It’s Christmas morning and I’ve just come in from an early morning walk with a friend. The streets are still quiet, but whomever we meet seems animated by that “Good will toward all” sentiment of the day. “Merry Christmas,” something rote but right, going beyond the customary “Hi,” if that much. May that little extra last into the New Year. My companion and I agree that it’s a relief to have the big build-up to Christmas over. I’m grateful to have the peace the season promises. I do find, however, on reflection this morning, a moment of sheer grace in recent days which gives me some hint about the possibilities of finding the spirit of the season—the spirit, it should be in any season—in the most unexpected places.

One of those days of the the general frenzy of the countdown to Christmas, I found myself in the local hardware store, in the midst of a project. The place was thronged with folks buying holiday ornaments and the other trappings of the holidays and I had a hard time securing help. Taking matters into my own hands, I seized on a stray clerk who seemed to be in a holiday daze himself, spinning from one demand or another, but for a moment at loose ends, it seemed. I’d noticed him before, a burly young man, the sort I’d normally presume was informed, competent and available solely for my purposes. But I’d also noticed—how was this apparent?—that he had about him a sensitivity, vulnerability a life of his own that would be worth knowing about: an individual, in short. I’d gotten as far as putting a name to the face—Eddie—and we’d had a brief conversation or two reaching a little way across the divide of customer and clerk, that divide that seems necessary to the efficient running of the commercial machine. He had a family, I knew that much (and how, I wondered—but politely didn’t inquire into—did he support them at this likely minimum wage job?)

The post A Carol Everlasting appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Quick—what’s the most adapted work of literature in the English language? That’s right: Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. By 1844, eight competing theatrical versions were playing in London, and soon Dickens himself was giving staged readings in England and the United States, complete with character voices. He continued until the year he died. 

Since then, there have been literally hundreds of adaptations, including musicals, ballets, movies, TV shows, graphic novels, and video games. (Here’s a supercut of 400 of them, featuring, among others, Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons, My Little Pony, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.) There have been book sequels and adaptations in the styles of Hemingway and Ayn Rand, and Christmas Carol–themed ads for Nyquil, La-Z-Boy Loungers, and Honey Nut Cheerios. The iconic miser Ebenezer Scrooge has been portrayed by such master thespians as Alastair Sim (in the peerless 1951 film version), Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, George C. Scott, and Michael Caine, as well as Oscar the Grouch, Mr. Magoo, Fred Flintstone, Super Mario, and, of course, Scrooge McDuck.

Why? 

For starters, it’s an irresistibly great story. Its life-affirming message is deeply inspiring; reading it helped van Gogh overcome his suicidal impulses, at least for a while. But there must be something more than that. Any time a work has such enduring, universal appeal, we suspect that something in it speaks to our deep sense of what’s what—the same what’s what that we explore in the dharma. 

Dickens’s tale offers profound insight into dana paramita, sublime generosity. Now, the word virtue can suggest an unpalatable duty that we take on in the hope of some future reward; we’re grudgingly good now to gain some kind of heaven later. But Buddhist psychology is shrewder than that. The paramitas are actually skillful meditative approaches to the business of daily living. They’re ways of realizing nirvana right here in samsara, of finding heaven in the very moment of our right behavior. 

In the classical sequence, dana (pronounced DAH-na) is the first of the paramitas, a best first step on the path of awakening. Moment by moment, we’re given fresh opportunities to take and retake that step. Tipping your server? Maybe add another dollar to the tip. Feel a little freer, more expansive? Add another dollar. See how free you can afford to feel. 

Scrooge, who overworks and underpays his clerk, Bob Cratchit, begrudging him even a few coals for the fire to keep off the winter cold, embodies the absence of dana paramita. Cratchit is the stand-in for all our fellow beings, whom we may choose to treat well or shabbily. Scrooge, of course, is us—the unenlightened us, in our futile attempts to achieve happiness through accumulation. Whether we accumulate money or fame or knowledge or cool toys or sexual conquests or TikTok views, the idea is that if we heap up enough, we’ll be happy at last. We’ll finally fill our jar with jelly beans, and then we’ll win. But sooner or later, gently or painfully, we learn that this doesn’t work; it’s an unskillful strategy. We may even (like Scrooge) forget that happiness was the original goal. All we’re left with is a calcified habit pattern, which, as if there’s no other choice, we cram ourselves into.

Thus, in pinching pennies, Scrooge has pinched himself. He has become “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, … secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. … He carried his own low temperature always about with him.” Virtue, as it turns out, really is its own reward, and vice is its own punishment. Miser is the root of the word miserable.

But even from the depths of his self-made misery, there are subtle signs that Scrooge seeks a way out, as all sentient beings do, consciously or not. When his nephew, Fred, wishes him a merry Christmas, he responds with an angry, dismissive “Bah! Humbug. … What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.” Clearly, this is meant as a bitter rhetorical question. But from a place that’s deeper than his bitterness—a place Scrooge can’t consciously access yet—perhaps it comes as a sincere, even plaintive plea. What reason might we have to be merry, even if we’re poor? How might we be happy for no reason?

To access that place, if we’re as calcified as Scrooge, we may require the strong medicine of an encounter with mortality—a vision of death. That’s where the story begins. The first sentence is “Marley was dead.” Boom. It’s the ghost of Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s late business partner and fellow miser, who begins the intervention. He appears to Scrooge bound in a heavy chain made of “cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.” Marley explains: “I wear the chain I forged in life. … I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” 

This is precisely how we become the victims of our own stinginess (or any other nonvirtue), bound and burdened by it. Every time we skimp on the server’s tip, or grab the big piece of cake before the next guy can get it, or are selfish with our time, our help, or our empathy, we become more tightly stuck in the notion that we’re a constricted separate self. The sense that we’re an isolated, finite little wave on the surface of the ocean of existence is reinforced by all our efforts to enlarge our wave by scooping up and hoarding every drop of water we can get, even at the expense of our fellow waves. Conversely, generosity helps free us to see that we were never just a wave. We’re the ocean.

The specter of Scrooge’s old partner appears on Christmas Eve with a warning not to end up like him. When, in keeping with Marley’s promise, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come visit Scrooge for his edification, they whisk him through time and space to give him a broader view of life and death, suffering and happiness, as lived by himself and a multitude of others—all in the context of Christmas, the one day dedicated to the spirit of selflessness, “the only time in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” We’re on this one big bus with all our fellow beings. It would behoove us to acknowledge that always, but one day a year is a start.

Generosity helps free us to see that we were never just a wave. We’re the ocean.

Most of us remember most vividly the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: the mute, hooded, faceless figure that points with a bony finger to the grave. But the forms of the two prior Ghosts are also telling. The Ghost of Christmas Past is an anthropomorphized candle—“from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light”—that whisks Scrooge through scenes of his childhood and youth, illuminating the painful estrangements and isolations that distorted his character into its present state. When traumatic material surfaces in meditation or therapy, we may try to suppress the dawning light, and so does Scrooge. The Ghost carries a cap under its arm, in the form of an extinguisher. “Scrooge … seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.” Suppression doesn’t work. Sooner or later, we have to face the light … fortunately.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is another strange figure, a colossal monarch of abundance. “Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see.” As a sort of scepter of his power, the Giant holds a torch shaped like a horn of plenty, with which he sprinkles blessings on all those he and Scrooge encounter in their journeys through London and the wider world. When we clearly experience the actuality of the present (the only actuality there is), we discover that it’s rich, with a richness that’s the nature of existence itself, whether we live in a palace or a hut. Here Dickens is in accord with all the sages, who report that samsara is nirvana, that the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth if only people could see it. It’s all a big present, a generous gift. Our job is to enjoy it, to gracefully accept the present. 

Then our natural response will be dana paramita. When life is experienced as overflowing, like a sprawling throne of mince-pies and plum puddings, it’s only natural to share the wealth. So nirvana inspires dana, even as dana supports nirvana. (All the paramitas work this way. Being good helps you see you’re in heaven; when you see you’re in heaven, naturally you’re good.) How to achieve this kind of seeing? To start, we can simply relax our unwinnable fight against actuality. When it rains, enjoy the rain, and leave off wishing for sunshine; when the neighbor’s dog barks through your meditation, leave off wishing for it to stop. Dickens understands this profound connection between the enjoyment of the present and the abandonment of hostilities: “Girded round [the Giant’s] middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.”

When Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning from the vision of the three Ghosts, he is awake in the fullest sense. In the first moments of his expansive new vision, as commonly happens, he’s bliss-intoxicated: 

“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath … . “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. … I don’t know what day of the month it is! … I don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!” 

Clearly, this baby has been born again, fresh, his awareness radiantly empty. This is a declaration of beginner’s mind as Buddha-mind if ever there was one. At this point, most film Scrooges do a wild happy-dance. The best is Alastair Sim, who skips and leaps about in his nightshirt and, riffing on Dickens’s text, sings:

I don’t know anything!
I never did know anything!
But now I know that I don’t know
All on a Christmas morning!

Scrooge has the biggest turkey in the poulterer’s shop sent to the home of Bob Cratchit—anonymously, so that the pure happiness of dana paramita isn’t tainted by the selfish wish to receive credit. He gives Cratchit a big raise, he becomes “a second father” to Cratchit’s disabled son, Tiny Tim, and he’s transformed into the very embodiment of joyous generosity. Dickens’s summation of Scrooge’s metamorphosis suggests how an expansive spirit radiates outward from the light-filled individual to the farthest horizons. “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.” 

Near the end, there’s a lovely vignette of Scrooge that may feel familiar to those who have tasted such awakening. The initial giddy, happy-dance bliss has now settled and mellowed, and Scrooge goes for a Christmas-morning walk through town. “The people were by this time pouring forth, … and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile.” The position of his hands is a nice, subtle touch: a mudra of nongrasping, of pleasant, beneficent detachment. “He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure.”

The first beneficiary of our generosity, as of all the virtues, is ourselves. When we at last give up trying to hoard our way to happiness, we find that wherever we go, whatever we do, it yields us pleasure, even if we’re just walking down the street with our hands behind us. We’re happy for no reason. May that be your gift to yourself—and everyone’s gift to themselves—this holiday season. 

“And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”

The post Coming Unscrooged appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

During fraught and uncertain times such as these, it’s natural to feel like we should all be giving a little bit more of ourselves and our resources to help others. While we typically think of generosity as a quality that’s carried out through tangible actions, the act of giving doesn’t have to be limited to material things. 

According to the Mahayana path of Buddhism, generosity is the mental state of giving up something to which we are attached. One of the six perfections, or six paramitas, that ancient Tibetan Buddhism teaches, the perfection of generosity asks us not to focus on just giving in a physical sense, but on developing a “mind of giving,” which serves as the antidote to harmful attachments—a.k.a. the things that often hinder us from better understanding ourselves and connecting with others. 

Often linked to an unattainable standard that we hopefully learn to release as we age, perfection can be an intimidating word. But in Buddhist teachings, the perfections, or paramitas, are used more as guides to enlightenment and generative mind states than as strict standards. When we develop them, we’re better able to be present, help others, and overcome our own limitations—emotionally and physically. 

While not all attachments are negative, the Buddha encouraged us to let go of feelings of greed, lust, and passion—attachments that fuel our ego and cloud our judgment, sometimes leading us to disregard the needs of others for our own desires.   

By giving up our attachments in life, we open ourselves up to more opportunities, more spontaneity, and more chances to cultivate deeper connections with others. In an age where it seems like people are more divided than ever, creating more space for ourselves to connect both deeply and broadly feels urgent. 

Of course, it’s not easy to give up attachments, relinquish control, and accept circumstances and people as they are. We cling not only to our illusory vision of what is “real” but to our desires to tweak the illusion to our benefit. We feel frustrated when the world we perceive isn’t a flawless rendition of what we imagine it should be.

The first step in working to overcome such obstacles is gaining awareness, which we can work toward with a daily meditation practice. Through meditation, we can train our minds not to cling to every thought spawned by desire and aggression, hope, and fear. Many people are surprised to find that when they start their own meditation practice sitting in stillness and letting go of thoughts can be very powerful. As someone who has been teaching and practicing meditation for decades now, I can speak from personal experience that a little stillness and silence go a long way.  

When we tap into generosity, joy flows through us and out of us. The perfection of generosity challenges us to identify our expectations, projections, and attachments—those things we think we need or don’t need in order to have a “perfect” life—and find a way to release and go beyond them. Once we do, we free our minds, creating an expansiveness within ourselves. What better way to use that wiggle room this Giving Tuesday than by making ourselves more available to the people who may need us most?

The post The Depth of Generosity: A Reflection for Giving Tuesday appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Ideally, the year-end holiday season is a time for reflection, gathering indoors, and spending quality time with our loved ones. But it can be hard to ignore the relentless slew of holiday marketing, assuring us that the best way to convey our affection is to buy, buy, buy. In most Buddhist traditions, the winter solstice is not a time for presents wrapped in paper with big bows on top. While there are Buddhist cultures with gift-giving conventions—such as in Japanese etiquette—the practice of donating alms or offerings is much more widespread. But for those of us living in the West, ’tis the season for trading tokens of gratitude. So how can we give gifts in a Buddhist way?

An article in Tricycle’s Winter 2007 issue, “Gifts That Keep Giving” by Joan Duncan Oliver, provides an answer: give compassionately. Oliver suggests that we purchase gifts that are ethically sourced, environmentally conscious, and help someone in need—in other words, they relieve suffering instead of creating it. 

One approach is to give to a charity in someone else’s name, and there are many excellent organizations to choose from (see below). But for those times when we’re expected to hand out gifts (at the annual office Secret Santa, for instance), here is a selection of ways to give in the Buddhist spirit.

Buy Nothing and Give More  

Do you have any household items collecting dust in a closet that could better serve someone else? Or, do you find yourself in need of something last minute, say an extra dining chair for guests or some mushy bananas for banana bread? Consider joining a Buy Nothing community, an international network of local gifting groups that offers people a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude for their neighbors. With over four million members and nearly seven thousand regional Buy Nothing communities, the project has attracted many due to its simple but effective rule: everything must be given freely. This holiday season, the project encourages people to give and ask from others in their local communities instead of buying gifts. You can find your local Buy Nothing group on the new BuyNothing app or through the project’s list of Facebook groups. And you can read more about Buy Nothing here, in the Summer 2022 issue of Tricycle magazine.

Get Crafty!

For a variety of ethical shopping needs, visit the online store Ten Thousand Villages, which as its name implies, offers ethically sourced crafts from developing countries around the world. The Pennsylvania-based nonprofit’s mission is to provide their artisans with fair, living wages and safe work conditions as well as to promote energy-efficient practices and the use of local and recycled materials. The organization, one of the oldest and largest fair-trade groups, started in 1946 and was based on the Mennonite principles of its founder, Edna Ruth Byler, but its shop includes several goods from Buddhist traditions. Check out its selection of singing bowls from Nepalese artists or pick up a patchwork meditation cushion made by female artisans in Vietnam. Or for non-Buddhist recipients, browse their selection of jewelry, home goods, and other handicrafts.

The Tibetan Nuns Project (TNP) is a more Buddhist-oriented alternative for handmade crafts. Known for their Sponsor a Nun program, TNP was created to help refugee nuns coming to India from Tibet, but it has expanded to “provide food, shelter, education, and health care to over 700 nuns of all traditions,” the group says. Their online shop supports these efforts by selling bags, malas, prayer flags, and other crafts that are made and blessed by nuns. You can also purchase pujas [prayers and rituals], which can be dedicate to a loved one.

Words to the Wise

For book lovers, there are a lot of options to choose from. Three of the largest publishers of Buddhist literature, Wisdom Publications, Shambhala Publications, and Sounds True, all boast environmental initiatives, and Wisdom’s Books for Prisoners programs and Sounds True’s Prison Library Project make Buddhist resources available to incarcerated populations. Need a book suggestion? Check out what we’re reading and our list of recommended Buddhist books for beginners.

Here are three new books to get you started: 

• New edition of Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh by Thich Nhat Hanh. First published in 1993 and reissued this year with a foreword by Buddhist poet Ocean Vuong, Call Me By My True Names is a collection of over a hundred poems by the late Vietnamese Zen master.   
• Let Your Light Shine: How Mindfulness Can Empower Children and Rebuild Communities by Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez. In this book, Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez of the Holistic Life Foundation share how mindfulness tools can help at-risk children and communities not only survive but thrive. They also teach the Tricycle online course Mindfulness for Kids and Parents to help families be happy and calm.
• The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté. Author and physician Gabor Maté helps readers understand personal suffering—both physical and emotional—and the roots and impacts of trauma. By drawing connections between the mind, body, and environment, Maté shows a pathway to healing by treating the whole being. 

If you’re looking for a book with a younger reader in mind, here is a selection of Buddhist children’s books to consider: 

• The Secret of the Sand Castles by Demi
• Lumi: Adventures in Kindness by Molly Coxe
• Buddhist Stories for Kids: Jataka Tales of Kindness, Friendship, and Forgiveness by Laura Burges
• The Hero of Compassion: How Lokeshvara Got One Thousand Arms by Harry Einhorn
• Sophie Learns to Be Brave by Joan Halifax
• The Monster Parade by Wendy O’Leary

Presents for Presence

One way to support the dharma with your gifts is to buy from shops that help fund meditation centers. Right livelihood is the guiding principle of the Monastery Store. The shop, which sells supplies for Buddhist practice, is staffed by residents and volunteers at the upstate New York-based Zen Mountain Monastery, where they are trained in “work practice” or “sacred labor” as part of the Mountains and Rivers Order founded by the late American Zen teacher John Daido Loori. The store also puts an emphasis on responsible environmental practices. Try the buckwheat zafu, or meditation seat, and their plush “bodhi seat” zabuton, which one former editor praised for helping him overcome the tendency for his left leg to fall asleep while sitting. They also have a wonderful selection of low-smoke incense for those who want to maintain an altar with a sensitive nose. But for gifts outside of the Zen tradition, shoppers will need to look elsewhere.

The Namse Bangdzo bookstore at the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) in Woodstock, New York, also carries shrine and practice supplies, including meditation cushions, malas, and incense, as well as items that are specific to Tibetan Buddhism and might be harder to find, such as a bumpa ritual vase or a kapala, or skullcup, used in some Vajrayana practices.

Tea and Sympathy

Tea has been a symbol of enlightenment ever since 9th-century Zen master Joshu told his students, “Go drink tea!” But while there are a wide variety of fair-trade tea sellers to choose from, including some of the bigger distributors, many tea farmers around the world continue to be exploited and abused. A 2015 BBC report uncovered widespread abuses by British tea companies in India, although those companies claimed to have improved conditions. The group Ethical Consumer, which ranks UK-based tea suppliers, recommends that in addition to looking for fair trade and organic certification, buyers pick single-source teas over blends, which are harder to trace, and opt for loose tea over bags, which are rarely made from sustainable materials.

Mellow Monk only sells single estate tea from Japan’s Kumamoto region and places extra emphasis on being eco-friendly. Through the micro-lending site Kiva, they also support small farms in the area. For a broader range of tea options, the Oregon-based Strand Tea Company promises sustainable fair-trade practices and also donates proceeds to charities, including tiger conservation efforts in Tamil Nadu, India, and its local chapter of the League of Women’s Voters.

For some recipe ideas, you can check out Zen teacher Bo-Mi Choi’s guide to Korean tea remedies.

Wrapping Up

When wrapping your gift, consider alternatives to wasteful paper and scotch tape. One alternative is the Japanese method of wrapping gifts in reusable cloths called furoshiki (which literally translates to “bathmat” from its origins as a way to wrap up items at bathhouses). You can spend hours looking up different ways to tie the colorful wraps, which become part of the gift itself. If crafts aren’t your thing, reusable gift or tote bags are another great option.

Or you can wrap your gift in a scarf, adding another seasonable gift. You can purchase Tibetan yak-yarn scarves from the mYak for Social Good collection, which donates its proceeds to a mobile library project on the Tibetan Plateau that brings books to children in 50 villages.

Charitable Donations

Perhaps your loved ones have given up their attachment to material things—or have a hard enough time finding room for the stuff they already have—but you still want to let them know you are thinking of them. Donating to a charity in their name can be the perfect gift, and some people might even request it. While there are many worthy charities, here is a selection of some notable initiatives:

• The Buddhist Tzu Chi Charity Foundation provides humanitarian aid to vulnerable individuals, families, and communities. Since February 2022, Tzu Chi has provided aid to Ukrainian refugees in Poland fleeing the war.
• The Jamyang Foundation aids nuns in the most remote parts of the Himalayas.
• Nangchen Nuns helps Tsoknyi lineage nuns in Eastern Tibet.
• Ayya Yeshe’s Bodhicitta Foundation provides job training and education to women and children in India.
• Live to Love empowers the people of the Himalayas through initiatives in gender equality, education, animal care, and disaster relief. 
• Lotus Outreach supports young girls in India and Cambodia.
• The Lineage Project teaches mindful movement, meditation, breathwork, and conscious conversations to vulnerable young people in New York City. You can read an interview with the group’s executive director here.
• Pete’s Place is an interfaith homeless shelter in Sante Fe, New Mexico. You can find out about their work in this essay by a volunteer from Upaya Zen Center.
• Buddhist Global Relief, founded by Buddhist teacher and translator Bhikku Bodhi, seeks to combat chronic hunger and malnutrition worldwide through direct food relief, education initiatives, and promoting sustainable food production.
• Each year, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund supports nine organizations that provide help for those in need.

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This article was adapted from Tricycle’s 2018 gift guide. 

The post Tricycle’s Buddhist Gift Guide 2022 appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Developing and cultivating a heart that is inclined toward generosity is not easy. 

It requires a certain vulnerability. It requires a certain faith. It requires so much dharma, really. 

It’s no mystery that Siddhartha Gautama and his wife Yasodhara (I like to call them “the collective Buddha”) taught generosity first whenever traveling to a new town or village. It requires so much generosity to practice. We have to be generous to ourselves; we have to commit to being authentic and actually undergo this purification of the heart, this journey into healing each wound of the heart and having the courage to face them.

Presence requires generosity. It requires courage. It requires a commitment to coming back into the now.

There’s a really beautiful passage where the Buddha is talking about generosity, and he says, as you’re washing your alms bowl in the river, just having the generosity of thinking of how the debris and grains of rice can feed the river life; just having this generosity that everything we do can affect others in a positive way if we have the mind to offer it that way. 

I think a lot of us have a sense of lack. We’ve been conditioned to feel like there’s a lack, and we cling for this reason. It’s hard to give. 

We live in a time of fear of intimacy, fear of vulnerability, fear of giving, and fear of being caught out there without reciprocity. What can we do to cultivate a spirit that is inclined toward giving, to cultivate a heart that gives freely? 

We give. This is what we do. And this is why dana, which translates as giving, is done to cultivate caga, which is generosity. We give to our teachers. We give to the institutions that provide space for our meditation and the cultivation of our hearts. We give to causes that we really are moved to give to. We give to those in need. We give to the homeless when they ask. This has been a really powerful practice in my life, not wondering or judging or thinking that the money is just going to drugs when people are asking for it, but giving without any discrimination when I can. 

The invitation, especially with the practice of dana, is to give right up into the point of discomfort and a little past it. We should let ourselves be a little uncomfortable (but not so much that it’s really devastating us financially and putting us in harm’s way). 

It’s also important to know that generosity is not just about money. It’s about energy, which is really what money boils down to. It’s about time and presence. 

I’m giving so much patience as a parent of an eight-year-old son. It’s funny, I caught myself recently expecting my son to have a sense of the sacrifices I make sometimes as a parent. But he has no sense of that. He’s a child. He shouldn’t have to think about that. 

Recently, my son got really upset that we left the park after school after an hour. He was on the playground, and other families were leaving. He was having such a great time, and I said, “It’s time to go,” and he got really upset. He said that I was mean. I responded with, “You do not understand what it’s like as a parent. I enjoy watching you play, but I also know that I have things to do. I have to teach tonight, I have to make dinner. It’s a sacrifice standing in the chilly weather. I do it because I love you. But you just have no idea. I’m not mean.”

This was an example where I got caught giving and expecting him to appreciate what it is for me to give—which is so often the case. We want to be appreciated. We want to be honored for our generosity in some way. So that’s why this practice of giving without attachment has been so powerful. That’s also one of the definitions of alobha: detachment.

Pali is a waxing, gold, ancient language with so much functionality and so many layers to each word. English is very different, and it’s hard to hit this concept completely. But I think of alobha as the inclination of the heart toward generosity. I might add that I think there’s some correlation with the Hawaiian aloha, which means breath of life. There’s also a sense of generosity as being sparks of life. 

So we give as best we can without this feeling of needing compensation, and we feel the wisdom of interconnection and interbeing. 

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Adapted from Joshua Bee Alafia’s Dharma Talk “The Three Beautiful Roots: Cultivating the Three Wholesome Qualities in Unwholesome Times.”

The post Cultivating the Courage to Be Generous appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The paramis (Skt., paramitas) are ten qualities of the heart and mind that a practitioner develops on the path of awakening. Working with the paramis of generosity, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, lovingkindness, and equanimity, says Insight Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein, is like building muscles at the gym—it’s hard work, but it pays off. The results in this case, however, are not bulging biceps and killer glutes but the benefits of increased happiness, kindness, clarity, and ease in the present moment.

This series will offer you some reminders and words of encouragement about developing the paramis. If you need a visual reminder, a printable/downloadable version is available here.

First up is GENEROSITY, which is exactly what it sounds like: sharing what you have with others, whether physical possessions or your time and attention. Even children know that “sharing is caring,” but developing the habit of maintaining a generous attitude doesn’t always come easily in a culture where our worth is defined by what we have. Still, every generous act makes it more likely that you will be generous again. Just keep at it. Here are some ideas to hold in mind:

• “Being generous creates ‘instant karma’—we can immediately see and feel the results of being generous.” —Gil Fronsdal
• “There is happiness in planning the generous act, happiness in the actual giving, and happiness in reflecting later on your generosity.” —Joseph Goldstein
• Tip: if you feel an urge to be generous, act on it. Then notice what happens in your mind and heart.
• Generosity is practiced on a scale—from beggarly giving to royal giving. Any giving is better than giving nothing at all.

• “When you are practicing generosity, you should feel a little pinch when you give something away. That pinch is your stinginess protesting.” —Gelek Rimpoche
• Try a little change of vocabulary. Instead of telling yourself you have to do something or give something, try thinking that you get to do something or give something.
• Be open to being a receiver as well as a giver.
• Practicing generosity helps us step back from our own self-interest and see how everything is interconnected.
• “These five are a person of integrity’s gifts. Which five? A person of integrity gives a gift with a sense of conviction. A person of integrity gives a gift attentively. A person of integrity gives a gift in season. A person of integrity gives a gift with an empathetic heart. A person of integrity gives a gift without adversely affecting himself or others.”
  —Anguttara Nikaya 5.148 (trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

The post Pocket Paramis: Generosity appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

While COVID-19 has turned the whole world upside down, Theravada monastics have faced unique challenges because of the restrictions of the Vinaya, or the Buddhist monastic code. Even getting food has become a challenge, as the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis (monks and nuns) follow rules that prohibit storing or cooking their own food and cutting or injuring plants, let alone animals. Monastics usually walk into nearby human habitations with their begging bowls to gather their daily meal, which must be eaten before noon, or remain at their monastery while householders bring food or cook it for them there. This “economy of gifts” requires close daily contact between almsgatherers and laypeople—a partnership that the Buddha intended to cultivate but that COVID makes nearly impossible. 

Both Theravada monastics and laity have had to get creative to address this and other challenges to the symbiotic relationship between them, according to bhikkhus and bhikkhunis from three North American monasteries on the West Coast: Birken Forest Monastery in Canada; Metta Forest Monastery in Southern California; and the sibling centers of Dhammadharini and Aranya Bodhi in Northern California. The increased seclusion forced on everyone by the pandemic has, according to the monastics, in their cases led to a surprising increase in connectivity with the rest of the world. The basis of their monastic life—dependence on others for gifts of food—has not become a damaging vulnerability. Instead, the relationship between monastics and laity has proven itself to be resilient and adaptable.

The Economy of Gifts

For years, the bhikkhunis at Dhammadharini in Sonoma County followed the ancient tradition of going on walking alms rounds (pindapata) in the nearby towns of Sebastopol and Petaluma—towns with no cultural context for shaven-headed women in orange robes walking silently down their streets with metal begging bowls in hand. Even before they established Dhammadharini Monastery in Sonoma county, the bhikkhunis would go on pindapata in San Francisco’s East Bay. During COVID all that has changed. The bhikkhunis now shelter in place at their monastery, where some Sri Lankan families from the local community bring them food every day. A similar, but more elaborate arrangement holds court at the Pacific Hermitage where the bhikkhus—who used to go on pindapata in nearby White Salmon, Washington—receive their meals from an organized team of rotating lay people who drop food off to the monks on their porch every day before noon, the time after which they are not allowed to eat meals.

Wat Metta and Birken both have on-site kitchens where the resident bhikkhus are given food by long-term lay residents who volunteer to prepare it for them. At Aranya Bodhi, the hermitage associated with Dhammadharini, the lay steward has begun happily wildcrafting forest and ocean vegetables to offer to the resident bhikkhunis.

While financial gifts to the monasteries are down, Ajahn Sona, the abbot of Birken, said that costs were also generally down. “The needs of the monks are really more minimal than most people can imagine. The monasteries are all closed to hosting short-term lay visitors, and most running costs are actually associated with providing that.” 

“In many ways we’re perfectly situated for a pandemic,” said Thanissaro Bhikkhu, the abbot of Wat Metta, which has been closed to short-term visitors since March. “We have space to walk around; we have a lifestyle that emphasizes being quiet, learning how to get along, and knowing what to do with your mind.”  

Virtual Dharma

The pandemic has meant fewer visitors for the monastics, but they are neither bored by the solitude nor are they entirely alone. The COVID lockdowns have expanded these monastics’ use of the internet to disseminate Buddhist teachings. 

“Due to broadcasting on Youtube and Facebook [mediums previously used lightly, if at all, by most of the Theravada sangha], worldwide outreach of the dhamma has become much stronger,” said Ayya Sobhana, a bhikkhuni and elder teacher at Dhammadharini. “We are used to a constant stream of international visitors,” she said. “When they come they tend to bring some drama, some agitation which we need to meet with our stability and help settle. Right now we have turned more to focusing on refining the harmony between us, the way we speak and comport ourselves toward each other.” 

“We enjoy the solitude greatly,” said Ajahn Sona, who now offers a six-week course on Youtube on cultivating the jhanas (refined and pleasurable states of meditative absorption). His colleague Ajahn Sudanto at the Pacific Hermitage unpacks and discusses this course with viewers over a “morning coffee,” an interactive video he hosts on Youtube, where he answers questions from the laity in real time. Ajahn Thanissaro has likewise been meeting with students across the world to answer their questions about meditation on Zoom. I dropped in on one such session where the Ajahn managed to impress his Brazillian students by pulling off some jokes in newly learned Portuguese.

Ayya Tathaaloka, a bhikkhuni and elder leader at Dhammadharini explained how bhikkhunis around the world recently came together for a historic event—for the first time an international meeting of bhikkhunis chanted together the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta, which tells of the Buddha’s first teaching. This international chant gathering might never have happened if it hadn’t been for the forced seclusion of bhikkhunis in their monasteries. Due to the recent resuscitation of the Theravada bhikkhuni sangha after it was wiped out by war and famine centuries ago, this may be the first time a large international convocation of bhikkhunis chanted that discourse in a millennia. 

Teachings

“Emerging from the winter retreat into the time of COVID,” said Ayya Tathaaloka, “I felt a real sense of urgency to respond to what is happening with dhamma.” 

Ayya Sobhana said that they had been chanting parittas—protective chants that generate blessings—and teaching on the theme of brightening the mind through meditation. “It’s not so hard for people to realize dukkha [suffering],” Ayya Sobhana explained, “but less easy to know how to brighten the mind, how to gladden it, how to develop piti and sukha [meditative rapture and ease].” 

“We are also emphasizing the Buddha’s teachings on right speech and social harmony,” Sobhana added, “to help people deal with the amount of anger and conflict that is happening in the country right now.”

“The dhamma is needed as a counter to the horrific behavior we’re seeing,” echoed Ajahn Sona. “Both psychologically and physically it can make people sick.”

Both Ajahn Sona and Ajahn Thanissaro, when discussing spiritual practice during COVID, coincidentally referenced the same Buddhist teaching, the Pabbotama Sutta, a discourse from the Samyutta Nikaya that recounts a conversation between the Buddha and King Pasenadi, a prominent follower who built many monasteries and features in several suttas. “The Buddha once asked King Pasenadi if mountains were moving towards his kingdom killing everything in their path, what would he do?” recounted Sona. “The King said he would practice sila (moral restraint), dana (generosity).” 

“This is the proper response to a pandemic: stay moral and be generous and kind. That’s the proper response to a huge tsunami of unemployment and sickness and death.”

“The three mountains of aging, illness, and death have been moving in all the time,” Ajahn Thanissaro added. “This is nothing new, the instructions are to calm your mind and practice dhamma.”

“There is nothing unusual about being in the midst of illness and death,” said Ajahn Sona. “This is what spiritual practice is for, it’s for this situation, it’s not for the good times, it’s not for the fun, it’s for the fact that there is this deep uncertainty.” 

Ayya Tathaaloka spoke from another angle, saying that months of enforced solitude in the wilderness had given her new insight from the wilderness itself. “I’m learning dhamma from nature in ways which I never did before,” she said. “I feel like, oh my Buddha, we’re so disconnected from our natural world and having a sense of being grounded in our natural world … Our conditional correlation with our natural world, how our bodies and who we are are so dependent on that there may be hope for our world when we combine the dhamma with that awareness—after all, that’s what the Buddha himself did.”

An Uncertain Future

Despite the fact that certain sanghas have weathered this crisis well, we should not overlook their vulnerabilities. Wat Metta, for example, has two foreign nationals living there as bhikkhus. The reserve funds of the monastery could be depleted if they became sick and required ventilators. Health insurance for monastics in the US (if they have it) must be paid for by the laity as monastics do not keep, or even touch, money. Prospects of a lengthy economic downturn combined with few visitors to Buddhist monasteries easily conjure up fears for the long-term survival of monasteries in the West. Yet so far, Buddhist lay people have rallied to protect the third gem of sangha. As the pandemic rages on throughout the world, one has good reason to hope that will continue. 

The post What Does an Alms Gatherer Eat Now? appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

It’s funny where we find the most important things sometimes, like in a grocery store. I had biked into town for some veggie burgers. I couldn’t find them in the freezer, so I asked a clerk for help and was told to wait for someone from the natural foods section. As I stood between the vitamins and the energy drinks, grateful for the air-conditioning, a young man, 18 years old at most, came to help me. After some searching, he told me that the brand I was looking for had been discontinued.

He kept looking at me, and I figured he was confused about my shaved head and the long robe, something that happens in places like grocery stores. I paused and waited for his question, ready to tell him a bit about the haircut and the clothes. With a look of sympathy and remorse, he leaned over and asked me, “Did you have cancer?”

I was so surprised by the question that I almost laughed; usually people ask, “Are you a Hare Krishna?” “Do you know the Dalai Lama?” or simply “What are you?” I took a breath and replied with a hesitant “Yes.” I had been in remission for over a decade at that point, but I had never been through chemotherapy; the shaved head was simply my choice. I was tempted to explain all of this to him but then he said, “My mom had cancer. She died a year ago.” I caught my breath and was so glad I hadn’t laughed or explained anything to him. I had also lost my mother to cancer, and my father, too, when I was a child. My heart trembled in resonant grief, and tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

“So I know about chemo and all that,” he continued, nodding, his eyes on the ground. He reached his right hand into his shirt pocket and took out a sticker. “Here,” he said, putting a neon orange circle marked “50% off” on the cheese I was holding. My tongue got stuck between wanting to explain and not wanting to mislead him. Then I realized that getting to do something for another person might be exactly what he needed in that moment. It wasn’t about me at all. I just happened to be there, so I accepted the offering. Looking in his eyes, I silently wished him the courage to keep growing up through the inescapable pain of losing a parent at such a young age. “Thank you,” I said. He told me to come find him if I ever needed anything again, and he went back to stocking the shelves, while I went off to find some olives.

I was surprised to see him again in the checkout line. He came directly to me and said, “I want to pay for your groceries.” The inner conflict arose again, the urge to explain that I wasn’t going through chemotherapy. Yet it was completely appropriate for me as a monastic to receive an offering of food. I took a deep breath, relaxed my body, and opened myself to receive again. We had a few minutes together in the line, so I asked about his mother. He told me she had been an artist and a great mom. He missed her. Though his eyes were heavy, he seemed to grow taller when he spoke about her. I asked about his dad and whether they could talk together about her death. He shrank back and said no, they didn’t really talk about things. He dreamed of joining the military and had promised his mom to follow through with it after she died. He had applied to a program I had never heard of, but he looked proud as he told me.

We reached the checkout counter, and he looked down into my basket. There lay the discounted cheddar cheese, a plastic container of olives, and a can of black beans. He seemed a little disappointed, as if he wanted to offer more. Then he confidently pulled out his employee discount card and paid for the food, all $8.36 of it. We never even exchanged names; it didn’t seem necessary. Another “Thank you,” a silent blessing, and another tender “Goodbye.” I left the store, tied up my robes for the bike ride, and rode off into the heat reflecting upon the many ways to practice dana—giving or generosity.

Despite the emphasis on sitting meditation in much of Western Buddhism, the Buddha actually began his teachings to new practitioners with a discussion of the value of dana, for it gladdens the mind and prepares one to face dukkha—suffering or dissatisfaction. This may be why dana leads the list of the paramis (Pali; Skt. paramitas)— the spiritual perfections. It is much more than simply a prerequisite to the “real” teachings, as some assume.

The Buddha used two words in association with the practice of generosity— dana and caga. Dana refers to the act of giving—food, money, time, kindness, or the dharma. Caga, on the other hand, refers to the inward disposition that gives rise to the action. In the discourse To Mahanama, the Buddha tells us that generosity allows us to “dwell at home with a mind devoid of the stain of miserliness, freely generous, openhanded, delighting in relinquishment, devoted to charity, delighting in giving and sharing.”

When I first took up the practice of generosity, I focused on understanding my motivation for giving. Sometimes it was openhanded and brought delight, while at other times it came from a sense of obligation and left me feeling resentful. I started asking myself, “Can I find an openhanded motivation here?” The questioning itself helped me to get in touch with caga even when forces such as greed or fear were at play. Later I found that changing my inner dialogue—replacing language like “have to” or “should” with something like “get to” made the shift to caga even easier. “I have to go to this meeting” became “I get to go to this meeting,” reminding me that even something I dreaded could become an opportunity to give when I remembered.

In the end, it’s not so important who gives and who receives. What matters is what takes us beyond our separation.

My biggest lesson in generosity, however, came when I had cancer. I was diagnosed in the last months of my twenties. Even though I had a good relationship with my mother, it was hard to move back in with her and receive her care, because I was so much more comfortable giving care than receiving it. It took months for the pangs of resistance and thoughts of “I can take care of myself!” to subside, because I couldn’t. I was horribly anemic, completely broke, and facing overwhelming decisions and medical procedures. It was a blessing and a privilege to be able to turn to my mother for support, even though I didn’t want it.

A turning point finally came when I received an email from a friend thanking me for sharing my journey with her. She was grateful to get to offer her care through prayers and well-wishes. Staring at the computer screen, it dawned on me that if I wanted others to enjoy giving as much as I did, then I would have to take my turn receiving, too. I looked at my mother with new eyes, able to see how she enjoyed caring for me. From that point on I released my resistance, and cancer became one big lesson in receiving: my mother’s care, the prayers and love of friends and family, and even the skill of a surgeon and the height of medical technology. I had thought that self-sufficiency would protect me, but really it was receiving that healed me.

Over a decade has passed, yet I still find it hard to accept simple things like help with a suitcase, a compliment, or even the offerings made to me as a monastic. My first impulse is to say, “No, I’m okay. I don’t need anything.” I have had to learn to bite my tongue when the habit to refuse arises, because this kind of refusal arises from the delusion of separateness. This compulsive self-sufficiency is as miserly as holding on to something that could be shared. The perfection of generosity, however, breaks down the barriers of self and other and frees me from the pain of holding back.

In the end, it’s not so important who gives and who receives. What matters is cultivating the openhandedness that takes us beyond clinging to our separation and into an awareness that all is given and received. This is why I have added to my translation of dana the word reciprocity, which derives from a Latin verb meaning “to move forward and backward.” Reciprocity is a dance like life itself. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the wounds we carry, and the love we share are all given and received. Reciprocity reminds us to look beyond roles to relationship. When we give without differentiating self from other, and when we receive without differentiating it from the giving, then we can find the gift of dana everywhere.

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Generosity is a great gift, both for the recipient and the giver. The practice of giving, or dana, brings joy to both parties, and reduces selfishness and greed in the process—a helpful practice to remember amid the rush to buy gifts and cross tasks off your holiday list.

This season, we’re sharing teachings from our archives to help you cultivate an expansive, loving heart during the holidays and beyond.

Generosity Dharma Talk with Gil Fronsdal
Soto Zen priest Gil Fronsdal on the radical choice to give freely without expecting anything in return.

Gifts that Keep Giving
Tricycle contributing editor Joan Duncan Oliver’s Buddhist guide to compassionate gift-giving, complete with a list of charitable organizations open to donations

The Joy of Generosity 
Need help getting your kids to help with the dishes after a holiday feast? Vipassana meditation teacher Beth Roth teaches her son the joy of being generous by involving him in a dish-washing extravaganza.

Hoping for Snow in Dark December: A Balm in Troubled Times by Dick Allen 
And, for a winter pick-me-up during December’s long dark days, Connecticut’s poet laureate emeritus Dick Allen reflects on the hope that snow can bring in a letter to his grandson.

The post Buddhist Offerings for the Holiday Season appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In the days that followed 9/11, we at Tricycle quickly reached out to teachers to respond to what had taken place, and just as quickly they delivered. Stunned as we all were, everyone had something to say, drawing from Buddhist teachings a much needed and grounding perspective. New Yorkers themselves responded with intuitive warmth and generosity, and through the horror of the early aftermath, we managed to find our way.

I can’t say the same about the days that followed the shooting in Las Vegas. Something had changed. Like most everyone else, we at the magazine were at a loss for any meaningful response. Was there really anything new to say? Words of comfort from those in government rang predictably hollow. The major news outlets had begun to report detail, which engendered little more than deepening despair. For once our elected officials seemed too weary for the politics of spectacle, repeating empty platitudes or admonishing others not to “politicize a tragedy.” It seemed only to add to the darkening mood of the country.

Yes, there was outrage, but that has become routine; and there was a momentary ripple of surprise at the diehard gun advocates who, for the first time, favored mild remedies, although no one really believed that significant legislation would pass. The defeatist consensus was unspoken: yes, it’s terrible, and it’ll happen again.

At the time I write this, it’s been weeks since the shooting; the dead are buried, and in retrospect, horrible as it was, it’s been but one more event added to the malignant chaos of our times, part of a seemingly relentless assault on our most deeply held values. Our attention has shifted—to the next legislative battle, the next low-pressure system in the Gulf, loose talk of a potentially catastrophic war. Yet despite the daunting challenges we face, our responsibility to respond, however modestly, has been much on my mind.

I won’t pretend that we can change the course of history, or that anything can spare us the next massacre. But what we can do is continue to offer teachings that encourage us to cultivate minds of compassion and equanimity, particularly when the dispiriting familiarity of such terrible violence becomes more than we think we can bear. We do this not just for ourselves but also for others, and perhaps even more so for those who will follow us.

In the last lines of Middlemarch, reflecting on the life of her protagonist, George Eliot gives us a sense of what those who came before us have given us, and the impact our lives can have on the lives of others:

The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

It is important during such dispiriting times to recall the infinity of small actions that support what is good in life. And it would be a mistake to dismiss their power, whether they occur in the political arena or not. What kind of effect our daily actions have at home, at work, and among our fellows will depend in part on what kind of mind we bring to the world, and this is where the heart of Buddhist teachings lie. It is not for us to calculate the impact of our “unhistoric acts”; but we can rest in the knowledge that it is through such actions that goodness is transmitted and sustained.

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