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Dharma Talks
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2004-12-07
Self-Knowledge
64:57
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Rodney Smith
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| Is your meditation directed toward learning about who you are? What areas do you shy away from paying attention to yourself? Where are you self-protected? Do you feel the pain associated with those areas? Become increasingly aware of one of those areas and see what difference bare attention (caring attention) makes to that pain. Offer that area metta to ease the pain of looking. The pain will ease in direct proportion to your understanding of it, and understanding is achieved through direct observation. |
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Seattle Insight Meditation Society
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2004-11-23
Wholeness and Healing through Generosity
62:13
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Rodney Smith
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| Notice how frequently you second-guess your generosity. You may have the desire to be generous but you let it pass without acting. This week act upon any impulse to be generous: if you have the thought to give something to someone, do not delay or second-guess the impulse. Give.
Each time you open the Internet this week begin by going to thehungersite.com and offer a free donation to all the similar sites listed on that web page. Say metta phrases to each disadvantaged group as you make the offering. May all being have sufficient food; may all beings be free of breast cancer.... Feel the pain associated with each category of people and wish them well. Explore the relationship between feeling pain for another and generosity. Does the pain motivate you to move towards or away from giving?
Notice your meditative posture and see if the chest and shoulders are fully open when you sit. How does your posture affect your mind? As you move through the day notice your posture when you feel selfish or irritable. Notice it when you feel generous and confident. When you feel selfish and closed down to generosity adjust your posture to a more open stance and see if that has any effect on your state of mind. |
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Seattle Insight Meditation Society
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2003-12-13
I Just Wanted Some Toothpaste
35:17
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Ayya Medhanandi
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| The way out of pain is not in sense pleasure. But suffering can be a ticket to Nibbana – maybe not the one we asked for, but it's in our hands. So we try. Taste the moment just as it is. Choose love when there is every reason to hate. Trust when there is every reason to despair. Be patient when anger is burning within. Faced with terror or far from peace, let go. Being still in the very midst of fear, we can know non-fear. All is fleeting, not what we are, and nothing to hold onto. There, in the silent flow of the breath, the heart will soften in a tender wave of unconditional love. |
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Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand
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2003-11-13
Learning
46:32
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Rodney Smith
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| Reflect on how generosity is related to equality. When you offer a gift to someone you perceive as unequal is that generosity or pity? Feel the difference between these two forms of giving. How does the heart feel and how does the mind hold the offering in a generous act and in pity? When you perceive someone as a human being regardless of their present condition you can only perceive them as equal. When you give to the less fortunate, you are lost in the pain of the circumstances. The generous heart feels that pain but gives to the human being.
This week find several occasions to give something away to someone less privileged. Before you do, release the projections and allow equality to surface. One person giving to another. Look the person in the eye when you hand them the gift. Let your heart meet theirs. Feel the humility of true generosity. Feel the joy of release. Notice the qualitative difference between giving with humility and the self-importance of "helping the disadvantaged." |
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Seattle Insight Meditation Society
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