2010 New Year Theme: Generosity

December 29, 2009

The Buddha said:

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

It’s a cruel irony that by not giving of ourselves we are most diminished. Yet, the Buddha speaks of sharing our happiness. What if we have no happiness to share?

The more he cast away the more he had.
–John Bunyan

A friend continually reminds me that loving others– and what else is giving of happiness but a kind of love– is impossible if we can’t find something in ourselves to love. That friend appears to have embarked on ambitious project, maybe the greatest project possible, of figuring out how to love, how to allow himself to be loved, and finally to give to others from that love.

As Jon Kabat Zinn wisely put it:

Generosity is another quality which, like patience, letting go, non-judging, and trust, provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice. You might experiment with using the cultivation of generosity as a vehicle for deep self-observation and inquiry as well as an exercise in giving. A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation-to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.

I need some of that. In trying to protect myself from the dangers that come from vulnerability and protect others from my own deep anger– a fire that refuses to stop burning– I’ve developed a callus around my heart, that paradoxical place where vulnerability and anger are seeded and rooted as they grow.

And my heart has grown smaller. I lack generosity in my thoughts and actions. Every thought I have of giving carries with it the taint of loss. When I do manage to give, I feel a reluctance that is sometimes conscious, but more often subconscious, a feeling that I’m forcing a rusting mechanism, rather than acting as Seneca would have it:

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

This isn’t (just) about charitable acts. It’s about a fundamental position vis-a-vis humanity and my purpose here, as I’ve been fashioned, whether that purpose be one tied to some cosmic power that includes me or a cosmic power I create. I need, as Confucius said,

To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.

I just don’t know if it’s supposed to be this hard… if the difficulty I find in what is, essentially, choosing to be a good person, doesn’t say something about my essential character and nature, however those may have come to be. I’m not the only one in this predicament. Witness Alexander Pope:

Many people are capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

But I derive little pleasure from knowing I have company.

So, one theme for the new year– and forever after, I hope– will be to cultivate true generosity, a generosity that can break through the chaotic trade and traffic in my buzzing head, a shoot to peep through cracked pavement, a green vein in the prison yard’s dark dirt.

Tags: nythemes, Psyche, resolutions