Before I heard you chanting, I was going to tell you that I'm kind of sick and tired, but I was too stupid to ask somebody else to give the talk. I didn't realize until I was preparing for the talk that I'm not capable of giving one tonight. So anyway, that's the way it goes. I looked at my calendar and I see that there's seven weeks We have seven Wednesday nights before the sesshin. And so I had this idea of having, talking about the six paramitas, the six perfections. They're sometimes called the six perfections or the six paramitas, which are the practices of the bodhisattva. And in case we don't finish, we could spill over into the session a little bit. And next week we have a little bit of a problem because there's a very popular event happening next Wednesday, a talk on menopause, which I personally would like to go to.

[01:14]

Since about half of my friends are going through menopause, I want to understand more about what that is about. I don't know what we'll do next week, but I thought tonight I would just start and talk about the perfections of the bodhisattva. I said perfection, but I don't want to say perfection. Paramitas, six paramitas. So six paramitas are, first one's called dana, which is sometimes translated as giving. Second one is shila, which could be translated as precepts or sometimes translated as ethics. Next one is kshanti, usually translated as patience or forbearance.

[02:20]

And next is virya. is translated as energy or vigor or enthusiasm or courageous effort. And next is samadhi, translated as concentration or awareness. And next is prajna, which is translated as wisdom or insight. Something like that. Those are the six paramitas. Paramita, I think the par, paramita means other shore or over there or beyond. I think mita means one who

[03:23]

who does it. So paramita means the one who or the way of going beyond or going to the other shore. sometimes they say that the Dharma is good, or the Dharma is lovely, or sweet, or something like that. The truth is beautiful in the beginning of studying the truth. It's beautiful. In the middle it's beautiful, and in the end it's beautiful. So these beyonds, these transcendent practices, in one sense, are thinking about practice at the end of practice, or even practice after practice.

[04:40]

What's practice like when it's over? When you don't have to do it anymore? When you've been liberated from practice, too? So in a sense, these are six ways, or six dimensions, or six ways to look at practice when it's not necessary anymore as a kind of objective thing, or six ways to go beyond practice, six ways to go beyond giving and beyond ethics and beyond patience and beyond enthusiasm. six ways to free yourself from these six spiritual dimensions.

[05:41]

And part of the reason for this emphasis is that when we think of doing anything, we would tend to think of getting able to do it, and then doing it, accomplishing it. Finishing it off. Which is a normal activity of our mind to think that way. Like, okay, we're practicing giving, so we did it. Or we haven't quite done it yet, and now we have. And that's it. I did it. Well, that's fine. But then there's a way to sort of not get stuck there and go beyond that. So that we enter into the process of the practice rather than like getting at some stage where we sit there and we get stuck in a stage. We get stuck in the stage of giving ethics or something. Or we get stuck in giving partway through, middle way through, or quite a ways into it, or really good.

[06:57]

And we also shouldn't get stuck in not being involved at the beginning and the middle either. That's also okay as long as you're in the process. So I don't know. I probably will share these lectures, let other people give some of these talks, but I want to, whenever I talk about it, to try to relate, to keep in touch with the transcendent quality of these practices. And we may not be able to get to that in each case. I don't know how that will work out. But I want to tell you at the beginning about this transcendent side. which I would call, which I've been emphasizing in terms of other aspects of practice, in terms of the light, the light of these six perfections. What's the light of giving?

[08:05]

What's the light of ethics or precepts? What's the light of patience? Or what's the uprightness of giving? What's the uprightness of precepts? What's the uprightness of patience? What's the kind of patience which, what's the kind of like radiance in the middle of the field that we call patience? What's the radiance, the ungraspable, undefilable radiance of our being. In other words, what is the way that we really are? And as I mentioned the other day, Nagarjuna said, nowhere and at no time is there ever anything that's caused by itself.

[09:17]

that's caused by something else, that's caused by itself and something else, or that doesn't have a cause. There's nothing like that that's caused by itself or by something else, or by both, or that doesn't have a cause. In other words, there's nothing that really happens that's caused or that appears in any way that you can think of The way things really are is really totally just plain, I don't know, whatever you want to call it. You can call it brilliant. You can call it dark. So, in terms of our own being moment by moment, in terms of our practice of giving and so on, what is the way that giving is that you can't mess with? And yet, the way from which true giving, really helpful giving, emanates from.

[10:31]

What is that way? And the paramitas are gesturing towards, you know, straight ahead towards that kind of giving, towards that kind of ethics towards that kind of patience. These transcendent practices, these beyonds, are the practices of what we call bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are those who are either have achieved or who are inclined towards, intending towards, the path of compassion. Those who actually have achieved the path of compassion or who are intending to practice the path of compassion need these perfections, need these transcendent practices in order to be effective.

[11:47]

When they first start practicing compassion, they practice compassion in the form of themselves, who are feeling, who have feelings of compassion and want to help others. And then there's some others who are suffering, who they want to help and express compassion towards. And there are certain acts or feelings of compassion This is the way they start. And this is the way we have to start, I think. As far as I know, most people have to start that way. But if we are at all stuck or caught in those, in that way of seeing things, then that's That's still somewhat limiting. And this level of compassion is called compassion with regard to sentient beings or with reference to sentient beings.

[13:04]

Or compassion that has an object. Compassion which is coming from some kind of little bit of sentiment, sentimentalism. This level of compassion, however, is, although it has a limitation of being stuck in that way of thinking, it is the foundation of higher developments of compassion. And you can't reject it. I mean, you can reject it, but if you reject it, you won't be able to develop compassion. the fuller, the transcendent compassion of the Buddha. If you are involved in this kind of compassion and you work at it for some time and you look carefully at how you're feeling about the process, you will start to become suspicious of what you're feeling and perceiving, and you will gradually start to notice that you yourself

[14:15]

are not so real as you might have thought. As a matter of fact, you're kind of an illusory event. As a matter of fact, you are just simply a sequence of illusions. Not only that, but the sequence of illusions which you are, which you perceive yourself to be, not only that, but you attribute inherent existence to this sequence of illusions. And the more you watch it, the more you'll notice, And you'll notice not the vanity of your illusions, because illusions are just illusions, but you notice the vanity of your believing that these illusions are realities in themselves. And once you start suspecting yourself, which you should suspect yourself first or be suspicious of yourself first as an inherently existing thing, then you won't feel that it's rude to suspect the same thing of others. And then you won't think it's rude or disrespectful to suspect the same thing of these compassionate acts.

[15:25]

The illusoriness of us and the illusoriness of others is due to the fact that we are interconnected. The fact that we're interconnected is, it's through interconnection that the illusion of me and the illusion of you is created. We go along with this interconnection and we make a self out of it. We make a person out of it. We make this self and we make others out of this interconnectedness. And also what is considered to be helpful or kind or sympathetic is also an interconnectedly created event. And as you start to appreciate this interconnection more, you also start to appreciate that the idea that this is an inherently existing person is at odds with this interconnectedness. And then another kind of compassion is born out of this. Sometimes called compassion with regard to phenomena.

[16:38]

And when this is fully developed, it develops into a compassion which has absolutely no object or subject. And this is compassion which has gone beyond compassion of being compassionate towards anything or from anything. Objectless compassion. So these six perfections are, these six transcendences are kind of like unpacking of this basic compassion. And all these six will go through the stages of being done on a relative level, a dualistic level at first, probably. And then as you get into the dualistic level of them, more and more you start to notice the illusoriness or emptiness of them until each one of them will not be broken up into these parts anymore.

[17:44]

Each one of them will become non-dualistic, will become non-dual, including going beyond themselves. And going beyond themselves means that they're nothing at all. That giving doesn't look like what you used to think it would look. In the end, giving looks just exactly like this. precisely like this. Before we get to that point, we have to get all these people to do something now to make giving happen. But once you get beyond giving, it comes right back to here. This is giving. But to appreciate that, we have to go through some exercise program called the practice of giving. And it's quite a program. Another way I'd like to talk about these perfections is to, in terms of what the Zen teacher Yun-Man was asked, what was a Buddhist teaching during his whole lifetime?

[19:01]

And Yun-Man said, an appropriate response. So when you first start practicing giving or ethics or patience, well, you probably have some idea of, you know, well, if I'm practicing giving, it should look like this. And so go ahead, do that as best you can. But the transcendence of giving is not just what you think is giving, but it is the appropriate response at that moment. So if someone asks you for a dollar, your idea of giving might be such and such, like give him a dollar or give him five, or give him your body, or give him a Cadillac. You might have various ideas about what giving would be in that case. But what giving really is in that case, it is the appropriate response.

[20:05]

The response apropos of that situation, which is not necessarily your idea or my idea of what giving would be at that time. So all these transcendent practices are the appropriate responses from the point of view of the ultimate good. And I also have used that image of a wind bell, which I think, again, imagine a wind bell hanging in space, and the wind blowing on the windmill, let's say the wind blows from the south. Well, when the wind blows from the south, the windmill moves maybe to the north. When the wind blows on the windmill from the north, the windmill probably moves to the south. And so on.

[21:08]

The windmill doesn't say, well, I'm practicing the practice of moving to the north. So when the wind comes from the east, I'll just keep moving to the north. I'm practicing giving, so I'm going to do it this way. So part of these... Again, at the beginning of practicing giving and so on, you do your best. In other words, at the beginning of practicing giving, or whatever it is, it's a little bit like we're... Maybe like we're a wind bell with very heavy chimes. Very heavy. And they have little jets on the back that we're in control of. And we decide which way to move. So when the wind blows at us, we can go right at the wind. Because we say, I was intending to go this way, excuse me, but this is the way I'm going to go. I'm going to give this to you. This way. Our intention is to practice giving, and even to do something contradictory to what's apropos with the intention to give is still extremely meritorious, even though it's completely inappropriate.

[22:25]

Your intention is really important. However, the intention to give in this transcendent manner is incomparably greater than to give according to your agenda. But even to give according to your agenda of giving, even though it's usually not appropriate, is still very, very beneficial. Can you give me an example of that, please? Oh. Let's say, well, let's say someone else might think the good person could use food. But another person comes along and gives them food in order to get them to do something hurting the person, right?

[23:35]

Giving the food to a hungry person is what's going on. But in one case, the person might give the food Because they say a person's hungry to give them food, another person might give them food. Not because a wife would give her hungry person food, but because they have an ulterior motive to get something wrong to happen. Oh, yeah. In that case, the example you just gave, that would not be giving. As a matter of fact, it would be extremely unwholesome. Not that example there. But there's some other examples, I think, where you might give it with some other wrong attitude and it could still be beneficial even if it was in the right direction. For example, if you gave it with a dualistic attitude, which is, in a sense, not such a good attitude, but that's a slight demerit, but it's really still a great merit if you actually want to give it, if you actually want to give and you actually...

[24:36]

Particularly if you want to give and as you give you notice some stinginess drop away, but you give it in a dualistic way, that's very good. Now if the other person interprets the gift in such a way that they do something wrong with it, that's unfortunate, but it's still very good for yourself, for your own practice that you gave it. The proposal is, If you get into non-dual giving, okay, you make the appropriate response and the other person doesn't misuse your gift. It's appropriate because it benefits them. It really benefits them. As a matter of fact, it wakes them up. That's why we're working towards this really effective compassion. Yes? What do you mean by appropriate? Appropriate means the best possible thing for a person.

[25:39]

What would be apropos of that? That's the appropriate response. The most sincere response? No. Well, yes, it's most sincere, yes. It's most sincere. That's one of the qualities of it. But it's not just most sincere. It's most sincere to the extent that it is the most helpful thing for that person. And I think radical, total sincerity is one of the most helpful things you can do for somebody. In other words, be completely sincere to your situation. I think that's one of the best things you can do for another person. But it might be that there would... It's possible, maybe it's possible, that there would be... that your sincerity... Well, this is... Your sincerity... would be your sincerity has something to do with the other person. Okay? So I'm adding into that that there's a responsiveness in your sincerity to this other person.

[26:47]

So like the wind... If you're like one of these heavy wind bells, you know, that's got all kinds of agendas and little jets and stuff stuck onto it so it can decide which way to go, you could sincerely be a wind bell on a trip, a wind bell with an agenda, or a system of agendas. In fact, that's what we are. We have the capability of being very flexible and responding appropriately, but we've got all these agendas, all these ideas of right and wrong, which we hold on to and use to figure out what to do. Okay? Like we have ideas of what giving is. We have ideas of what stinginess is and stuff like that. We have ideas of what patience and impatience are, right? Well, we always are going to have these ideas, but if you hold on to them, then you can't respond appropriately. Now, if you're sincerely, completely sincere about holding on to your agendas, that's good, but if you haven't held on so tightly that you realize how stupid that is and let go, then you still can't make this appropriate response.

[27:54]

Or rather... I guess the appropriate response you're making still might, actually still might be okay because you might be demonstrating and you're holding onto your agendas, you might be demonstrating what happens when a person is clinging to their idea of right and wrong. You still might be able to help the person under those circumstances. So sincerity really is important. But again, this is something to work towards, and you can use these perfections of giving and so on to get at noticing how you are holding on to agendas or views about what giving is. If you don't practice giving, you might not notice that you've got all these ideas about what it is, and all these little problems about what's the appropriate thing to do. Like the other day, I found a dollar on the ground.

[28:55]

And so a little while later when a guy asked me for some money, I gave him the dollar. And I didn't think about what he would use it for. My wife said, well, now he'll probably go down to the store and blah-de-blah. But she says, we can't do anything about that, can you? And I said, well, I could wait at the store. And when he goes in, I can say, give me my dollar back. LAUGHTER Or I could wait until he tried to buy liquor with me and say, no, no, no. Maybe try to buy candy, no, no. Or there's preservatives on that, no, no. But that could be done with good spirit, you know, as a joke, right? Not really attached to anything. Was it? In a sense, it wasn't as far as I could tell, but I didn't stay to look to see if the guy woke up. Yeah.

[29:59]

I just gave it, and if it worked, it worked. If it didn't, it didn't. So I don't know if it was an appropriate response, but anyway. That's what happened. And part of giving... Part of giving is... what's recommended from the beginning of giving on up through the end of giving, from the beginning of giving on up through the end of giving, what's recommended as when you give, do not think about the result. Have no attachment to or expectation of result. And that result means for yourself, because when you give, in fact, what you get from giving is lots of merit. And the merit you get is spiritual merit and material merit. In other words, if you give, you get a lot of resources. If you give money, you get more money, and you get a lot more money than you give.

[31:05]

A lot more. Also, you get spiritual benefits, like if you give... saintly people tend to want to hang around with you because they think they might get some donations which of course they will because people who are generous want to give their money to saintly people because they know that saintly people will use it well even though they have no attachment to how it's used so if you have no attachment to how it's used it's good to give it to a saintly person because then you can forget about it you know, safely So at the beginning of giving, you should not have any idea or expectation or attachment to what's going to happen to it. At the middle and at the end, you shouldn't. At the end, of course, you have no expectation of what to do with it, because you're not dealing with those terms anymore of it and them and it and you and all that. Yeah?

[32:11]

Yeah, I'm wondering about something. If the energy for the appropriate restore comes from my agenda or my ideas, where does it come from? It comes from causes and conditions. Huh? What? You went like this? Yeah. It comes from everything arriving right here. So you just have faith in it. You have faith in cause and effect, right. You don't put your faith in your power to manipulate. You don't put faith in your controlling abilities. You don't put faith in your agendas. You put faith in the fact of your agendas arriving, other people's agendas arriving. Yes? The reason I ask is because sometimes when I do put down, when I feel I'm as sincerely as possible putting down my agendas and my thoughts, would those sort of come up? Yeah, it doesn't seem like the appropriate response.

[33:18]

Of course, that's an idea, but really, sometimes it could be lacking. It'll lack in energy? Yeah, for instance. Well, I thought you said, for instance. Yeah. Let's have an instance. Oh. That wasn't an example, but a general example. Yeah. Well, it just feels like there won't be a response. Sort of indifference. What I'm pointing to, again, first of all, I'm letting, you asked me a question and I just am responding to you rather than going ahead with my intended direction, right? Okay, so I'm playing that game with you right now. I'm a good boy. Okay. So, what I'm pointing to is the light of the practice of giving and so on.

[34:21]

Okay? This place has much more energy than any place else. The place where everything is coming together to create your life is the hottest spot. Or rather, it's the hottest area. And the place in the middle of it is where you do this practice. Now, what there might be is a lack of my energy. There might be a lack of that. But there's not a lack of energy. There's not a lack of light. If I really let go of my agendas and respond to the situation, there's no way to measure the energy anymore. It's whatever you want to say. How are you feeling? Well, we blew it.

[35:23]

Don't you want to play? Well, go ahead. Is this practicing giving? Giving? What are you giving me? Now how do you feel about giving me this? Part of giving also, another aspect of giving is that a small thing given with joy becomes a very meritorious gift. Well, maybe I should talk about it at the non-transcendent level for a while.

[36:33]

Then you can see what, at the relative level, it may be easier to see, at the transcendent level, there's nothing that isn't giving. At the transcendent level, you see that everything you do all day long is giving. After you're free of the practice of giving, after you've transcended the practice of giving, then everything that's happening is giving. Leslie's nose is giving. Thank you. You know... Evelyn's nose, too. Yeah, right. This laughter is giving. Okay? But before that, at a relative level, some things are giving and some things aren't. So, for example, if I give something but actually don't want to give it, that's not giving.

[37:37]

If I give you a dollar and don't want to give it, you got the dollar, but I didn't practice giving. The exchange of material occurred, but I don't get any credit at all for giving. As a matter of fact, if I give you the dollar and resent it even a little, even a little, it is not only not giving, it is negative. It's worse than not giving it at all. It's not worse than not wanting to give it and holding it. That would be about the same. But it's probably a little different, though, because if I didn't want to get it and I held it, at least I wouldn't resent you for getting it. Okay? That's an example. That's not giving. That's also not the transcendence of giving. However, the fact that you're sitting there resenting, that's giving. Your resentment is giving, but the fact that you gave it and resented it was not giving. Would that be worse than giving in a way that was divisive so that you could feel that you were giving?

[38:54]

Would that be worse than what? If you gave in a way so that it really is for you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Right. It's better than giving with resentment. A lot better. Much better. To give to somebody else and be very happy about all the benefit it's going to give to yourself, in fact, is not as good as giving to somebody else and being happy just by giving. That's much better. Just to give to somebody and just to think, just to get into how fantastically great it is to give somebody even a penny or a dollar, to just sort of get into it, how wonderful it is to give anybody anything.

[40:03]

That's best. No, not necessarily. Being attached to the benefits of... No, not necessarily. And it also might be being attached to or believing in that you're here and they're there and this is something that's going between you. That might be that too. But still, it's even to think that I'm here and you're there and I'm giving you this thing, that's dualistic, and I might be stuck in that, which is not so good, and therefore it's not the appropriate response. However... Still, to think about and to feel joy at giving that to you is extremely meritorious. First of all, it's a joy to give it. That's nice in itself. But I get even more benefit from that because this giving with joy hooks into this little network. of cause and effect. And the way cause and effect works is that when you give things and you're happy about it, you hook into this little wheel that sends you back much more good stuff for that.

[41:10]

However, if you think about that when you give it, you get less back. Yes, but you still get a lot back. You'll still get a lot back even if you do it for selfish reasons. money, fame, health, good friends, good sleep, nice family, get all that stuff for giving, even if you think about why you're giving, even if you think, this is going to be beneficial to me. The key thing is that you really enjoy it, and you're really happy about it, because in fact, it is reasonable to be happy about it because it's going to be good for you. But if you want to get more back and more benefits, then don't think that when you give. And also don't think about what they're going to do with it.

[42:11]

That makes it even more meritorious. That's the way the thing works. Now, giving and resenting is the worst. That just plain ain't giving at all. However, in a case of where giving with resentment would save someone's life or something, then sacrifice your own merit and give it to them for their benefit. You get a lot of merit for that. But you get no merit on the giving dimension. You'll only get merit for helping them. Best way is to make a quick switch, especially if it's a small thing. Like I give the example that I got an automatic pencil. Do you hear that story? One of my friends gave Mel a really nice automatic pencil and then I understood that the reason why the guy gave it to Mel because Mel saw him with it and said he liked it and he gave him one. And I said, yeah, it is a nice automatic pencil. So it wasn't very long before I got one too and it was red.

[43:17]

It was really neat. And I came home with it. I walked in the door and my wife said, can I have that? And I said, no. She said, oh, come on, give it to you. Give it to me. And I said, no, I don't want to give it to you. And of course, I told her, you know, my wife wants an automatic pencil. My god, give it to her, you know. But I didn't want to. And I knew, according to my understanding of this practice, that to give it before I was ready was not going to do me any good. Yeah, because, you know, first of all, I better give it to her because she's my wife, and, you know, I'm going to get in big trouble if I don't give this to her, right? But in fact, I'd get in more trouble, I think, if I gave it to her and then was rented it. And I knew that I'd eventually soften up. So I waited, and it wasn't just a few minutes later that I decided, oh, now I can give it to her, and I was ready.

[44:18]

And then I could give it, and I gave it with joy. But the moment she asked me, I wasn't ready. And I had to admit that I wasn't ready. And to give it then, I would have resented it. And I would have blown the whole thing. Now, of course, you could say later, well, now I changed my mind. I do want you. But I wasn't ready. I was stingy. I wasn't ready. I have to confess I wasn't ready. But later I was. So the way of giving is that when you give, you should not think of what benefit it's going to bring to you. And you should not think of what the person will do with it. And if you do give with, and then also, not just that, you should also think about all the time, you should think about how wonderful it is to give people things and how much it does for them and for you. Because the more joy you have in giving, the greater the merit, which you don't think about is going to come to you, which it will.

[45:22]

Giving is hooked into this cause and effect thing. And you get all these fantastic benefits, which I won't bore you with, but I have a long list of them here. you'll always be near sages. Like I said, sages go near generous people because sages depend on donations. And also... Which is similar to sages like generous people. They'll just like those kind of people, right? They feel comfortable with generous people. And guess why they feel comfortable?

[46:26]

Where is it from? It's from sutras, various sutras, I don't know. And if you're giving donations, by the way, although you should not think in terms of the result, you shouldn't think in terms of the result, but if you're going to give a donation, the most meritorious place to give it is to a sage. You get more merit for that. But you don't think about that, okay? That's a fact. Okay? It's a fact, just for your information. And that's one more thing you should forget about. Yeah, why are you telling him? Why am I telling you? They asked me. What? Why am I telling you about this? Because they asked me, what are the benefits?

[47:28]

And one of the benefits is sages will be near you. I mean, why did I tell you that you get more merit from sages? Well, let's see, why did I tell you that? Thanks. I guess one reason to tell you is that you should definitely not forget about, when you think about the world, and who you want to think about, you should definitely not forget about the sages. You should not forget about Buddha and bodhisattvas. In other words, the beings who do not need you to help them, still you shouldn't forget about them. So, if you notice in our services, where do we first dedicate the merit of the chanting to? We do it to the ones who don't need it. Not because we're... We don't think that, though, we're doing this to help ourselves, do we? Now that I told you that, you might think that. But before that, you didn't think that. The merit which we get, we give over to the place that the most merit accrues.

[48:34]

And then the merit that comes from that, we again give away. The more merit that's flowing through that you forget about and don't try to manipulate, the more merit you have to the more you'll have the ability to give more and more without thinking of that. Merit makes possible that you'll forget about merit. People with very little merit can't let go of any merit. The little merit they have, they hold on to. The more merit you get, the more merit you're willing to give away. Because merit comes to those who give. So you give to Buddhas, you get more merit back, you get more merit back, you can give more and more freely. So the idea is, do that which is most meritorious, but don't think about it. But do it anyway. So when you think about all beings, you shouldn't forget about the ones who don't need your help. If you forget about them, it will undermine you forgetting about those who do need your help. It isn't that you, partly you're asking Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to help you, partly you're helping them.

[49:38]

Not helping them like they need help, but giving them your attention, giving them all your positive energy, and that comes back to you multiplied, which gives you more and more ability to be more and more, more and more, more and more free and liberal. So I'm telling you that, but not so that you will give to sages and not give to other people. That's not my intention to tell you that. As a matter of fact, I'm telling you that so you have that information, because you're going to hear it someplace else, too, if you hang around Buddhist circles, because they're going to tell you about field of merit and stuff like that, and you're supposed to put these great beings in there. Okay, that's one thing you get. Another thing that will happen to you if you're generous is sentient beings will like to hear you and see you. People will like to hear you and see you. They'll listen to you. People won't be afraid when facing you. The next one is dubious. You will become renowned.

[50:39]

And What's that word? Something about enlightenment. Something relationship to enlightenment here. I don't know what it is. Yes. I just want to go back for one second. You said when you give, you should have no expectations, and yet when you gave to the beggar, or sorry, the homeless person, you said you didn't stay to see if he woke up. Well, is that an expectation on your part, that he should wake up? No, it wasn't. That's part of the reason why I didn't stay. I didn't have an expectation of what... In that particular case, I didn't have an expectation of what he would do with it. So that's the way I was practicing at that time. I just gave it. So do you think that he... That is a possible expectation, though, that the person would wake up by your gift. And that does happen sometimes, that people wake up when you give them gifts. Sometimes when someone asks for something and you give them what they ask for, that's not appropriate.

[51:48]

That's right. That's right. Exactly. So just because you gave it in the spirit of joy doesn't mean that it was beneficial to you. Does that mean that forgiving, or is that a program? Giving is, the relative giving is primarily on the side of the giver. Relative giving has to do primarily that you are overcoming your stinginess. That's the main point. When you're practicing on the relative level, you do not yet have the eyes to see what's appropriate. You're blinded by your dualistic thinking. Let's face it. However, part of your dualistic thinking, or part of our dualistic thinking, is that we're stingy. That's an aspect of our dualistic thinking. I'm over here. This is me independent of everybody else. That's part of it. So giving starts to work on that particular aspect of dualistic thinking, that I'm separate from you. So the main thing at the beginning of the practice of giving is to work to overcome that stinginess.

[52:53]

And if you can overcome your stinginess, that is very, very good. And overcoming stinginess means that you give away something particularly something that you like to have, that you give it away, and you give it away not while still holding on to it, but you actually think about giving it away before you give it away for a little while, enough so that you start thinking about giving it away and you start to think that's really a good idea. And you start to notice maybe if there's a little clinging in there, a little stinginess, well, I still kind of want to keep it. And you think about it a little bit more until finally you don't want to keep it at all. You totally want to give it away and you feel really good about it. You have just overcome stinginess. That's very helpful to you and to other people. And then if you also overcome the stinginess and feel really good about giving it and don't even think about how beneficial it was that you overcame your stinginess and how beneficial it is now to let it go without any concern about what's happening. You don't think about how that even makes it more beneficial. You don't think about any of that.

[53:54]

That makes it even more beneficial to overcoming your stinginess, because again, if you thought about how it would help you, that's still a little bit kind of taking some back, right? Whether it's helpful to the other person or not, you may not be able to tell. If they asked for it, that's a sign that maybe you should give it. But you can't be sure. you need to develop deeper and deeper your practice until you can finally see when you're not when you overcome dualistic thinking you will start doing what is helpful for people because you will be responding out of cause and effect and that is what teaches people best that's the best they may not wake up on the spot but that's the best possible instruction for them which you're actually demonstrating what's happening and that finally, you're totally in accord with that. And that is the best thing you can do. Even great teachers like Yunman and Shakyamuni Buddha didn't wake up everybody they ever met. But they woke up a lot of people by this kind of practice.

[54:57]

And we work towards that by this kind of, you start with this, this is the beginning, you know. Yes? Well, we're not acting on... How can there be any merit? Well, there isn't any merit then. Do you have any proposals for how one can, in the practical sense, start giving without resentment? Well, what you can do is you can start by giving either little things or things that don't belong to you. For example, there's the sky, okay? The sky. There's the ocean. There's, as Dogen says, the flowers on the mountainside.

[56:11]

There's the birds in the valley. There's the frogs in the water. You can just sit and think. Well, it's no skin off my nose, so I think I'll give Jesse the sky. Hey, Jesse, I want to tell you first, I'll just think about giving Jesse the sky. Well, I feel great about that. That's giving. It's maybe not that big a deal. I didn't make a big sacrifice, but I'm getting into the swing of it. When I see how wonderful it feels to give you the sky, then maybe I would even give you something I own, or sort of own. The joy of thinking of giving you the sky makes me want to give you a dollar. One of mine. One that I have, you know. Joy, this kind of joy leads to more joy. And then you think about, just think about how much fun that would be to give Jesse a dollar. Maybe he'll give somebody else a dollar, but forget about that part. Don't think about what he'll do about it.

[57:12]

Just think about how wonderful it would be to give Jesse a dollar. You might get a lot of money out of this talk. Now, you could say, no, what happens if Jesse keeps all those dollars he's going to get now? Well, you don't think about that so much at first. First of all, you think about You think about the joy of giving. Now, if I think it's really going to hurt him to give him the dollar, then I just think about... You can think about giving. That is giving. Thinking about giving him a dollar, feeling really happy about it, that's giving. I don't have to give it to him. Just like thinking about giving him this guy and being happy about it is giving. I can't give him this guy. Maybe I could tell him, but still... So if you really think it's not going to help somebody to give them something that you've thought about and been happy about, don't give it to them. But thinking about it and being happy is giving. Thinking about giving away all your money to somebody and being happy about it, that's giving. When it comes down to actually writing the check and you flinch, that's not giving.

[58:14]

But you gave before you started writing the check. And if you just put the pen down and go back to your meditation and think again about it then maybe next time you'll get all the way through writing the check, or maybe you'll stop a little later in writing the check, and you'll stop again, go back to think about it again, until you get so happy about giving that you can finish writing the check. You might change the figure. But anyway, you just do that. It's mostly a meditation, this giving practice. It's to work on yourself, to wipe away your own dualistic thinking of thinking there's somebody else. Right now you can give away the whole universe. that belongs to you and doesn't belong to you. But do you really want to? Well, check it out. See where you're resisting. Think about it. At least in theory, at least in your mind, think about how wonderful it would be able to give everything away to everybody. This is called changing your attitude. And the more you get into that and the more joy you get into it, then the more you'll notice also that there's some dualism in there still.

[59:22]

Even as you get really into it, there's still some dualism. And the more you circulate and swirl this around, you get more and more joy at thinking about this, and then you get more and more joy about thinking about dualistic thinking and watching how your mind works. So this joy that comes from giving infuses your meditation practice with energy. And the merit you get from thinking about giving gives you, the merit it gives you, spiritual merit, is it gives you energy to meditate. Yes? Sometimes you think true giving is spontaneous. You don't think about it. It just happens. Sometimes? Definitely. As a matter of fact, the ultimate giving is totally spontaneous. As a matter of fact, like I say, this, what you're doing right here, every moment, everything each of you is doing right now, in a spontaneous eruption, this is giving. This is really the way giving is, just like this. This is the way it really is. But we don't understand that, so we have to approach it like Pam says, what isn't?

[60:27]

So I have to talk about what isn't and what is. So relatively speaking is where we do and do not give. In our relative dualistic minds, there's giving and not giving. But really, this is giving. The way things are is what giving is. That's the most gracious. That's the most magnanimous attitude. That's the most generous attitude, is this is giving. Buddha doesn't say you people have to do something different. But people with dualistic minds, they think this is mine and this is yours. Therefore, we have to sort of tap on this stinginess, tap on this dualistic mind a little bit to get to realize this very magnanimous mind which says that to let your breakfast be your breakfast, that's giving. To let your fork be your fork, that's giving. The fact that your fork is your fork, that's the perfection of giving. But to get into that and to make that really alive, so that isn't just like, you know, as you say, passive or lacking energy, that realization should have as much or more energy as the most joyous kind of relative giving.

[61:42]

That should have as much energy as when you notice some stinginess drop away, when you feel that openness in your heart when stinginess goes away and you just, you know, like, what is it? What's that? The Christmas carol, right? When Scrooge is just sort of like, you know, here, have a turkey, you know. The joy of non-duality should be equal to that, but a little bit more mellow because it's going in all directions at once. And you don't have to do anything, and everybody else is doing it too. So it's just radiant. So it is spontaneous in the end, but to get a feeling for that, you've got to check it out, and you've got to check out, is there stinginess there? To let your stinginess be stinginess, that's giving. I am a stingy boy. That's giving. This is stinginess. That's giving. That's giving. but that isn't all that it is, then also you should check out what's it like to think about giving in a way.

[62:48]

There should be joy there. And so the practice of relative giving, this kind of giving we do at the beginning of a practice, that joy that's generated is necessary in practice. That's why they have this other paramitas, one of them being enthusiasm. There's got to be enthusiasm. So if you want to know what giving should be like, got to look at the other ones. Is there enthusiasm with that giving? Yes, there is, and there's enthusiasm at the beginning of giving, at the middle of giving, and after giving's over, there's enthusiasm, too. Well, gee, I have pages and pages and pages on giving, but it's time to go to bed. So I'll talk about it again someday. Is that okay if I stop?

[63:48]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_88.32