The thirsty baby lessons in generosity

I was so overjoyed to be given a visit by one of my favourite people in the world and her family... I was left reeling.  She explained her practice of noticing that each day brings little gifts, and she is practicing to develop gratitude... On reflection sometimes I don't like the things I’m given and sometimes they are better than I could ever imagine. Yet it's true that whether I like it or not, each day is filled with gifts.

Following their visit I just can't shake this feeling of indebtedness; how can I be more generous? How can I do better next time?  On reflection I know the baby was thirsty, yet why didn’t I give their little two year old girl a drink?  This kept me awake half the night. My (very tough) mind keeps saying, "Poor little baby, I should have given her juice to drink…" Yet somehow that wasn’t obvious at the time.   

I’ve learnt, and next time- if I’m lucky enough to be given another chance, I’d like to do have a more open heart- and really offer what I have, fully.  This statement is wracked with self pity- and in fact I did offer what I had fully, but neither could the baby tell me she needed a drink, not could I intuit that that was needed at the time.  In truth my mind is a very tough teacher.

In a Zen meditation class I went to, the teacher (Scott) mentioned a friend of his, who told him that he sometimes smokes a cigarette, “Just to kill five minutes”.  Scott’s response was to ask if life was really so ‘un-precious’.  I thought about it.   

To me, life is really just a matter of filling time until I die. This is an ego position, which is deeply longing for release.  So much so that it is willing to poison the body and sacrifice everything.  Luckily this ‘me’ doesn’t have the final say… and really doesn’t get to choose what happens, other than whether to create a smoke screen.  If this ‘me’ can be seen through then… addictions will fall away, conditioned behaviour, attachment- whatever we call it, will drop off.  The important thing is that we are willing to sacrifice everything.  We are willing to die.  There is a value which will come… just keep on living for now and see how a flower can grow and bloom, wither and die.  Polluted or not, sick or not the process is the same.  How we spend our time is important, but who’s to say that that cigarette is not just the perfect meditation for Scott’s friend at that point?

During this talk  I realised more deeply and with subtlety that I’d been taking a position of non-grasping.  A position of ‘not mine’ is just as deluded and grasping as any.  There is nothing that is not mine- as well as nothing is mine.  Neither position is true or untrue.  Ownership is not wrong- it is just not the whole story.  To reject attachment is also deluded, and will lead to suffering.

However- there is a terrible risk of taking a position of being ‘right’, of being ‘good’.  If most people would agree that I am right and I am good- then I’m in trouble.  There’s just as much (if not more) suffering in being right as in being wrong, or being anything fixed.  Yesterday I gave information to someone I wanted to impress with my wisdom, and as I was talking I had a sort of mind freeze, and the words that came out of my mouth were misinformation, and I knew it.  However, I did nothing to draw attention to my mistake and just hoped he wouldn’t notice.  The mistake kept on coming back and haunting me over and over.  That’s how I know I’m attached to being right.  It makes not the slightest bit of difference in the scheme of things whether I gave a small piece of wrong information to somebody I wanted to impress with my knowledge.   Yes, he may not employ me to teach yoga when he thinks I don’t know my stuff.  This bothers me- but what bothers me more is that I really don’t like being wrong! I can’t just let it go…it bugs me on and on.  There’s a lot of suffering in wanting to always be right.  Especially as essentially everything I think I know, everything I was ever taught is likely to turn out to be wrong.  Am I brave enough to turn out to be wrong?  I hope so, but in the meantime simply to care for what’s here is enough. 

To take care of what’s truly here and help make it the best it can be.   Nourish its senses with what it truly needs.  Bring sustenance and health to what I find.  That is the worthy work my heart sings for.  Generosity is about seeing what’s needed and providing that- and it’s a skill which needs encouragement and development.  Let’s give each other the opportunity to be generous, by showing openly what we need and by asking for help when we need help, and trying to intuit what others need when they can’t ask for help.  Let’s use our wisdom to discover what is needed and give what we can. Be open to receiving the gifts that life is longing to give, and let the opportunity arise to give and receive. 

There must be space allowed to realise our need also.  If we are constantly bombarded with offering then we never truly learn what we need

In order to find balance in generosity I must be generous to myself as well.  I deserve to be cared for as much as anyone and who better to care for me than the one who is with me every moment.  

One gift I can give myself is to realise that it’s ok to be wrong; in fact it’s endearing to find a person is not right all the time and can accept that they are wrong sometimes. 

I still see myself stretch the truth to impress people and create an image of me as right, good, admirable.  How foolish.  How human.  How sweet.  I intend to work on it, but if it happens, I will reflect on it and try to be aware as much as possible.  I work to accept that I am not super human, just aspiring to be human, and that’s more than enough.