. But when the government wants us to pay more taxes in order to build the roads all of us drive on, people say, “No, I don’t want to give anymore taxes.” But if they don’t pay the taxes, they aren’t going to have any roads. I don’t know about here, but in my country that’s how it is sometimes. Do people here complain about having to pay taxes? Yeah? It’s the same all around the world, huh? [laughter]

If you’ve seen pictures of Sravasti Abbey, we’re in a rural area, so there aren’t so many people who drive up the roads and so on. But if the county and state government didn’t take care of the roads, we would be in big trouble. And in the winter when there’s snow on the ground, the county even sends big machines to plow the road. We get to know some of the people driving the plows, and they are so nice and really want to help. So, I don’t mind paying the taxes because we benefit and all of our neighbors benefit. But I also know that our county taxes are not used for war. Federal taxes, though, may be used for war and to create bombs and things like that. If we had to pay those, I would write on the check, “For social welfare projects only; do not use for war!”

I don’t think the government pays much attention to that, but for me, I want to be very clear that if I’m giving money, it’s not used to harm people. The question sometimes comes up: “If you have a family member who is an alcoholic or who is taking drugs, and they ask you for money, should you give them the money or not?” You love them, but you know they are going to use the money for something that is not good for them. But if you don’t give them money they are going to get really mad and say, “You’re such a cheap person! You have the money, why won’t you give it to me?” They’ll lie and say they won’t use it for drugs and alcohol, and they’ll pressure you. So, do you give them the money?

Who would give them money? Who would not give them money? I agree with those who said no. Sometimes to practice compassion for people, you have to not give them what they want. What they want is harmful, so even if they get mad at you or call you names, it doesn’t matter. You’re looking at the long-term benefit for them, so you tell them no. I think every parent knows that no matter how much you love your kids, you can’t give them everything they want. They may cry, and they may complain, and they may say, “The person across the street has all these things, and you’re so mean and don’t give me anything. You’re such a mean mother and father!” [laughter] So, do you give them what they want?

No, because even if they pester you, if you give them everything they want they are going to become spoiled brats, and they won’t know how to get along in society. But sometimes kids are very clever. They know how to wrap their parents around their little finger and get mom and dad to give them what they want. [laughter] I think some of us did that when we were younger maybe? [laughter] But in the end, it’s kinder if our parents say no.

Generosity and equality in society

I do think we would have a much better world and much better societies if we shared our resources, because if you have people who are extremely rich, you are also going to have people who are extremely poor. The rich are often rich because of money they have inherited, and the poor are often poor because their ancestors didn’t have money for them to inherit, and they couldn’t pay to go to school. This kind of inequality between people living in society breeds a lot of hostility and resentment and causes all sorts of problems. Whereas if we have more of an attitude of wanting to share to make people more equal then people will get along much better. 

Many years ago I was in Israel teaching, and my friends knew a man who was a Muslim Sufi, and I wanted to meet him. He told me that in his religion you are not allowed to possess something that your neighbor cannot afford. So, if your neighbor didn’t have enough money to buy something but you did, you wouldn’t get it because it would create bad feelings. I thought that was so beautiful that you really had to work for a fair society and have a generous mind that wanted the poor people to have what you’re able to have. 

I don’t know what happened here during Covid, but in the United States, the people hit hardest by Covid were the poor people. The people who had more money would go to their second homes, or they would stay home and work, so it protected them more from the illness. The people who were poorer had to go to work, and they often had service jobs. They were the people who drove trucks to transport groceries to stores, the people who stock the shelves, the people who checked people out at the register, the people who cooked food at restaurants. It was all of these kinds of people who had to work very directly with the public, and they were the hardest hit because they were exposed to Covid.

If you think about things like that, you see that they aren’t fair. When we feel like we’re on the oppressed side, we speak up and say it’s not fair. But when we’re on the upper side and have everything then we don’t say that it’s not fair. The thing about generosity is that when we care about others, because we see that everybody wants happiness and freedom from suffering equally, then when we give something to people who don’t have as much as we do we feel happy. So, generosity is something that when we do it with a kind heart, we feel happy and we’re making other people happy. 

When I was teaching in Mexico, I stayed at one family’s house, and they had quite a large house with many people who worked in the house. The maids and so forth were from poor families. But the mother of the house made sure that the people who worked for her went to school, and she paid the school fees so that those people would get an education and wouldn’t have to work in those kinds of jobs their whole lives. There was no law telling her to do this, nothing forcing her to do it; it was just due to the kindness of her own heart. I thought that was so beautiful because there are so many people who are intelligent, but they don’t have the resources to go to school. And then all of us lose out when those people can’t use their intelligence and contribute to goodness in society. 

I was quite grateful to her because I know in my own family, when my grandparents immigrated to America they were completely poor. My dad was the first generation born in the States, so his whole focus was on supporting the family. He did that very well, lifting the whole family out of poverty, but it’s because he had the chance to go to school.

The miserly mind

When we practice generosity, there are many material things we can give, but sometimes we may become a little bit stingy and not really want to give. We’re afraid that if we give then we won’t have it. Often we don’t even need or use the thing now, but we’re afraid that in five or ten years we might need it, so we think, “I better not give it.” Some of you may have closets full of stuff. I see some people reacting. [laughter] You might have closets full of stuff, some of which you might have forgotten is even there. Oh, one person raised their hand. I see how it is. Oh, two people! [laughter]

When I was teaching about this in the States to one class, I gave people the homework assignment to clean out one closet or one drawer. I’m not saying clean out the whole house, just one closet and one set of drawers. And everything they hadn’t used in a year, I asked them to donate to a charity. It’s not a difficult homework assignment, is it? So, the next week I asked them how they did. One person said, “Well, I was really busy this week, and I couldn’t do the homework.” Another person said, “I started to do it, and then I found a t-shirt that I had forgotten I had. It was a t-shirt I bought when I was on vacation in another country, so I saw that t-shirt and it brought back so many memories of my vacation that I just couldn’t give it away.” [laughter] 

And then another person said, “Yeah, I cleaned out the closet, put the stuff in a bag and put it by the front door, but then I forgot to put it in the car.” And another person said, “I put my bag in the trunk and forgot that I had it, so I never got it to a charity.” I said, “Really? Who is telling the truth?” [laughter] 

When I lived in India, I was really poor. I didn’t have very much money at all. But when I walked to the market from where I lived, there were some lepers in the community who were always by the roadside, and I would see them. When you live in a community with the lepers, you know them. So, they would have their bowls, and I would see them, and it would only cost a few pennies to give them enough to get a cup of tea, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Here are these people, lepers with no hands and no legs, ostracized from society, and I was receiving teachings at the time from my teacher who was of course talking about the perfection of generosity. I would walk past the lepers, and I would not give them anything because I thought, “If I give them even a few pennies for a cup of tea then I won’t have that.” But at the same time, I was telling myself, “It’s okay not to give. You don’t have so much.” 

I was also, in the back of my mind, hearing my teacher talking about the benefits of generosity and how bodhisattvas were so generous. I had a lot of internal conflict. If I had been generous and given them something, I would have felt more happy. A few pennies would not have put me out so much. But it’s interesting to watch the mind that is so tight, that thinks, “This is my tissue. You can’t have any!” But the way you’re thinking with a miserly mind—that “I won’t have it when I need it”—if you have an understanding of karma you realize that’s totally wrong. Because the more stingy you are the more you are creating the causes of poverty because your mind is so tight like that. Whereas Nagarjuna, one of the great sages in India, said that generosity is the cause of wealth. If you think about it, it makes sense, doesn’t it? If you give, people are going to reciprocate and you will have wealth. But so often we have to fight against that miserly mind.

Tips for giving

Here are some tips about giving: once you’ve made up your mind to give something, give it as soon as you can. Don’t keep it there because after awhile you’ll either forget or you will change your mind. And if somebody else gives you something to give to a third person or to a charity, make sure you give that. For example, lots of times when somebody is going on pilgrimage in India, their friends will give them money to make offerings or to light candles. It’s important to make sure you give those things. That’s like if somebody gives you a whole bunch of fruit and says, “Offer this at the temple,” so the fruit is sitting in your car, and you’re hungry, and you say, “I’ll just have a little bit and buy more to replace what I eat.” That’s kind of like stealing something that belongs to the Buddha or is destined for the Buddha. 

When I taught in Singapore years ago, we had a session on Sunday mornings, and people would bring food and make offerings on the altar. And then after the session when it was time for lunch they decided it was time to take the offerings down and eat them. I thought that was so interesting that they decided to take the offerings down right when it was time for lunch. So, I asked them, “Did you really offer that food to the Buddha, or did you just put it on the altar until it was lunch time and then took it away?” [laughter] When we make different offerings on the altar, we should give the best items to the Buddha. If you buy a bunch of fruit to give to your family and to put on the altar, you should put the best fruit on the altar, not the bruised fruit. 

Making offerings every morning is a really nice practice. It doesn’t take very long. If you have a shrine in your home with the image of the Buddha, a text representing the Dharma, and a figure of an arhat or a bodhisattva representing the Sangha, then every morning you can offer food or lights or whatever you like. It doesn’t take very long, but it makes you pause and really think about the qualities of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And then when you give, you are creating that link with them. If you have children or grandchildren, this is something very nice to do with them. I had a friend who had a little girl who was maybe four or five, and every morning she would give her daughter some kind of snack and say, “Offer this to the Buddha.” The little girl would offer the snack to the Buddha, and then she would get a snack, and her mother would say, “This is an offering from the Buddha to you.” That little girl grew up, and she was a Buddhist.

Generosity and karma

If you’re generous it creates the karma for wealth, and it creates the karma to meet holy beings. Once you give something it’s no longer yours. Sometimes when people give their friend a gift, maybe for a holiday or a birthday, they tend to keep watching their friend to see if they’re using the gift you’ve given. And if they aren’t, you feel offended. [laughter] So, you haven’t really given it. You’re keeping track. [laughter]

One time when I was living in India, I made some text covers to wrap Dharma books for one of my teachers. The Tibetans have long texts, so you cover them with nice cloth, like brocade. I spent many days hand-stitching these book covers. Then I had an appointment with my teacher, so I went in and offered these book covers to him. I was thinking that he would really be able to use them; he would like them. They were very pretty. I thought, “Oh, I created so much merit making an offering to my Guru.” Then after I left another monk came in to see my teacher who was a very well respected scholar and practitioner. When he left, he was carrying the book covers I had just given to my teacher. [laughter] That was a very good teaching for me. When you give it no longer belongs to you; you have no say-so over what happens to it.

However, as monastics, we have precepts that if people give us a gift and tell us to use it for a certain purpose, we have to use it for that purpose. If we can’t or we don’t want to, we have to go back to the donor and explain why we can’t use their gift for the purpose they designated, and we have to ask if we can use it for another purpose. We have several precepts about how we handle offerings that are made. If somebody makes you an offering and says, “Use this for food,” you can’t go and buy a nice, soft, cozy blanket with it instead. Even if you’re cold, you can’t buy a blanket—unless you go and ask the donor for permission.

Two stories about generosity

I was invited to Japan to teach, and the people I was staying with gave me a maroon cashmere sweater. Cashmere is a kind of wool that is very soft, and a sweater made of it keeps you really warm and feels really nice on your skin. As monastics, it’s sometimes difficult to find sweaters in our color. [laughter] It depends on what color is in fashion that year, and then you have to find a sweater that doesn’t have any designs or ornaments or slogans or anything like that. So, these people gave me a sweater in the perfect color that was so soft and so warm. I really liked that sweater. I have to admit that I had some attachment for it. [laughter]

Later on I was invited to Ukraine to teach. I was doing teachings in a lot of the former Soviet countries, so I had my maroon sweater with me since it was early spring there and quite cold. I was traveling with a translator, and we had taken a train to Kyiv. We were going to take a train the following night to Donetsk. You made have heard the names of these cities on the news these last few months as they have been getting bombed. My translator had a freind in Kyiv, so when we arrived, he called his friend, who didn’t have any advanced notice that we were coming, and she told us to come and spend the day with her. His friend’s name was Sasha, and she was a young woman who didn’t have much money. But because we were guests, she brought out the really nice food. 

Really nice food meant average food because she didn’t have much money. She gave us breakfast and lunch, and we spent the day with her. It was really nice. She was very happy and very generous. In the evening it was time to take the train to Donetsk, so we got on the tram to go to the station, and Sasha is about the same size that I am, so I had the absolute crazy idea that I should give my maroon cashmere sweater to Sasha. As soon as that thought arose in my mind, there was another thought inside that immediately said, “No!” But I told myself, “Chodron, come on. She could really use that sweater. It’s really cold here in Ukraine.” But I argued with myself and said, “Absolutely not!”

So, Sasha and the translator are chatting away and having a good time while I am having a civil war with myself. [laughter] “Give her the sweater.” “No!” “Oh, just pull it out of your suitcase.” “I can’t; the train is moving.” “Okay, fine, give it to her when we get to the station.” “No, because then we’ll be getting on the train.” “Well, when you get on the train, open the suitcase and give her the sweater.” “No, the train is going to be moving, and if I do that when she gets off the train, she’ll get hurt. I can’t give her the sweater.” 

We get to the train station and Sasha tells us to wait and goes off for a moment. She comes back with pastry so that we’ll have food on the train. I’m just thinking, “Chodron, just give her the sweater!” Finally, once we were on the train I pulled out the sweater and gave it to her. Her face lit up, and she was really happy. I realized, “Oh wow, I had almost given up the opportunity to make somebody really and truly happy.” She gets off the train, and we go to Donetsk where we spend a week. Then we go back to Kyiv.

I just remembered a second story about generosity that happened on the train. I’ll tell you that story then I’ll tell you the end of the first story. [laughter] This story is about someone who wants to give me a gift. It was a sleeper train, so we were in a compartment with a few other people. I had a cold and wasn’t feeling well, and one of the men in the compartment asked me if I was feeling okay. I told him I had a cold, and so these two guys wanted to help someone who wasn’t feeling well, so they offered me vodka. [laughter] They had started drinking vodka as soon as they got up in the morning, and they were practicing generosity and wanted to give me vodka first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I said, “Thank you very much for your kind offer, but I don’t drink.” And they said, “But you’re sick; this will make you feel better! Please have some.” I told them I was sorry and that I was a nun and had a vow not to drink. They said, “That doesn’t matter; you’re sick!” So, I spent most of the train ride back telling them that no, I would not drink vodka. 

So, now we’re back in Kyiv and who is waiting for us at the train station but Sasha. The weather has changed, and it’s a warm Spring day. And what is Sasha wearing in the warm weather? My former maroon cashmere sweater. She was so happy wearing it. It was too hot to wear it, but she loved it, and I was just thinking, “My goodness, I fought this whole civil war inside, and I almost passed up the opportunity to make somebody really, really happy.” That taught me a big lesson. Some of you might think that the lesson I learned was to keep two cashmere sweaters when traveling so that I could give one away and keep the other. [laughter] No, that’s not the lesson. Generosity can be challenging, but when you really work with your miserly mind then generosity makes you happy.

Expectations and generosity

When we practice generosity it’s important that you don’t expect a thank you. If you give somebody a gift, don’t expect them to give you a gift back. If you’re expecting praise or appreciation, for someone to say, “Oh, you’re so generous,” then your generosity is contaminated. Similarly, if you give to the Temple, don’t expect them to name the building after you. Some people give, thinking, “Now they’ll name the building after me, so everyone will know how rich I am. I gave a lot of money, and now they’ll know how generous I am. Now that the building is named after me then in future generations people will think of ME with so much gratitude!” Sometimes the Temple may want to make a plaque with the names of the donors, but that’s coming from the Temple’s wish, not because somebody expected that.

I should warn you that at Sravasti Abbey we don’t name buildings after people or hang plaques with people’s names on them. If you want to make a donation to us, the only thing you will get is the happiness from being generous. This was my decision, and the community seconded it. The reason I made that decision is because as I said before, when I started out I didn’t have very much money. I saw that the people who made big donations got a lot of perks, and I thought that didn’t feel very comfortable. In our monastery, we want people to give out of the goodness of their heart, not because they’re going to get a perk. 

The generosity of protection

The generosity of protection involves protecting people who are in danger—or protecting any kind of animal in danger. Maybe you see a bucket of water outdoor with some insects drowning in it, so you pull them out and rescue them, or if some animals are about to be killed so people can eat their flesh, then you buy the animal to set it free or to take it home and care for it. One day I walked into the Dharma Center in Deli, and there were two chickens walking around. Can  you imagine two chickens in here walking around? [laughter] So, I asked how the chickens had come to live here, and I was told that they were about to be killed for somebody’s meal, so my teacher bought the chickens and took them back to the Dharma Center. They would now live long lives for chickens. Our previous neighbors down the hill from Sravasti Abbey had some sheep that they were going to slaughter. When we heard about this, we paid for the sheep, but we couldn’t keep them at the monastery, so we arranged for them to be taken to a sanctuary instead where they could live until the end of their natural life. 

Another example of somebody practicing the generosity of protection happened a few years ago in New York where they have subways. Somebody had fallen off the platform and was on the subway tracks and a train was coming. One man was standing on the side who saw this person on the tracks, and without a thought, he jumped onto the tracks and laid on top of the person who had fallen, pushing that person down with himself on top. The train came and went right over them, but because that man had pressed himself and the other person down, the train didn’t harm either of them. He had risked his own life to save that other person.

The generosity of love

Then the third kind of generosity is the generosity of love. We will often encounter people who are upset or depressed, who have personal or family problems. This is reaching out to those people and helping them. In those kinds of situations, you have to figure out what you can actually do that will help that other person. Some people may want to be comforted, but some people may not want to be comforted. It may depend on whether you know the person or not. You have to assess the situation and think, “What can I give at this point?” Sometimes it’s your company; sometimes it’s a few words; sometimes it’s a tissue. [laughter] You have to figure out what will really help that person. 

What I’ve seen is that some people don’t like to see sick people. It makes them queasy and afraid that they may become ill like that. So, it’s hard for them to extend love to people who are ill who need some help. Other people are more afraid of when people are showing a very strong emotion, like if somebody is very sad and crying. Those people think, “I don’t know what to do. I want to leave.” Sometimes the giving of love and support and encouragement can sometimes involve us stretching ourselves to go beyond what is really comfortable. 

For example, with the Israeli hostages that have just been released by Hamas, I saw a little girl on the news who was taken without any family members. They took her underground, so she had been living in the Hamas tunnels for fifty days. Her mom had been killed in the terrorist attack, but when she was released she ran to her father, and he picked her up. But her Dad said that she could barely even whisper because the whole time underground, the guards would yell at her to be quiet anytime she said anything. Now she was terrified and could now barely speak above a whisper. A child that has been traumatized that severely is going to need psychological help. She doesn’t need a bicycle. What she needs is just people being there for her and letting her know that she’s safe. Maybe a stuffed animal to cuddle with might help; little kids do like that. This is an example of trying to fit our generosity to what their need is. 

The generosity of the Dharma

The last kind of generosity is giving the Dharma. That could be writing books or translating—anything you do where you are making the Dharma available to people. Many temples have the practice of giving Dharma books for free distribution, so if you give money to the publisher so that Dharma books can be given freely, that is also generosity of the Dharma. When you talk to your friends, you can teach them a lot of things that are Buddhist teachings that are also common sense. You don’t need to mention all sorts of fancy foreign words, like Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, samsara or karma. You can just talk to them. They don’t have to be Buddhists, but it’s practical advice, common sense, on how to deal with situations with kindness. That kind of sharing with friends is also the generosity of the Dharma. You could also give your friends some of the small booklets for distribution or invite them to a Dharma talk. But when there’s the book that’s published that says “For non-Muslims only,” follow that. In Malaysia, for example, sometimes books indicate that they should not be given to Muslims. So, those are the four kinds of generosity. 

Questions & Answers

Audience: [Inaudible]

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): You want me to say something about Tara, because you’re getting the cards. Okay. Tara is a female manifestation of the Buddha, and her speciality is eliminating obstacles and bringing success. In the Tibetan community, if somebody is sick or is having financial problems or just opened a business, something like that, they will very often ask the monastery to do a puja to Tara. One of my teachers called Tara “Mummy Tara,” because he said that when you’re a child and you need help, you call out to your mom. So, he was saying that she’s like a mother to all the sentient beings. That doesn’t mean that you call out and say, “Tara, I want to win the lottery!” [laughter] Rather, when you do the meditation on Tara or make prayers to Tara, it changes your mind. Your mind feels happier and brighter, and that often has some good effects on the environment around you as well. There’s an arrangement of 21 Taras, each one holding different implements and having different specialities. But there are actually over 108 Taras, too. There is one Tara who is for long life, another who will help with wisdom. That gives you some idea of the benefits of practicing Tara.

Audience: Is there such a thing as being too generous? Where do you draw the line if you are going to struggle because of being generous?

VTC: Yes, I know somebody who is like that, who I consider overly generous. We were traveling, and our plane landed in Bangkok. He arrived and spent the whole day in Bangkok filling an entire suitcase with presents for his entire family. I thought it was a little too much to carry an empty suitcase to buy presents, especially because he had been telling me he needed to save money. Some people are like that; you have to kind of rein them in. I had commented to him about this kind of over-the-top generosity when he needed to save money, and he said he realized he was giving so that people wouldn’t be angry at him. I think it made him realize that he didn’t have a pure motivation. He wasn’t giving to make others happy but because he was a people pleaser. That’s why it’s so important to always look at our motivation and also to look at the practicalities of it. But if somebody wants to give a gift, you shouldn’t stop them. You might talk to them about their motivation for future gifts, but if they want to give something at that time, don’t interfere. 

Rejoicing and dedicating

Okay, let’s close for the evening and come back to our breath. Let’s also really rejoice at the merit you created coming to the talk and the merit we created as a group, our collective merit, by sharing the Dharma this evening. Let your mind be happy rejoicing in your own merit and others’ merit. And then imagine practicing generosity with your merit and giving your merit to all sentient beings, dedicating it so that they can have both happiness in samsara and the ultimate happiness of liberation and awakening.