Tara Brach - Gratitude and Generosity - Markings of Inner Freedom

Episode Date: November 21, 2012

2012-11-21 - Gratitude and Generosity - Markings of Inner Freedom - Those who are genuinely happy, are also naturally grateful for life and generous in living. This Thanksgiving Eve talk explores key ways we block the arising of gratitude and generosity, and practices of mindful presence and direct cultivation that awaken these expressions of the liberated heart. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

One of the rituals of having a Wednesday night class each year is that we get to have a Thanksgiving Eve kind of gathering here. And in this season, the culture's sensitivities are a little heightened to the qualities of heart. There's a little more of a tendency to remember, oh, it matters to be giving. It matters to be grateful. So in the spirit of the season, tonight will be explore. and gratitude and generosity. And I'd like to begin with a story that I read in a book called Tattoos of the Heart. And this is Gregory Boyle.

He's a Catholic pastor of a church in an area most concentrated area in L.A. for gang violence. And he's done miraculous things in terms of setting up business for the homies, which are the younger people in these gangs and so on. And one of the stories he tells is of the church they have there, which declared itself a sanctuary church in 1987, and it began to house about 100 homeless people a night. And the challenge was that the next day,

people come to the church and they start grumbling about the smell that was there, and they started talking about churching elsewhere. And they did everything they could. You know, they sprinkled and they put, I love my carpet on all the rugs and potpourri and airwick around. But, you know, 100 guys is a lot of guys. So they decided, Gregory decided to address the discontent in a sermon. And I want to tell you what happened because I think it was so cool. So he said right out front, he says, okay, so what does this church smell like?

And of course, the people were mortified and they didn't answer. And finally someone booms out. It smells like feet. And he asked them, why does it smell like feet? Response, because many homeless men slept here last night. And he asked, well, why do we let that happen? Then the response was, it's what we've committed to do. Well, why would anyone commit to do that?

Response, because is what Jazeu. It's what Jesus would do. Forgive my way of speaking on this. not a good accent. Well, then, what does the church smell like now? A man stands and bellows. It smells like commitment. The place cheers.

A woman waves their arms wildly. Huela arosas. It smells like roses. The packed church roars with laughter and a newfound kinship that embraced someone else's odor as their own. Now, the smell in the church hadn't changed. Only how folks

related to it. And he says they came to embody what poet Wendell Berry writes. He says, you have to be able to imagine lives that are not yours, releasing the boundaries of the heart that exclude. And when we do, when there's that openness, the same winds and smells and sounds and pains and pleasures are arising, but we're regarding it from a spaciousness, and a tenderness that turns suffering into huaosa. What are the words? Huela arosa. Huela arosa.

It smells like roses. So there is a joy in extending ourselves. I found that to be the kind of basic message, just laughing and this cheering and this kinship that they found, this joy in extending ourselves. And what we find is that generosity and, happiness go together. Generosity and happiness go together. And if you think of anyone you know who's a really authentically happy person, are they not also generous? Don't they go together?

Just happy, I mean, real happiness and selfishness match? We just kind of, it's intuitive. So when we look closer and say, well, what is the relationship? How come? And I think Wendell Berry pointed to it beautifully, that when you imagine lives that are not your own, when you can do that, you're really living from what I sometimes call these widening circles of being, which is really from one of RELCUS poems, not mine. But I love the phrase. So when we start living from a widening circle of being so that we are including others, We're more at home. There's a natural sense of well-being. We're less caught in that suffering of self-referenced existence where it's constantly my worry about this and I want to be more comfortable and I'm afraid that's going to happen. It's that I, I, I, I, that it's not that it's bad. It's just painful. It's painful to have a world that keeps focusing like this. So there is some understanding that as our heart includes others and as there's this expression and generosity, it goes hand in hand with a happiness because we're living from a larger place of being. We're just inhabiting and embodying more of what we are. So it's not so well known that the Buddha and his band of monks were actually considered to be quite merry. that King Kosala, who they kind of parked and they practiced in the region that he was involved with,

he observed them to be, and these are the words, positively playful, spontaneous, happy, and lively. So they'd given up their worldly goods. They gave up accumulating and proving and in some way chasing things. And they were happy. So you see it in many ways. I love that there's a kind of a birthday card with the Dalai Lama. is being given his birthday gift. And it's this huge box wrapped in ribbons

and all these excited monks are saying, what is it? What is? He opens it up. And he said, nothing. Just what I always wanted, you know. And you see in a Sylvia cartoon, she's typing a list of responses, you hope to have the occasion to say. And one of them is,

yes, it is unusual to have won an Olympic medal in the Nobel Peace Prize end. Could you bring me some leather pants in the size too? but her favorite on her list of responses is this is the best one. No thanks. I have everything I need. So there is a magic to enough, that sense of enough, that this moment we're not waiting for something more, that there truly is enough, that this is it.

There's a magic in that. And when we're resting in enough, there is a fullness that naturally overflows. Because that enough, we're resting in a kind of boundless presence. It overflows. So we have this conditioning, and we explore this regularly now, and you see it in all neuroscience is showing it over and over again, that there are parts of our brain, the early parts of our brain,

our more primitive conditioning that leads us to feel separate and endangered and to steal and to hoard and to defend and, and to attack, and that conditioning is all in us. I mean, it's just part of our makeup. And we have this more newly evolved part of our brain that perceives our collectivity, that perceives this widening sense of belonging, and is actually capable of empathy and caring

and sharing and sacrifice for others. That it's all in us. So tonight what we're really exploring is how do we continue to wake up the more recently evolved part of our brain? How do we continue to cultivate this capacity to be caring and generous, to be giving of our thanks? What helps us to wake that up? And when I reflect on it, really, the first step, is usually coming aware of what stops us. You know, what really stops us from being naturally generous

and, you know, in a moment where we might have, what stops us? What shuts down our sense of gratitude? And so you might just reflect for a moment. We'll just begin this where you actually check in with your own life. And if it helps you to close your eyes to do that, But just to reflect for a moment, maybe any time recently where you wish you had been more generous with your words, with your affection, with your time, with your energy. So just to some place you might regret that in some way you were selfish or preoccupied or whatever it was, and you wish you had been more generous. and just with that simple inquiry, okay, so what stopped me?

And see if you can keep it simple, not going into a storyline as much as just sense. What was the felt sense in your body or the basic belief or the pull that, what stopped you? I think often of that story, the Good Samaritan story, the research, where, you know, studying the passage of the Good Samaritan about, to deliver a sermon on it and it was a setup where the students went by somebody that was in need that asked for help. Some of you probably are familiar with this very famous study. And those of the students that thought that they were going to be late to give their talk at this class did not pay attention, did not give the time a day to this person in need. They're about to give a talk on the Good Samaritan, and they rush right by this person that needs help, because they thought

they didn't have enough time, that they'd be late for something, and that those that didn't have that time pressure were more inclined to respond. When we start investigating, what stops us? There's something in us that has a sense, a very core sense of what I'd call either something's missing or something's wrong in this moment. So I can't afford, there's not the enough place that can afford to then give out. Does that make sense? Either something's missing. I got to get something, got to have more of this. You know, my needs are not taken care of. Or something's wrong. I've really got to fix something. And when we're driven by something's missing or something's wrong, in other words, this moment should be different. It's not an okay enough moment for me just to

respond. Then we shut down. Our hearts are smaller. And there's a whole physiology with something's wrong or something's missing. The sympathetic nervous system is activated. There's more fight-flight. There's the biochemistry of it and there's our muscles are tighter. Our heart is tighter. Things go faster. Our minds are more speeding. We're trying to figure out on that map of from here to there how to get there best. We aren't here to respond to the person in front of us that says help. are to respond to the part of our own heart that's saying, I'm afraid or I'm lonely, or can you just pause and be here?

We can't be generous in those moments. So what sustains in daily life this conditioning to think something's wrong, something's missing, is that we are continuously lost in thought. As long as we're living, and the stories about our life because our minds are biased to the negative.

This is again an evolutionary gift that we have, that our minds worry about what's going to go wrong and keep scheming about what more we need. As long as we're lost in that incessant inner narrative, we're going to keep having that same felt sense and we're not going to be available to respond to our world with a heartfelt generosity.

Now, there are ways we can seem generous, and we all know that. There's ways of being dutiful and playing the role. But I'm talking about a generosity that arises because there's that fullness and that care and comes out that way. We're not available for that. Our nervous system is actually not in gear.

So the key, this is because we're talking about what's the first step, in cultivating generosity is to recognize the moments where we're really caught in it should be different, wanting it different. Now often the it should be different, what we're responding to in the moment, is the person we're with. You should be different. We can't be generous because in some way, sometimes it's real overt. We're angry and they're doing something wrong, they're betraying us, violating us, letting us down. It's real overt.

But sometimes it's real subtle, that you should be different, that shuts our heart down. I say that because recently I was with a friend who has been wanting to help me, have kind of overloaded and so on, and she kind of gently chided me for not being help, not being a person that could be helped. She said, you don't convey your vulnerability. And let's see what else. She said, oh, you're not available to be helped, basically. And so on some levels she was saying you should be different. You're not letting me help you right, you know. And I remember feeling inside the sense of that may be right or correct. But that sense, that communication from you that I should be different just makes distance. And she was wanting to be helpful. She was trying to get me to change so I could be help, helpable, you know. So should,

on any level you should be different undermines intimacy in any moment that we think somebody should be different we can't be generous to them in a way that's helpful

now for many of us we know that you know that expectation locking into you should be different is very very hard to undo and often it's you know sometimes it's a low simmering

resentment, sometimes it catapults us into a real aggressive or passive aggressive behavior. Because we're trying to control things. In moments of trying to control, we can't be generous. Controlling, the biochemistry and mind state of controlling doesn't go along with the experience of generosity. One of my favorite illustrations, um, is a Thanksgiving story you might remember, if you've been with me at other thanksgivings. An old man in Phoenix calls his son in New York and says, I hate to ruin your day,

but I have to tell you your mother and I are divorcing. 45 years of misery is enough. Pop, what are you talking about the sun screams? We can't stand the sight of each other any longer. The old man says, we're sick and tired of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this. So call your sister in Chicago and tell her, and he hangs up the phone.

She calls Phoenix immediately and screams at the old man. You're not getting divorced. This is a sister calling now. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing. Do you hear me and she hangs up? The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife.

Okay, he says they're coming for Thanksgiving and they're paying their own way. So what I'm reviewing now is some of the ways that that we act habitually based on something's wrong, something's missing. You should be different. Life should be different. That stops us from having that flow of generosity. But one of the most deep ways that we block it is that I should be different. I should be more generous.

I should be better in this way. I mean, each of us, as we probably know, has these standards of how we should be that we're constantly comparing ourselves to. There's an ongoing monitor inside, sometimes been called the super ego, but always, I mean, even as I'm speaking now, there's a part that's saying, so how am I doing now?

And it has some idea of how I should be doing, which is that I should be spontaneous and flowing and not at all slick or, you know, crafted. I should be attuning to everyone that's here and everyone that could be listening, you know, there's some idea of this thing I should be. And we never match up to our ideas. So we have this should be different

that gives us a sinking feeling underneath. An illustration for that is a story written by teacher and writer Ed Brown that I love that I'd like to share with you. He's also a famous cook at Tasahara, and he says, when I first started cooking at Tasahara, I had a problem. I couldn't get my biscuits to come out the way they were supposed to. I'd follow the recipe and try variations, but nothing worked.

These biscuits didn't measure up. Growing up, I had made two kinds of biscuits. One was from Bisquick, and the other from Pillsbury. For the Biscuit biscuits, you added milk to the pan and then blob the dough and spoonfuls onto the pan. You didn't even need to roll them out. The biscuits from Pillsbury came in a kind of cardboard can. You wrapped the can on the corner of the counter and it popped open.

You know those. Then you twisted the can open more. You put the pre-made biscuits on a pan and bake them. I really like those Pillsbury biscuits. Isn't that what biscuits should taste like? Mine just weren't coming out right. It's wonderful and amazing the ideas we get about what biscuits should taste like or what a life should look like.

Compared to what? Can biscuits from Pillsbury? Leave it to be. beaver. People who ate my biscuits could extol their virtues eating one after another, but to me, these perfectly good biscuits just weren't right. Finally, one day, came a shifting into place, an awakening. Not right compared to what? Oh, my word, I'd been trying to make canned Pillsbury biscuits. Then came an exquisite moment of actually tasting my biscuits without comparing them to some previously hidden standards. They were weedy, flaky, buttery,

sunny, earthy, real, as Rolka's sonnet proclaims, they were incomparably alive, present, vibrant, in fact, much more satisfying than any memory. These occasions can be so stunning, so liberating, these moments when you realize your life is just fine as it is, thank you. Only the insidious comparison to a beautifully prepared, beautifully packaged product made it seem insufficient, trying to produce a biscuit, a life with no dirty bowls, no messy feelings, no depression, no anger was so frustrating.

Then savoring, actually tasting the present moment of experience. How much more complex and multifaceted? How unfalpable. A thought, a feeling. Ants crawling on the ground in the sunlight. As Zen students, we spent years trying to make it look right, trying to cover the faults, conceal the messes. We knew what a Bisquick Zen student looked like.

Calm, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, deep, profound. Our motto, as one of my friends said, was, looking good. We've all done it, trying to look good as a husband, wife, or parent, trying to attain perfection, trying to make Pillsbury biscuits. Well, to heck with it, I say, wake up and smell the coffee. How about some good old home cooking? The biscuits of today. handle each ingredient with sincerity and wholeheartedness.

The results will take care of themselves. Savor them. So this is an invitation to put down the, what's sometimes called the argument with reality, the shoulds that say, I should be different, you should be different, life should be different, and meet what arises

with a quality of acceptance and friendliness. Because when we do, when we do, there's a shift that occurs that allows us to begin flowing again, that allows us to be here and open and more full and more responsive to our world. I sometimes think of it metaphorically as when we're caught in fight-flight, when we're caught in, I should be different, you should be different, something's missing, something's wrong. It's like a river that's got a little pool of water that's formed, but the pools become stagnant, and there's not much water entering in, and there's not much water going out, and that's what our life is like. When we're trying to control, make the Pillsbury biscuit, be a certain person, make other people be the way we want them to be,

we're no longer receptive to the flow that's always coming our way. In other words, gratitude gets shut off. and we're no longer letting go and giving out and flowing outward to others. There's a kind of stagnation that sets in. So the first part of waking up these hearts is to notice when that's happening. Notice when we've come into the selfing, when we're not able to respond, when we're caught in that tightness of should, and to pause and to open a bit. So I'd like to do a reflection with you, just to begin to set that in motion.

And as a context for this reflection, just to say that most of us have pretty deep patterns in how we keep our hearts tight or defend it, and how we go into controlling and shoulding. And so that's the tough news, that we've gotten pretty accustomed to being this kind of little pool of stagnant water with our little boundaries and so on. But there's also some really good news. And the good news is that we can decondition these patterns. That the reason that meditation is so powerful is that it undoes the patterning that keeps us kind of separate from the river. A friend of mine, we were in an email conversation, we were talking, emailing about hopefulness. And he said, I want to say one word to you. Neuroplasticity. Now, I said that,

and I'll bet you most of you were too young to see the graduate when it first came out. But I thought that was the most clever email. I thought it was incredibly, really sharp, like one word, neuroplasticity. And it's the answer to it all. Because in the graduate, the one word was plastic. remember? Okay. Just, boy, you lose a joke when you have to explain. So I thought it was really good. Anyway, neuroplasticity means neurons of fire together, wire together. If we keep on that habit of looking for what's wrong, insisting people be different, judging ourselves, those thoughts and feelings become the ongoing constellation we live with. If we pause when we notice it happening, and we pause even for a short time

and come home to that space and the pause come home to some presence we can come up with some other creative options and responding we begin to change our wiring so let's practice a little just try it out and for this reflection you might close your eyes and feel your breath for a moment and just invite yourself right into the moment

I'd like to have you you pick someone in your life that you value, that you want to have a good connection with, and you're aware that your expectation or demand or should that you've got around them, creates some distance. So one person where you know that some part of you is kind of hooked on wanting them to be different in some way and that it's creating distance. Allow this reflection to be powerful as if you sense sincerely an intention, that it's more important to have connection than be right. That's the ground of this reflection.

That it's more important to you that you move in this relationship towards connectedness than that you be right. Sensing that as a possibility in the background, just reflecting on the situation now that perhaps like watching a film, just stop at the frame where perhaps something's going on with that person

where you feel yourself tightening. You're becoming that kind of removing yourself from the river, you're becoming that tightness that wants to control, that wants them different, so that you can pause at that frame and just investigate a little. Let that space of a pause, bring you into some presence, and just notice the thoughts and feelings that are are there. Maybe the belief that if this person doesn't change, we'll never have a certain kind of experience, or if this person doesn't change, something bad will happen to them, whatever it is. Let the thoughts be there, the feelings that are there. You might let the phrase be,

this is real, these feelings, these thoughts. But it's not true. Come into the body and find what's true. Just breathe with the part of you that feels vulnerable, that places the source of the should. It's anxious, that's vulnerable, that's disappointed, that's hurt. So rather than aiming the should at the other person, you're bringing a compassionate attention to the part of you that's having a hard time. It's real, so it deserves your compassionate attention. The experience is real. shoulds are never true. The person is as the person is. But offering kindness to that in you, which is hurting or afraid, can enable you to sense your intention again. It matters more

to have love than to be right. And just sense the possibility of different responses in the situation. Just take some moments to sense. How might you respond? When you're ready, opening your eyes. This is a practice. You can continue on your own. Now, I want to say that if you chose a relationship where there's some abuse or violation where somebody is causing injury, then that doesn't mean that your response wouldn't be to create boundaries and to speak your truth. But there's a difference between averse of judging that says you should be different and out of a sense of care and intelligence and wisdom saying, this is what I need to have happen and I can't go with this.

So this isn't about being a doormat. This is about learning to respond instead of react so our heart can stay engaged. I want to make that very clear because it's never, when somebody's being abusive, it's not true that they should be different, but it's true that the abusiveness is harmful and needs to be intelligently dealt with. What I'm trying to emphasize tonight is the

insidious quality of should. Does that make sense? Okay, because we'll explore that more at another time. So step one in cultivating the heart is to notice where the heart shuts down and to see if we can, instead of aiming some should at another person or at ourselves, we can pause. and tap into compassion and remember that love matters more than our rightness, our view. Now, that releases some armor. The next question is,

how do we directly awaken the heart? And how do we start really letting in the freshness of the river into this pool that we've been talking about? And again, a reminder, the mind has a negative bias. So one of the ways that we start opening and being receptive

is to purposefully bring the attention to what we love, to what feels good, to what's beautiful, what we appreciate. The Buddha said, whatever you frequently dwell on, to that the mind will be inclined. So what are your daily thoughts mostly around? You know, what does your mind mostly dwell on? I mean, if we're honest, I mean, if I was honest, you know, a lot of complaining and grumbling that goes on in my mind a lot. So I've found that very intentionally

saying, okay, what am I enjoying? What do I appreciate? What's beautiful? It's a training that's invaluable. It's invaluable. Eduardo Galliano writes this. He says, the Uruguayan political prisoners may not talk without permission or whistle, smile, sing, walk fast, or read the other prisoners, nor may they make or receive drawings of pregnant women, couples, butterfly, stars, or birds. One Sunday, Didaco Perez, school teacher tortured and jailed for having ideological ideas is visited by his daughter Malay, age five. She brings him a drawing of birds. The guards destroyed at the entrance of the jail. On the following Sunday, Malay brings him a drawing of trees. Trees are not forbidden, and the drawing gets through. Didaco praises her work and asks about

the colored circle scattered in the treetops. Many small circles. half hidden among the branches. Are they oranges? What fruit is it? The child puts her finger to her mouth. She whispers in his ear, silly, don't you see? They're eyes. They're the eyes of the birds I've smuggled in for you. What we love is always right here. If we open our eyes, take a pause, and open our hearts really notice. If we listen, you know, we miss so much. We miss the changing sky.

It's always so beautiful to see the changes in the season or the silhouette of each different tree has an incredibly different silhouette against the sky. As it's kind of, you see the bare bones of the trees. We miss it. We miss people we love,

we don't really just take in, like, look at those eyes and look at the sentience and humor and intelligence and goodness that's looking back at us. We don't pause to appreciate. Or just to feel our own breath, just to feel the aliveness that's right here, it takes a intentionality. I love the way E.B. White says, every morning I awaken torn between the desire to save, the world and the inclination to savor it. So savering is a training and it's a really important training and the most important part of it I've found and the part that we miss I think we go and say oh what a beautiful sky or oh I love that flower oh this is so nice to see these children playing you know the dog that we love's wagging tail happy and you know we kind of sense

it's happiness and we get happy. But we don't savor in the sense of pause and intentionally sink into that felt sense of the appreciation. And that actually changes our brain around to do that. There are studies of what happens when we really open to the pleasantness of the appreciation and the different parts of the brain

that lights up and it becomes more of a tendency for that part of the brain to light up when we start getting familiar with a felt sense of gratitude, training and savoring. Now, one of the other parts of gratitude that we often don't do is just express it. I'm sure many of you've had that experience of feeling love for someone, and then in the moment that you say, you know, I love you. There's just upwelling, and all of a sudden it's in your body. You kind of get teary-eyed with saying it. Is that a just you can nod or shake your head? Okay, I'd just like to see if I'm not alone on this one.

There's this real power to saying it out loud, to expressing. This is Kurt Vonnegut. He says, when things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause for a moment and then say out loud, if this isn't nice, what is? You know? So expressing gratitude, again, we're imagining that stagnant pool. we're letting in our appreciation and we're expressing appreciation. It's kind of widens up the, the portals, so we're part of the movement of life energy again. There's a story I've shared before that's my favorite story of expressing gratitude, and it's told by Mory Sendak, who says that once

a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it, I loved it. I answer all my children's letter, sometimes very hastily. For this one, I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a wild thing on it. I wrote, Dear Jim, I loved your card. Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, Jim loved your card so much, he ate it. That to me was one of the highest compliments I'd ever received. He didn't care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it. He loved it. He ate it. So we'll just do a brief gratitude practice If you want to close your eyes

Take a moment if you will to sense a smile again Just let your eyes soften Smiling into the eyes A slight smile at the mouth And sense that you could smile right into your heart And that from deep inside your heart A smile could spontaneously unfold itself Spreading through the heart, chest area

So there's a willingness, a receptivity to let in and appreciate. You might sense the breath that as you breathe in, it's like breathing in what nourishes, breathing in what you love. Breathing out is an expression of it. What I'd like to invite you to do, it's one of my favorite meditations, is just to begin to reflect on what you love, what you appreciate. and whisper it and really whisper it.

Don't be shy but begin just to whisper the experiences, the places, the people, the mind states, whatever it is

that comes to mind in this next few moments of silence in the space of silence just whispering into the room what you are grateful for. You might include the person you were reflecting on before

and just name what you're appreciated about that person. You might bring to mind someone in your life who really has been loving or giving to you in some way and just feel your gratitude and sense what it feels like in your heart to be receiving someone's... It might be someone you know, it might be indirectly, but just someone you feel you've been...

has offered blessings to you in some way so that the gratitude is visceral and let yourself really explore the felt sense of gratitude what does it feel like in your body you might let that person be very close in really have that person present in the room right now that has in some way been a benefactor and just whisper the person's name and say thank you

and keep feeling your heart you can say it again thank you from the depth of your sincerity and feel your heart. So that as you let go of all the things you're grateful for, the people, the places, the experiences, and just sense the space of gratitude and the sweetness. Nietzsche writes for happiness,

how little suffices for happiness. The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing. A lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye glance. Little maketh up the best happiness. be still be still so you can open your eyes as you'd like

so what we've explored so far tonight is we'd be mindful of what separates how we separate and be willing to pause and remember our intention that it matters more to love than be right and then we talked about really

to remember what we love and not only remember it but express our appreciation There's such a power to express him. The final piece I'd like to name is to, is Donna our generosity in the Buddhist tradition. It was the first teaching that the Buddha gave. And it was the understanding two reasons.

One is that when you're generous, it expresses your awakened heart mind. And when you're generous, it helps you to come back home to your awakened heart mind if you're not already there. And there's all sorts of research that generosity lights up the parts of the brain that relate to happiness, as I talked about before. And the reason is, when we're generous or more at home with our true nature, it's a precious

experience. And so there's a story that came out of Japan that I love this, because just to know there's none of us that when we're with a generous person don't get the transmission. When somebody's generous, it brings out our generosity. It's contagious. They are a field that is, like that river that's flowing through, they're flowing undefended, and it makes it safe and possible for us to be that way. So it's recognized as a real, in Buddhism,

it's called a parame, or perfection of the awakened heart. Okay, so Tetsugan, he's a devoted Zen practitioner and teacher in Japan, lived in the 1600s, and he decided to publish the sutras. These are the discourses of the Buddha, which at that time were only available in Chinese. And the books were to be printed in Japanese. So this would take a construction of 60,000 wood blocks. Now, he had been traveling, collecting donations. Bit by bit, he collected a significant sum of money.

A few sympathizers would give him 100 pieces of gold. Most of the time, he received only small coins. after 10 years he had enough money to begin his task. But it happened at that time that the Uji River overflowed and crops were ruined. Famine followed. Tatsugan took the funds he'd collected for the books and spent them to save others from starvation. Then he began again the work of collecting. Several years afterward, an epidemic spread over the country.

Tetsugan again gave away what he had collected. For a third time he started his work, and after he was, After 20 years, his wish was fulfilled. The printing blocks which produced the first edition of the sutras can be seen today in Obaku Monasteria in Kyoto. The Japanese tell their children that Tetsugan made three sets of sutras and that the first two invisible sets surpass even the last. The first two invisible sets surpass even the last. You know, we can move through this life and produce a lot. lot and achieve a lot and then we're gone and what mattered was the quality of heart at any

moment that we were living from, the quality of heart. So maybe as a way of closing just to say that we can train our minds. We can take on a gratitude practice. Many people I know, and I did this for quite a while. Have a gratitude buddy. We just used to email each other. We would just say three things that we were grateful for. And it didn't have to put anything else in the email, but there's something about being, you know, responsible to do that that was really cool. You can have a gratitude buddy, but make it a reflection. I often start my meditations by just sensing what it is I appreciate. The Buddha called that gladdening the mind. And similarly, you can practice generosity.

It's a deliberate practice. I made a deal with myself some years ago that whenever I got an idea in my mind to give somebody something that no matter what I would do it. You know, like, you know how it is? You get an idea that's generous, but then you start backing off

because it looks like it's out of proportion or something. Well, I just would, you know, and, you know, it didn't bankrupt me and I'm still, you know, still paying the mortgage on the house, so to speak. But it's an incredible kind of freedom to know that, oh, okay, and there's so much happiness in it. So you can do three unscheduled acts of generosity a day. You know, it can be just a generous word to somebody.

It can be really the expression on your face that can light up another, a hug, a friendly email, or something more major, you know, some way that you really give. your time and energy to serve. Whatever it is, it's part of waking up your heart and mind to who you really are. So you can practice. I started tonight with a story taking in the homeless, smells like roses, that whole sense of the joy when we're living from a larger sense of our beingness and then it explored somehow we could cultivate by noticing when we shut down by awakening the gratitude, by expressing gratitude, by giving.

I'd like to kind of close by saying that in a deep way when we are living from that widening circle, that largeness of being, when there's that generosity, it allows us to be happy for no reason. It's a happiness that's not, hitch to circumstance. When life is really flowing through us, when we're not that that guarded pool, there is a profound kind of happiness that even in the face of the greatest losses, there's still a sense of okayness. And why is that? Because

what can be taken from us? If we, it's that if you know you're the ocean, if you trust you're the ocean, you're not afraid of the waves. When we live from that large there's a happy for no reason experience. And I want to share with you as part of closing, a woman who founded, her name's Jan Adrian, founded healing journeys. This is support for those touched by cancer. And she had a chest x-ray at one point to see if her cancer metastasized to her lungs. And the doctor called and said, well, there is a nodule on the lungs. So we're going to be doing a CT scan. And so she got it done on a Wednesday. She was told she'd get the results the next day. There are probably many of you listening right now that have had this type of thing.

Results the next day and did you get them? Well, all day Thursday, her anxiety is over the top. So she couldn't concentrate. She was crying all day. What if it's metastasized cancer? All the healthy diet exercise hadn't made a difference. She was this angry feeling that she just couldn't stand the idea of having to fight cancer again. Called the doctor's office twice. promised he'd call back he didn't so Thursday night she reads she meditates so there's in this pause she reconnects with the prayer that it had been occurring through her whole life and that prayer was make me an instrument use me and all of a sudden this light went on saying you know what if having cancer again is a way I can be most useful as an inspiration to others you know what if you know if you know if you know

If that's what it is, what if that's, it's the same as the Bodhisatt's aspiration I've shared with many of you, which is whatever is happening, whatever the difficulty, may this serve awakening of hearts and minds, whatever it is. So that was her, she reconnected with that. And it was a sense of, you know, that reflection really gave her some calm and some peace. And the next day, Friday, she calls the office and Dr. had left for two weeks vacation. she said that the doctor on call would get to her. Finally on the weekend she gets results from the doctor on call, which is that there's nothing to worry about.

The nodule had already been there. It was stable. But this is what happened. She celebrated that. She would prefer not having the cancer again. And she said that she was glad she hadn't gotten the results immediately because it put her in touch with an inner knowing that she'd be okay no matter what.

That even in the face of dying, she'd be okay. I'm not just a body, she said. Someday I know this body won't go on and I will still be okay. I like being reminded of that periodically. And what allowed that, no matter what, I'm okay, this deep capacity for generosity for caring,

may this life be of benefit. Maybe this cancer's here so I can be of benefit to others. Now, I share that story as a closing because so often we have this fear that if we give something, we're going to be left in the lurch and something's going to go wrong for us. If we give up our should about another person, they'll trample over us. If we give our time and energy, if we give our love, if we express our love, something bad will happen. And it doesn't mean that we're not fragile and vulnerable and hurt.

but in a deep way every time we give we reconnect more powerfully to what's beyond the ego itself this this beingness that is timeless this beingness that is boundless in its capacity for loving and that gives us freedom that means we're no longer afraid of the waves so I'd like to close with a short meditation, if you will. Please let your attention come to your breath so that as you breathe in, you can just sense the possibility of receiving the nourishment of the breath,

being open to the goodness, the beauty, the love that's here in this life. And as you breathe out, a real letting go offering your life experience in this moment into the space of awareness. to mind one person that you'd like to, just for this moment, offer your prayer to, offer your appreciation and prayer to, and sense what it is that you do care about, what you appreciate about this person, their goodness, their humor or aliveness, intelligence, fun. Imagine for a moment

letting them know what you appreciate. Imagine sharing, being a mirror of their goodness and how that would be for them. Hearing goodness is a generous act. It sense of feeling in your own heart when you offer that to someone and it brings happiness. And then just letting go of any idea of another, just feel the heart space that's here, the glow, the warmth that's possible. Sense. how much of life this heart space can hold so that we offer together our prayers. We close the evening with a Thanksgiving prayer that all beings everywhere

might experience the open-heartedness, the sweetness of gratitude, that all beings everywhere might discover the loving connection that feels like home, that the hearts of all beings everywhere might awaken and be free. Namaste.

The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule, or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.