Paramita – Generosity 1

We have decided to focus on the Six Paramitas or Six Transcendental Virtues from the Buddhist tradition for the next few pages. As John Makransky states in his book, Awakening Through Love; “These are qualities of mind and action that help us evoke or express the spirit of enlightenment, with others and with ourselves. They are ‘transcendental’ because they are all expressions of deepest wisdom, the pure awareness that transcends all grasping.”

The Six Transcendental Virtues are:

Generosity, Moral Discipline (Ethics), Patience, Enthusiastic Perseverance (Diligence), Meditative Concentration, Transcendental Wisdom.

We will begin our series by focusing on the Paramita of Generosity. We will focus on one virtue at a time, but you will begin to see that they are all connected and each contains elements of the others.

Here is a selection from an article on Generosity by Phillip Moffitt on the website dharmawisdom.org.

The True Meaning of Generosity

True generosity arises out of unconditional caring and compassion for another. Each of us is dependent upon others for our blessings. We flourish or perish together through interwoven acts of generosity arising from the benevolence and integrity of others, many of whom we shall never meet. This is the power of generosity. When we mindfully practice generosity, we come into contact with its joyful, healing power.

Practicing generosity is the intention to find release from attachment to gratifying our ego needs by giving freely of what we have that is of value. What we have to give may be material in nature, or it may be our time, energy, or wisdom. We practice generosity to eradicate the attachments that come from our feelings of scarcity and separateness. The practice of generosity allows us to see the world from the point of view of what we have and what we have to give, instead of seeing it from the perspective of what we don’t have and desperately want.

We will explore ways to practice Generosity in our daily life: giving material things; sharing our attention, our time, and our wisdom; examining the difference between sharing with others and being generous with ourselves. We will also examine the connection between the practices that we do each week and how they relate to each of the six virtues we will be exploring.