The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume One (54 page)

Generosity

G
ENEROSITY
, D
ANA
,
IS
one of the six paramitas, or transcendent actions.
Par
means literally “the other shore.” In fact this is still used colloquially in India; par—meaning the other side of the river.
Mita
is one who got there. So
paramita
means that which has reached the other shore. Certain scholars refer to the paramitas as the six perfections. In one sense they are perfect actions, but the word
perfection
also has other connotations which are not pertinent. The aim is not to try and achieve perfection; therefore it is better to see the paramitas in terms of transcendence—as going beyond.

These six transcendent actions are the actions of the bodhisattva.
Bodhi
means the awakened state of mind, and
sattva
is the person who is on the way to the awakened state. So the word
bodhisattva
refers to those who have achieved and those who have an inclination to follow the path of compassion, the path of love. The hinayana path, the “lesser vehicle”—known as the elementary path or the narrow path—is based on discipline, the first requirement for the development of freedom. And this path disciplines not only mind, through the practice of meditation, but also speech and physical behavior. Discipline of this sort is quite different from laying down a moral code of law or moralizing in the sense of “sin” and “virtue”; it concerns acting properly, acting truly, acting thoroughly, acting according to the law of what is. So we must see this concept of discipline, or shila paramita, clearly. It becomes the basis of everything. It is, one might say, the narrow path, which is in itself a kind of simplicity. For instance, if there was only one little track through a mountain pass and the rest of the terrain was completely overgrown with trees and bushes and so on, then we would have no difficulty at all in deciding which way to go. If there is only one track, either you go on or you turn back. The whole thing is simplified into one event, or one continuity. Therefore discipline does not limit our activities by declaring that such and such a thing is against the divine law or is immoral; it is just that there is only one way of true simplicity ahead of us. Fundamentally, discipline comes down to the shamatha practice of developing awareness, through which one merely sees what is. Every moment is now, and one acts through the experience of the present moment. We have now talked of the narrow path.

From there we come to the mahayana, the “great vehicle,” which is the open path, the path of the bodhisattva. The narrow path is not merely simple and direct, but also has great character, great dignity. Building on that foundation we develop compassion. In reality compassion has nothing particularly to do with being compassionate, in the sense of being charitable or kind to one’s neighbors or giving regular donations to refugees or paying subscriptions to various charitable organizations, although that may also be included. This charity is fundamental; it amounts to developing warmth within oneself. Out of his simplicity and awareness the bodhisattva develops selfless warmth. He doesn’t even think in terms of his own psychological benefit; he doesn’t think, “
I
would like to see him not suffering.” “I” does not come into it at all. He speaks and thinks and acts spontaneously, not thinking even in terms of helping, or fulfilling any particular purpose. He does not act on “religious” or “charitable” grounds at all. He just acts according to the true, present moment, through which he develops a kind of warmth. And there is a great warmth in this awareness and also great creativity. His actions are not limited by anything, and all sorts of creative impulses just arise in him and are somehow exactly right for that particular moment. Things just happen and he simply sails through them, so there is a continual, tremendous creativity in him. That is the real act of karuna—a Sanskrit word which means “noble heart” or “compassionate heart.” So in this case compassion does not refer to kindness alone, but to fundamental compassion, selfless compassion. He is not really aware of
himself
, so compassion has greater scope to expand and develop, because here there is no radiator but only radiation. And when only this radiation exists, without a radiator, it could go on and on and on, and the energy would never be used up. It is always transformed and as it expands further and further it changes always into something else, into a new creative activity, so it goes continuously on and on. This creative transformation is not merely a theoretical or philosophical concept, but actually takes place in a practical sense, sometimes in a very simple way.

We can turn now to generosity, which arises when the bodhisattva is intoxicated by compassion and is no longer aware of himself. His mind is not merely filled with compassion, it becomes compassion, it
is
compassion. There are six activities associated with this: generosity, morality or discipline (spontaneous discipline, acting according to the true law), patience, energy, meditation or concentration, and clarity (which is also wisdom or knowing the situation). These are what is known as the paramitas which, as we said, means transcendent acts. Let me repeat that the bodhisattva is not acting to be virtuous or to overcome sin or evil; his mind is not occupied with being on the side of good or bad. In other words his activity is not limited, it is not bound or conditioned by good and bad. Hence it is transcendental, something beyond. This may sound a bit abstract, a bit difficult to grasp, and one may ask, “How can an act of generosity be transcendental? Isn’t this merely a philosophical definition?” Well, no, in this case it isn’t, because it does not refer only to his action. His mind simply doesn’t work like that. When he acts he is completely spontaneous, free, and being-in-the-present. So he is entirely open and, as far as his mind is concerned, nonactive. Activity arises only when the situation presents itself. He may not be continually in a state of selfless awareness, but at least he acts spontaneously, he acts according to the dharma. And the definition of dharma in this sense is the true law, the law of the universe. Dispassion is the dharma. That is to say that the dharma does not involve any form of desire for achievement, so the act of generosity is performed without reference to any particular reward. Therefore generosity means not possessing.

If a man has wealth he might say, “Well, now I have an opportunity to practice generosity because I have something to practice with.” But for the bodhisattva this question doesn’t arise at all; it is not a question of owning anything. Generosity is simply an attitude of mind in which one does not want to possess and then distribute among people. Again, generosity refers not only to the practice of meditation, where one may feel a kind of selflessness of not holding anything back, but it is also something positive. In the scriptures Buddha speaks of the practice of generosity by stretching the arm out and by holding the arm in. There is a story from the time of Buddha of a beggar woman who was one of the poorest beggars in India, because she was poor in kind and also poor in mind. She wanted so much, and this made her feel even poorer. One day she heard that Buddha was invited to Anathapindika’s place in the Jeta Grove. Anathapindika was a wealthy householder and a great donor. So she decided to follow Buddha because she knew that he would give her food, whatever was left over. She attended the ceremony of offering food to the sangha, to Buddha, and then she sat there waiting until Buddha saw her. He turned around and asked her, “What do you want?” Of course he knew, but she actually had to admit and say it. And she said, “I want food. I want you to give me what is left over.” And Buddha said, “In that case you must first say no. You have to refuse when I offer it to you.” He held out the food to her, but she found it very difficult to say no. She realized that in all her life she had never said no. Whenever anyone had anything or offered her anything, she had always said, “Yes, I want it.” So she found it very difficult to say no, as she was not at all familiar with that word. After great difficulty she finally did say no, and then Buddha gave her the food. And through this she realized that the real hunger inside her was the desire to own, grasp, possess, and want. This is an example of how one can practice generosity. And from that point of view one can practice generosity toward oneself, because the point here is to free oneself from this possessiveness, this continual wanting.

Then, of course, the next step is giving away one’s possessions. But this is not necessarily connected with austerity. It does not mean that you should not own anything at all or that you should give away what you have immediately. You could have great wealth and many possessions and you could even enjoy them and like having them and probably you have a personal interest in them—like a child’s toy, or adult’s toy for that matter. It isn’t a question of not seeing the value of possessions, the point is that it should be equally easy to give them away. If somebody asks for a particular object that you like to have with you all the time, there should be no hesitation at all, just give it away. It is really a question of giving up this concept of possession. For there is a kind of hunger in action.

There is a story in Tibet concerning two brothers, one of whom had ninety-nine yaks while the other had only one yak. The poor brother was quite content with his one yak. He was quite happy and thought he had great wealth. He had one yak and that was really all he needed. It was quite sufficient and he wasn’t particularly afraid of losing it. In fact his enjoyment of owning it was greater than his fear of losing it, whereas the other one was always very afraid of losing his yaks. He always had to look after them, and generally you find in the highlands of Tibet that there are a lot of wolves and Himalayan mountain bears, and the yaks quite often die through the hardships of winter. There are far more obstacles there than in this part of the world when it comes to looking after animals. So one day the rich brother thought, “Well, I think I’ll ask my brother a favor.” You see, he was not only afraid of losing his yaks, he was also very keen on accumulating more of them. And he went to the other brother and said, “Well, I know you have only one yak, which doesn’t make much difference to you. So if you didn’t have one at all it wouldn’t really matter very much. But if you give me your yak then I will have a hundred yaks, which means a great deal to me. I mean a hundred yaks is really something. If I had that much I would really be somebody rich and famous.” So he asked the favor. And the other brother gave up the yak quite easily. He didn’t hesitate; he just gave it. And this story became proverbial in Tibet to illustrate that when someone has a lot he wants more, and when someone has less he is prepared to give.

So there is this possessiveness, this psychological hunger. And this relates not only to money and wealth but to the deep-seated feeling of wanting to possess, wanting to hold on to things, wanting things definitely to belong to you. For example, supposing you are window-shopping. One person might be unhappy all the time, and when he sees things he likes, this always produces a kind of pain in his mind because he is thinking, “If only I had the money, I could buy that!” So all the time as he is walking through the shops this hunger produces great pain. Whereas another person may enjoy merely looking. So this wanting to own, wanting to possess and not being prepared to give out, is not really a weakness for any particular thing. It is more generally wanting to occupy oneself with something, and if you have lost or lose interest in that particular thing, then you always want to substitute something else in its place. It isn’t particularly that you can’t manage without a motorcar or central heating or whatever it may be. There is always something behind that, something fundamental, a kind of wanting to possess, wanting to own, which is always changing and developing and substituting one thing for another. So that is the real weakness—though not exactly weakness, but more a kind of habit that one tends to form through a neurotic process of thoughts. The whole thing boils down to this overlapping of thoughts which goes on all the time in our minds. We never allow anything to really happen or take place in our mind. One thought comes and almost before we finish that another one comes in and overlaps it and then another. So we never allow any gap which would permit us to be free and really digest things. Therefore it becomes a continual demand, a continual process of creating and wanting to own. And that is why one has to develop this generosity of really opening oneself.

The next stage is perhaps a deeper form of generosity. That is to say, being prepared to share one’s experience with others. Now that is a rather tricky thing because there is also a danger that you will be trying to teach somebody else what you have learned. It is rather a delicate matter. You might reveal something partly because you would like to talk about it. It may be rather exciting and perhaps you know more about it than the other person and want to show off. This is a bit tricky. Nevertheless, putting it into words—whatever you have achieved—and giving it to someone else, is the only way to develop yourself. This particularly applies to teachers. And for advanced teachers, in fact for any teachers, it is necessary not just to learn things and keep them, but to use them and put them into effect by giving them out, though not with the idea of any reward. That is what is known as the dana of dharma, where you give out all the time. Of course you have to be very careful not to give the wrong present to the wrong person. Supposing, for example, that the person is not very keen on listening to your experiences, particularly connected with meditation and so on, then you do not go on talking about it, because then it would not really be dana at all. And perhaps to such a person it would be more appropriate to give something else rather than dharma. And one has to see that with intelligence, clarity, and wisdom; the prajna paramita will have to deal with that. But on the whole one has to give out if one wants to receive anything in. A continual process of transformation takes place.