Reading Archive (Generosity)
The Oppressor and the Oppressed Must Both be Liberated
Nelson Mandela
I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must...
The Act of Giving is the True Gift
Author Unknown
In an ancient Indian epic, Arjuna, a famed warrior questions his divine charioteer, Krishna, about the noblest giver in the land. "Karna is without doubt the finest example of generosity in ...
Do A Nice Thing For Your Future Self
Elizabeth Gilbert
I grew up on a small family farm, with plants and animals needing care in every direction, so vacations were rare. But one summer my parents convinced a neighboring farmer to tend to our goats and chi...
How Generosity Blossoms Into Meditation
Sharon Salzberg
The cultivation of generosity is the beginning of the path. [...] The path begins there because of the joy that arises from a generous heart. Pure, unhindered delight flows freely when we practice gen...
Finding the Deepest Joy in Relationships
Ezra Bayda
One very helpful tool in both clarifying and working with our relationship difficulties is to return to the three questions: Am I truly happy right now? What blocks happiness? Can I surrender to what...
Hiding A Penny
Annie Dillard
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been s...
Renewability Makes Something Valuable
Martin Prechtel
In the village, people used to build their houses out of traditional materials, using no iron or lumber or nails, but the houses were magnificent. Many were sewn together out of bark and fiber. L...
Generosity Helps Us Accept Change
Sharon Salzberg
The aim of practicing generosity is twofold, or else it’s an incomplete experience. The first aim is to free our minds from the conditioned forces that bind and limit us. Craving, clinging an...
Surrender Your Data
Michael Quattrone
Surrender your data, and I will give you wisdom. Empty your bank accounts, and let me show you value. Shut your eyes to entertainment, and open them to beauty. Unplug your high-speed connection and I ...
Neighbors Are Our Practice
Tenzin Palmo
Meditation is only one of the many qualities that is emphasized. It's a very important one because we have to understand our mind, and we can only understand our mind by looking at it. But to be a wel...
The Soul of Money
Lynne Twist
There comes a point where having more than we need becomes a burden. We are overcompensated, overstuffed, swimming in the excess, looking for satisfaction in more or different. We live in a world wher...
Drum Major Instinct
Martin Luther King Jr.
There is deep down within all of us an instinct. It's a kind of drum major instinct.a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole...
On Generosity
Krishnamurti
"We are going to talk about something which needs a mind that can penetrate very profoundly. We must begin very near because we cannot go very far if we do not know how to begin very close,...
One Robe One Bowl
Sylvia Boorstein
In the early years of my practice, a group of Burmese monks were guest teachers for a week at a retreat at which I was a student in southern California. They were housed in one of the cottages at the...
Service
Paul Gorman & Ram Dass
Separateness and unity. How interesting that these root causes, revealed in the expereience of helping, turn out to be what most spiritual traditions define as the fundamental issue of life itself. ...