..续本文上一页and creates good connections with the people around you. It dissolves the boundaries that otherwise would keep the happiness from spreading around.
When you come to the meditation with that state of mind, it totally changes the way you approach meditating. For so many people, meditation is a question of, “What am I going to get out of this time I spend meditating
” Particularly in the modern world, time is something we”re very poor in. So the question of getting, getting, getting out of the mediation is always there in the background. We”re told to erase this idea of getting, but you can”t erase it if you”ve been cultivating it as a habitual part of your mind. But if you come to the meditation with experience in being generous, the question becomes, “What do I give to the meditation
” You give it your full attention. You give it the effort, you”re happy to put in the effort, because you”ve learned from experience that good effort put into the practice of the Dhamma brings results. And so that internal poverty of “What am I getting out of this meditation
” gets erased. You come to the meditation with a sense of wealth: “What can I give to this practice
”
You find, of course, that you end up getting a lot more if you start with the attitude of giving. The mind is more up for challenges: “How about if I give it more time
How meditating later into the night than I usually do
How about getting up earlier in the morning
How about giving more constant attention to what I”m doing
How about sitting longer through pain
” The meditation then becomes a process of giving, and of course you get the results. You”re not so grudging of your efforts. You”re not so grudging of the time. This way you place fewer and fewer limitations on the process of meditation, and the results are sure to be less grudging, more unlimited, as well. So it”s important that we develop the Noble Wealth of generosity to bring to our meditation.
The texts mention that when you get discouraged in your meditation, when the meditation gets dry, you should look back on past generosity. This gives you a sense of self-esteem, a sense of encouragement. Of course, what generosity are you going to look back on if there is none
This is why it”s important that you approach the meditation having practiced generosity very consciously. Many times we think about the question of “How do I take the meditation back into the world
” But it”s also important that you bring good qualities of the world into your meditation, good qualities of your day-to-day life, and that you develop them regularly. Thinking back on past acts of generosity gets dry after a while if there”s only been one act of generosity that happened a long time ago. You need fresh generosity to give you encouragement.
So this is why, when the Buddha talked about the forms of merit, he said, “Don”t be afraid of merit, for merit is another word for happiness.” The first of the three main forms of merit is dana, giving, which is the expression of generosity. The gift of being virtuous builds on the simple act of giving, and the gift of meditation builds on both.
Of course, a large part of the meditation is letting go: letting go of distractions, letting go of unskillful thoughts. If you”re used to letting go of material things, it comes a lot easier to begin experimenting with letting go of unskillful mental attitudes—things that you”ve held on to for so long that you think you need them, but when you do let them go, you find you actually didn”t need them at all. In fact, you see that they were an unnecessary burden that caused suffering. When you see the suffering, and the fact that it”s needless, you can let go. In this way, the momentum of giving carries all the way through the practice, and you see that it”s not depriving you of anything. It”s more like a trade. You give away a material object and you gain in generous qualities of mind. You give away your defilements, and you gain freedom.
《Generosity First》全文阅读结束。