While generosity and gratitude are natural capacities, our conditioning to want life different can often keep us from living from a free and open heart. This talk explores three gateways to awakening and expressing love in our daily life.

Cultivating generosity a foundation for insight and liberation - including discussions of merit and the practice of gratitude.

This week I will complete the Shantideva series with his final chapter on the power of dedicating your actions as an act of generosity. We often end the sittings or a period of practice by sharing any merit for the benefit of all beings. This practice can be used in very simple but potent ways as a method for brining a heartfelt sincerity to your practice for the benefit of specific individuals. For instance if you’re trying to change a habit, offering the merit of that wholesome change to someone who is having a hard time in their life. This practice of dedicating merit both connects you with others and motivates you beyond mere self-improvement. We’ll be exploring just how this can work in our daily life to give energy and enthusiasm to our practice.

Renunciation sounds painful, but it’s actually a very useful thing to be able to do. Rather than seeking the beautiful and the good where it can’t be found, we consider what is actually needed. We find the heart is enriched through acts of generosity and sharing, and through these, we get what we need.

The ten paramis (or perfections) are transformative practices of a Bodhisattva, one who is on the path to liberation. In the Zen school of Buddhism these ten paramis are generosity, ethics, patience, effort, meditation, wisdom, skillful means, spiritual aspiration, higher accomplishment, and awakened awareness. These practices become perfected qualities in an awakened one. The first 6 paramis, starting with generosity and building up to wisdom, are laid out in the Pali Canon, which is said to record the actual words of the Buddha. Later, in Mahayana sutras, these 6 were expanded to 10 to provide the far-reaching, well-rounded principles for living the good life. You can read all about these perfections in Lama Surya Das' book, Buddha Is As Buddha Does

Vinaya isn’t just monastic rules. It is a set of teachings and guidelines that help check our actions so we can live according to our deeply held values – generosity, mutual respect, simplicity of needs. These values act as Path factors, to support the release into freedom.

Cultivating the wholesome as a foundation and force for liberation – Focusing on the practices of generosity and gratitude.

This talk begins with an introduction to the 10 requisites for enlightenment. These are the wholesome qualities of mind that support awakening in a context that includes the welfare and happiness of all beings. Generosity or an open heartedness forms the basis for this journey.

Loving kindness, generosity, appreciative joy and spaciousness are the cornerstones of a gladdened heart upon which our practice deepens.

When we feel grateful, there is a sense of homecoming. We are connected with what we cherish, and in that abundance, our natural response is generosity. This talk explores two pathways that directly give rise to gratitude and generosity: full presence, and the intentional remembrance of what we love.