77. Paramita of Generosity

The Beginning

Take refuge and arouse bodhicitta.

The Main Part

Meditate: The recipients of your generosity are all sentient beings. To them, you should make actual offering of material goods, spiritual teaching and protection, to the best of your ability. In addition, you also imagine making mental offerings of your body, possessions, and root of virtue.

If your stinginess is so tenacious that you can never part with anything, there is an exercise that we have learned in the Seven Points of Mind Training. Begin by taking a small object and passing it from your left hand to right hand, followed by giving it back from right hand to left hand. Repeat this process until your mind gives rise to the willingness to give. Continue to nurture it, and eventually the day will come when you see no difference between offering your own body and offering vegetables to others.

In all, generosity entails both physical and mental offerings of ordinary giving, great giving, and exceptionally great giving. As much as you can, offer to the Three Jewels with real substances or those emanated mentally within samadhi. In addition, offer tormas, pure water, and burnt food to non-human spirits, ghosts, and pretas.

In addition, exercise generosity in everyday life whenever possible. For instance, if we speak one sentence of spiritual teaching to the beings we meet, it’s a Dharma offering; if we transport a little worm in danger of getting trampled on the walkway to a safe place, it’s a generosity of protection; if we give a beggar no more than a penny, a dime, or one dollar without stinginess, it constitutes a material offering. Do not neglect such little acts of generosity; do it as much as you can and accrue merit.

The Ending

Dedicate merit in a state devoid of concept.