By Rev. Dr. Grace G. Burford
Quad City Interfaith Council annual Celebration of Thanks
Nov. 21, 2024


One time a student asked her Zen teacher, “What is the gate of Zen?”
The teacher replied, “Generosity.”

The early Buddhist scriptures are full of accounts of the Buddha teaching his followers about giving [dāna]. He teaches them when, where, what, and how to give, so that the giving benefits the giver as well as the receiver. For example, he says one who gives beneficially is “joyful before giving”; “has a calm, confident mind in the act of giving”; and “is elated after giving.” [Anguttara Nikāya III, 336]

Why is giving so important in Buddhist practice?

To give something, we have to let go of it. It’s not really giving if we give and then try hold on to what we gave.

This connection between giving and letting go is embedded in the early Buddhist word for generosity [cāga]. This term has two meanings: in some contexts, it refers to the attitude that leads us to give, in other words, what we would call “generosity.” In other places, it means to “let go.” Letting go of clinging to things and people and experiences—to anything, really—is a central aim of Buddhist practice, because clinging leads to suffering for ourselves and others.

So, for Buddhist practitioners, giving beneficially and often, cultivating generosity, contributes directly to the reduction of suffering for all.

Just as we can enter through a gate, we can also go out through it. We enter the gate of spiritual practice by being generous, and we emerge back out into the world being generous.

May we spread generosity to all beings as we move through the world.
May all beings be put at ease by our generosity.
May all beings feel safe in our generosity.
May all beings be happy, experiencing our generosity.



Rev. Dr. Grace G. Burford

Quad City Interfaith Council annual Celebration of Thanks

Nov. 21, 2024

by Carol Russell
This essay is adapted from a talk given at the Tuesday night sangha gathering on November 12, 2024

I want to begin by acknowledging the deep feelings many people are experiencing right now as our country has just gone through an intense election season, whether or not the results went the way you were hoping. You may be experiencing fear, worry, anger, or despair, or you might be feeling relief and gladness.

Tonight, we will be exploring the states of expansion and contraction. I am using the term openness alongside expansion, since it captures a certain quality that is important. First, we will look at what might each of these experiences be. How are they valuable? And then we will explore how they work together. It is my hope that spending some time broadening our understanding of these two qualities that are part of our human experience might bring some understanding and solace for the times we are in.

Contraction

One view of contraction is the experience we have when we are living in own narrow view of life. We are up in our head ruminating on our own little world. It can feel like we have fallen in a well; that contracted feeling is our own personal well. It is constricted and isolated. There’s a little patch of light up there, but it casts a dim light. It becomes so normal to us to live within this narrow view that we don’t realize we are in it. This is all so very human.

As practitioners of mindfulness, we begin to have a different experience. There’s a quality of mindfulness that allows us to take a step back and open to a broader view. In our mindfulness practice, we find there is a kind of back and forth, from softness, openness, and expansiveness to being lost in a story where all there is in the experience of the story and all its papancca or proliferation, as the story spins out in our minds, and then back to the open state of being mindful. This back and forth can be very revealing about the possibilities of our own mind.