Transcendent Generosity

 

To restrict generosity to what your coffers can or cannot offer, is to miss Buddha's intent, by measuring oneself against the many noble philanthropists who have given from their coffers.

That is one kind of expression of generosity.  There are others.  And each manner of generosity is but a manner - the actual practice of any or another will increase the capacity for practicing generosity - according to that manner.

Karuna:  compassion, lovingkindness, a sovereign love - these both are, and give more possibility for, more generosity.  "I'm doing" or "I'm not" or "I can't" - are all assertions of ego.

There is generosity of time, or of thought or feeling, of visualisation, of word, of action - in breadth and in depth.  This is to be meditated on.  This is what is meant.  This generosity is conscious and intelligent, genuinely free of idiot-naive generosity, free of shoulds or musts, free of  trendy "tolerance"-peddling, or of any cult of political correctness.  Real generosity is sovereign in nature, an authentic expression of one's basic sanity, of Heart-Mind.

It is found and cultivated in stillness - not the deadening of thought but its enlivening through the discipline of first studying one's own mind.  There is no judgement here, just objective observation and reflection.  Concerning generosity with material wealth, however vast and impressive or comparatively humble: motives objectively considered reveal the inherent nature behind it.  It's not that generosity is in itself "wrong" - the reference point directing it may however be decidedly conscious or unconscious.  Some acts of generosity are driven by notions of compensation, or of guilt, or of control and domination, or of recognition and reputation, or tax benefits, or of a duty.  It can generate a good feeling or feeling of goodness, of being good, doing good.  It can also generate joy, enhance lovingkindness.

To differentiate and exercise discriminating wisdom, generosity is for meditation, in this one studies one's mind and what is moving it.  Real altruism is All-True or it is nothing.

Generosity toward strangers without or at the expense of one's person, or of one's family - or in the case of a head of State: at the disastrous cost of one's people and nation - is the neurotic and irresponsible experiment of a manipulative ego with issues.

Helper-Syndrome has nothing to do with generosity, yet always uses this as a cover for this destructive behavior.  There is no self-image in real generosity, there are no deals.  So if you build a huge clinic which becomes an institution of standing, you build it.  If you give your last dollar to someone in need, you give it.  There is already a law of reciprocation, you needn't look for any.  One needn't stack "points" - generosity comes from an inner wealth, not an inner poverty.

In meditating on this one expands toward oneself, toward those near, and those loved.  This cultivates the feeling and is authentic of itself.  The expansion builds outwardly toward community, toward one's own environment of sentient Beings, toward the world as one applies visualisation. It builds inwardly toward one's own past, present, future - without harboring wishes or desires in the conventional sense, just steadily cultivating lovingkindness.  It is not to deny or dismiss or belittle emotions - anger, fear, panic, concerns, preferences - it just transcends all of these.

It is not practiced according to rules or ideologies, it is the free expression and demonstration of following one's true nature.  The most generous thing one can do is to embrace and practice this, and transmit it by example to those hungering for a taste of benevolent reality.

 

Yoga For Jews, or: Karuna Is Also Kosher

Ha-Shem breathing concentration:

For all those linear, mono-dimensional Jews who think Jewish has nothing esoteric in it; and for all those Kabbalah-freaks or wannabes who either let themselves be convinced that complexity is a path to God-experience or else run around selling some watered-down Kabbalah so they can sound smart – this could be for you. You may have never touched a Talmud, a Torah, a Mishna or Gemorra, never heard of Zohar, never eaten kosher or kissed a mezzuzeh, never worn talit or t'fillin - you can do this, no problem.  Or if you have done all these things, you can still do this, it won't hurt you.  But if you don't like direct alternatives, fine, enjoy being complicated or materialist, or both. You don't want to take a boat? So swim. You don't want to take a car? So walk. But if you want something real that you can carry into the world with you and make paradise there where you stand, where others can get a hit, a taste, of God's most loving Presence here-now and in reality – then this just might be for you.

Considering the Absolute, taking as a metaphor all the immeasurable vastness of Space, transcending all time and distance, knowing that while you may not comprehend God, God certainly comprehends you - and letting yourself feel it - now address this, your Noble Lord and Cherisher, the Light of your own Origin, so:

With Ha-Shem Echad draw all of this in, from the center of your crown, on the in-breath, drawing, drawing: your breathing long and fine like a thread, through your nostrils down into your heart and your belly and genitals, sending it out through your limbs but holding it central in your heart region and belly. You are drawing on The Unity of Being, on The Source, on The Light within that very breath, letting it circulate. And with it: ha-Shem echad.

Holding that breath, or rather: letting it be held, there in the center of your person, in the chest and belly, heart and hara, glowing, expanding. Inwardly see the blinding sun, for which the sun up there is but a metaphor. Don't strain the brain or the lungs, don't try to do or to control anything, rather let it "do you".

And having held that for just but a scarce moment, let the out-breath proceed with Baruch Ha-Shem releasing up and through that breath passage and out the nostrils, gently, naturally measured. And using the same concentrated visualization – just as will has no impulse without concentrated feeling – let that outgoing baruch ha-Shem really, actually, tangibly radiate as love, through your very pores, through your hands and your feet, out your back, out your chest, 360 degrees, through your eyes, let it expand out, out, out, limitlessly back into the Cosmos and touching all of Creation therewith. Not theoretically, but really. It's not "you doing" it, it is being-done, and with and through you, as you are willingly devoting yourself to this action, this very creative, humble little action.

If you can believe this is being done, that this is happening, then that is faith, you have a faith to build on, you're cooking on the Big Burner.

Practicing this, opening to, Being, sending, drawing in the Oneness of All, blessing the earth with this nefesh, this breath of consciously unconditional love, then of unreasonable, illogical joy, then of peace – not cease-fire, not opposite-of-war, also not graveyard-still – but living, pulsating, symphonic and mind-blowingly of the full I-Am-ness: peace.

Being Jewish like this, you'll never be arrogant like you were, nor self-conscious like you were. And all your family ancestors can finally give it a rest, and your future generations get an endowment better than putting your name up on another hospital. Hey – now you are no longer part of the problem, you're part of the solution, you're healing the planet! And the great thing is, you don't even have to graduate medical school!

So - now you embody the Six-Pointed Star in your own form:  or, "as above, so below."  A real Magen-David now, that's what you are.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YcOQY-n-EWs