unsatisfiable”.
You can see how our craving makes it difficult for us to be happy. Instead of being content and happy with what we've got we incline towards being dissatisfied. We focus on what we don’t have rather than appreciating and enjoying what we do have. So, we need to find out about generosity, the minds natural antidote to the craving.
Consider this: most of us already give many things to others every day of our lives. If we are already giving a lot, why doesn’t this generosity work to reduce our craving?
The act of giving itself makes the kamma for us to receive things in the future. How we give is the factor by which we can reduce our greed and craving.
Nina Van Gorkom writes in her essay Generosity: The Inward Dimension:
"The giving away of useful or pleasant things is an act of generosity. However, if we only pay attention to the outward deeds we do not know whether or not we are being sincerely generous. We should learn more about the mind which motivates our deeds. True generosity is difficult. While we are giving, our thoughts may not all be good and noble. Our motives for giving may not all be pure. We may give with selfish motives - expecting something in return, hoping to be liked by the receiver or our gift, wanting to be known as a generous person. We may notice that there are different thoughts at different moments, some truly generous, and others having different motives." 4.
Often, we are happy enough to give to others if certain conditions are met, such as the person is someone we like or know well, maybe we don't particularly want the thing we are giving or we have enough for ourselves too, and the person thanks us afterwards, which we normally would expect.
If the receiver of our gift did not express thanks for the gift or if they did something with the gift we did not like, we may feel disappointed or resentful of their behaviour. This is giving with expectation of something in return. When we give in this way we are not really giving freely.
We could be giving because it is our duty, because it is our role in our family or because it is expected of us, because we were told to do it, because it is part of our job, because we want someone to do something for us in return. This is fine in the sense that most or maybe all these things do need to be done but probably, if you look, you'll find you are not actually doing these things with the mind of generosity.
While all this type of giving is going on, what is your mind doing? Is your mind just rushing to get the food on the table, is your mind tired and wanting to sit down for a cup of tea, is your mind just mindlessly handing something to someone else, or is your mind really engaged mindfully in the act of giving with kindness, generosity and love in your heart?
There is a story in the Buddhist texts about a young boy named Priyadarshi. He knew about the Buddha and had great respect and love for him. One day, unexpectedly, he had an opportunity to meet the Buddha face to face. Immediately he wanted to make offerings to the Buddha and pay respect to the great man.
As he looked around for something to offer he realised he had nothing to give. He was not carrying anything to offer yet in his heart his wish to give something to the Buddha was so strong that he bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground. As the Buddha looked at him Priyadarshi offered the dirt with his heart filled with love, joy and respect.
As the Buddha blessed Priyadarshi he said that his offering would bring him to many lives of great wealth and good fortune because of the way it was offered. The offering was done with strong volition to give accompanied by heartfelt generosity, gratitude, and joy.
Buddha's Teachings are practised with our body, speech and mind. Generosity as part of Buddha Dhamma practice is performed with body, speech and mind.
So the mind component of giving is the bit that offers us the possibility to reduce our stinginess and craving if we learn to do it correctly.
Give like you were giving to your child. Give like you were giving to your love. Give like you were receiving the gift. Give completely. Give freely. Once given it belongs completely to the other person. It is no longer your property.
If the person then damages or throws away what they received from you, it should not raise any pain or concern in your mind. If it does, maybe you still have an idea that it belongs to you. You have not given the object freely.
You give someone some chocolates. They put them away. You say to yourself; “They should have shared the chocolates with everyone”. In this case you have not offered the gift freely or completely. Your mind still identifies with the object you gave away, as if in some sense it still belongs to you.
You can see how having a generous heart is at the core of what it means to be kind to others. In generosity is the willingness to help others, the willingness to get up out of your chair quickly and happily when your help would be beneficial.
Generosity has the openness, flexibility and lightness to put our own needs down for a while and consider the needs of another, to be sensitive enough and patient enough to find out what the other person really needs to be well and happy.
The Founder of The Buddhist Discussion Centre Australia, John Hughes, on meeting students for the first time, would often recommend they start their Buddhist practice by offering food, drinks and flowers to their parents, particularly their Mother. He would also encourage and arrange for the students to make the most of any opportunity to make offerings to the Buddhist Monks or Nuns.
This introduces another aspect of generosity. The reason the teacher would suggest new students made these offerings to their parents in particular and also to monks or nuns is because there is something about the qualities of those recipients of the gift that make any offerings you do to them produce very great kammic benefits to the giver.
The Buddha explained that the kammic connection between a son or daughter and our parents, particularly our Mother is the strongest kammic connection of any type of relationship. Therefore, a gift to our parents creates the greatest amount of good kamma compared to an equivalent gift to any other person.
The relative amount of good kamma produced by a suitable gift to our parent can be a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand or even more times that of the same gift to someone we have a weak kammic connection to. The Buddha observed this is how the Law of Kamma works.
It is a similar case with regard to making offerings to beings whose minds are very pure. The kamma of such gifts is also greatly multiplied by the qualities of the receiver of the gift. Hence this is why when the small child Priyadarshi gave a handful of dirt to the Buddha the kammic result was so vast. Not only was the child's mind having many good qualities, so too the Buddha's mind was completely enlightened.
As laypersons we train to keep a minimum of five precepts. As our purity increases by us keeping our precepts well this too multiplies up the kammic results of our giving.
This aspect of the Law of Kamma is why in one human life of say, eighty years, it is possible for us to create enough good causes to be born in a heaven birth which could last a million years or more.
Some Buddhist monks keep 227 rules of conduct. It is very rare to meet persons who have developed such extraordinary purity of mind and conduct. Again, any offerings we make to such persons bring great benefits to ourselves in the future.
It is important to know what the kammic returns of particular gifts are. If we know what gift produces what outcome, we can do many offerings of a particular item which we recognise is needed by us. For example, Buddhist texts teach that the kammic return of offering flowers brings ten blessings to the giver.
1 Long
