The Dharma Of Giving & Receiving

Good evening.

Tonight my talk is called The Dharma of Giving and Receiving.

And I wanted to start by mentioning that this is the month that is traditionally recognized as We Suck.

In many countries there's a festival and a holiday for Buddha's birth,

Enlightenment,

And death.

In Buddhism it's the most significant holiday,

And while we don't necessarily have a holiday here,

We do have a recognition of the Buddha.

And so it's kind of a recognition,

Gratitude,

Just recognizing what Buddha brought to the world and to us.

And so we offer some gratitude for what the Buddha has brought to this world.

And so I was thinking of that in terms of receiving and receiving gratitude.

And one of the things we talked about,

The Year to Live class that some of us are doing,

We were doing the life review.

We're six months away now from our death day,

And so we're getting closer.

And so we're doing this life review.

I think a lot of people as they get to the end of their lives probably go back over and review their lives.

And so we've been doing this kind of review.

And it's interesting to do that with the kind of intention of going through your life and looking at it not only from the lens of the difficulties,

But the lens of gratitude.

And also recognizing that all of us here in this room at this moment couldn't be here unless there had been a great deal of generosity and support for our lives.

You know,

In one way or the other,

We have all been recipients of quite a lot to be in this room right here in this moment.

And so how do we receive that?

How do we receive generosity?

There are times when as humans out of conditioned patterns we might receive generosity with resistance or numbness.

You know,

Sometimes we take it for granted.

And a lot of times it depends on the situation.

You know,

The Buddha says that a grateful person is very rare.

I'll just read this quote.

The two kinds of people that are hard to find in the world,

The one who is first to do a kindness and the one who is grateful and thankful for the kindness done.

And in saying that kind and grateful people are rare,

Buddha isn't just stating a harsh truth about the human race.

He's advising us to treasure these people when we find them,

But also to cultivate that quality within ourselves.

And so sometimes,

Just as in a life review,

One might realize that some things happened that we were not grateful for at the time,

But can see it now.

That happens quite often.

Sometimes the negativity bias that we have as humans causes us to perhaps dwell on and think more about the difficulties we've encountered because the mind tends to do that.

And perhaps it's easier to kind of forget about or let go of the things that are positive.

And regretting sometimes if we don't feel grateful at the time or express gratitude until later in life.

You know,

When I was growing up,

After my mother died,

I came,

That's when I moved to Nashville for my grandmother to raise me.

At that time,

My life was too difficult to really feel gratitude.

You know,

It was just,

I was thinking a lot about the difficulties of my life,

The pain that I was in.

And so it was hard for me to recognize that there was this loving person who was there for me when nobody else was.

When I got to be 17,

After my father died,

I left and moved out west for a while.

I quit school,

You know,

I just moved out to Oregon,

And I dropped off communications with my grandmother.

I just couldn't be around people.

But there came a point after a couple of years where she really needed me,

Needed me to come back and care for her.

I was her only living relative.

So I came back,

And I lived with her,

And I cared for her until she died.

And she cared for me while I was growing up into adulthood.

And so of course I cared for her until she died.

And I'm really glad that I was able to really come back to a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what she did to me before she died.

You know,

Sometimes those opportunities get lost.

It doesn't always work out.

And I'm grateful in this case that I was able to do that.

Something that happened with my husband when he was a teenager,

His parents divorced when he was maybe 11 or 12,

And his father moved out to California,

And so his father was an absentee father.

He really didn't have a father figure in his life,

You know,

Something to mentor him and guide him.

Apparently someone he knew had offered to do that,

You know,

Saw that my husband didn't have a father,

And offered to be that male presence in his life,

And he said no.

He didn't accept that offer.

As an adult he has expressed remorse and regret that he didn't accept that,

That he felt that that would have helped him a lot.

We're not always able at certain times in our lives to recognize and receive that gratitude.

But in reflecting,

A lot of times we can really feel a deep gratitude for what we've received in our lives,

To really open to it and know how important it is and how much it makes a difference in our lives.

When we were talking in A Year to Live,

One of the people in the group was sharing that a relative that she appreciated as a young girl,

She had bought a gift in gratitude to give to this relative,

And the relative packed the gift back up in her bag and sent her away with it.

And so as a vulnerable young woman,

You know,

Teenager,

She was crushed by that.

I think sometimes we don't realize in receiving gratitude that it's in exchange,

And when we receive gratitude,

That is a form of generosity too.

To allow another to appreciate and express gratitude and kindness to us is,

It's a kind of interconnection where the self and other goes away,

And there's a moment of two people connecting at a deeper level.

I think sometimes if we get too caught up in,

You know,

I'm worthy,

I don't deserve any compliments,

Please.

You know,

Sometimes we take away somebody else's opportunity to offer a kindness.

And when you think about it,

Offering kindness is a lovely thing for the heart.

Of course,

Sometimes we might have questions about motivations,

And sometimes those are legitimate.

But I think sometimes those conditioned patterns can get really caught.

And so I want to read this from Sharon Salzberg.

The practice of generosity is about creating space.

We see our limits and we extend them continuously,

Which creates an expansiveness and spaciousness of mind that's deeply composed.

This happiness and spaciousness is the appropriate ground in which meditation can flourish.

It is the ideal place from which to undertake deep investigation,

Because with this kind of inner happiness and spaciousness,

We have the strength and flexibility to look at absolutely everything that arises in our experience.

Our tendency is to look at other people around us and see them as other,

That they are fundamentally disconnected from us.

It's self-protective,

But also keeps us at arm's length from others and ourselves.

Thinking of the world in this dualistic way causes us to feel a tighter grip on our habitual thoughts that tend to inform the way we act and define ourselves.

The most common problem happens when we act generously along with feeling a strong expectation for our offering to be received by another in a particular way.

I want to give you this present because it will make you like me,

Or I will bring my coworker a coffee so that she will say something nice about me to her boss.

By contrast,

A nourishing generosity emerges when we give without the need for our offering to be received in a certain way,

Perhaps wishing to be recognized or validated but not needing it.

When generosity lets go of these kinds of expectations,

It is a movement toward freedom.

This is how and why generosity can be a force,

A resource,

A tool.

I think that really can go both ways.

That's the quality of it,

It's going both ways.

Sometimes,

Of course,

Generosity can be coming from a place of agenda,

And all of us have probably experienced that.

I remember a teenager,

My father,

Before he died,

He wanted me to come move in with him,

And he was not fit to be lived with.

And so what he did was he gave me all kinds of material things,

Extravagant gifts that most kids would be thrilled to have,

But they just made me feel a little sick to my stomach because I knew what the motive was,

I knew what was going on.

Even though I couldn't articulate it,

My heart didn't want to receive this because it truly was coming from a place of agenda,

You know,

With the strings attached.

But I think what can happen is often we start responding habitually to generosity in a way that maybe shuts our hearts down from seeing and trusting that kindness can be given,

Can be received.

Sometimes it's just the armor of our heart doesn't allow us to receive at an intimate level.

And I think of this as not just receiving of things or interactions from people,

But sometimes just receiving the moment,

Receiving what's here to be open to what is here in this moment that can touch us,

Can open our hearts.

And there's a little Japanese poem I want to read,

And it's by Izumi Shikibu.

Although the wind blows terribly here,

The moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house.

And so in Japanese poetry,

The moon is often a symbol for the Buddha nature,

The great nature,

The awakened mind.

And so the poem speaks of a house that is not well built,

And so things get in.

Sometimes the wind gets in,

Or maybe some rain gets in.

You can think of it as a life in which at times what gets through the door in our lives might be pain or grief,

Anger or longing.

But if we wall it all off,

If we set too tight of a barrier,

As the poem says,

A moon can't get in.

We can't receive this great moment where the dharma is.

If we're too walled off,

We're too protected.

And so this is the heart that often is walled off from vulnerability,

And so it can't get in.

It's kind of like the Leonard Cohen quote,

There's a crack in everything,

That's how the light gets in.

And so our cracks,

The crack in our heart,

The crack in our being that's vulnerable,

Is what allows something to come in,

Whether it's the dharma,

The moment of what it's giving to us,

Or sometimes a kindness,

Generosity from another person.

It takes a kind of willingness to take down a little of a barrier,

To really receive,

To give and receive in a heartfelt way.

And so taking down the armor of the heart to allow ourselves to receive at an intimate level can show up in so many different ways in life.

I know for me,

In order to have a joyful marriage,

I had to learn to receive generosity,

And it was a huge lesson for me,

Very hard for me.

After,

As I grew up,

I became very armored,

The very thing that I was just speaking about with the house.

So I was so armored that I couldn't receive kindness from people.

You know,

I thought all kindness could only have ulterior motives,

You know,

Like my father.

And so when someone came along who was genuinely kind,

It's like that bothered me,

It made me uncomfortable,

You know,

Because it came up against my outer barrier.

And so when I first met my husband,

I was like,

Nah,

We're not compatible.

But what was really going on was that at a deeper level,

My heart was armored,

And I had to learn to un-armor my heart.

That was not easy to do,

And it wasn't easy to receive generosity,

Because it wasn't like the generosity that I experienced growing up,

The false generosity,

Like this was the real thing.

And my conditioned response was,

No,

No,

This can't be,

This can't be true.

So it took me a long time.

I had to become really vulnerable.

I had to take down those barriers,

Really open my heart to receiving and to be vulnerable,

Because when you receive,

You know,

You have to be vulnerable in that way.

And so I did,

And there was a real reciprocity.

You know,

It wasn't just me receiving from him,

But also in giving.

So the giving and receiving is the vulnerability of that,

And it allows for our hearts to be full.

There can be joy and gratitude in all the ways we receive.

Our receiving is sunrise in the morning.

You know,

When I go to the beach,

The ritual is to watch the sunrise,

To go down to the beach every morning.

And the poem I read from Mary Oliver last week,

Brilliant,

You know,

The way she described the beauty of watching and receiving a sunrise or a sunset.

And so when I do that,

I go and I stop.

When the sun is coming and it's making its appearance,

It's so beautiful,

It touches my heart,

I almost always have tears.

So just receiving the beauty of the moment with just an open heart,

You know,

No thought of anything else,

Just a moment of allowing,

Of opening.

Some of my first experiences of genuine gratitude came with Dharma practice,

And it came from the willingness to just sit and to receive the moment just as it is,

You know,

Not trying to change it,

Not thinking it should be different,

That I should be different,

But just this moment,

Just as it is.

And so the moments where I was able to just kind of take down the armoring of my heart and allow this moment to be exactly as it was was a receiving of what I felt was a perfection.

Not a label of perfection,

Not like perfection checks off these boxes,

But the perfection of suchness,

The perfection of this moment being exactly what it is.

And in receiving that,

You know,

I felt for the first time in my life a profound sense of gratitude.

You know,

Whenever my heart is open,

Whenever this moment is fully touched and experienced,

I feel a deep sense of gratitude.

The Zen verse,

Chasing after the world brings chaos.

Allowing it to come to me brings peace.

Receiving,

Allowing the moment to come,

There's an equanimity that comes out of just being touched by this moment,

Exactly the way it is.

And you know,

There are no conditions in the Dharma.

You know,

The conditions are those that we create.

You know,

We put conditions on how we're going to meet the moment or how we think we should receive the moment or how it should be.

And those conditions prevent us from receiving the bounty of the Dharma.

The moment is so rich.