Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Sonam Rinchen examines the perfection of generosity as a mental cultivation rather than material action alone, distinguishing how lay practitioners and ordained monastics approach this practice differently. He walks through the mental attitudes that undermine generosity — pride, condescension, hope for reward or recognition, competitive motivation — and explains how to recognise and release them. He then covers the three forms of giving: material goods (emphasising giving the best you can afford without grudging), spiritual instruction (teaching fully rather than withholding complex material), and protection (rescuing beings from danger, or meditating on wishing to protect those in suffering). Throughout, he stresses that generosity practised without these corrupting attitudes becomes a complete, perfected action. Practical for any practitioner seeking to examine their own motivations and deepen their giving.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 6PQ.mp3
UUID: 5b3f5a4d-8f85-4f07-a32c-e54e589b61db
Teacher: Geshe Sonam Rinchen
Collection: The Six Perfect Qualities (Geshe Sonam Rinchen)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 40.2 minutes
Words: ~3,804
Understanding how positive it is to be generous, one generates the wish to give possessions or whatever. So it’s this wish to give that one’s working with primarily. The feeling, the generous feeling that one needs to cultivate and enhance continually. So it’s not the actual action of giving, but the generous feeling, that feeling, that expanded feeling of generosity that has to be developed and we enhance it and enhance it until it is perfected. The perfection of generosity.
Right? Because that’s not possible. Know, it’s not possible to make sure there isn’t a single beggar left in the world. So generosity is primarily something to do with your mind, something to do with your feelings and minds, a state of mind. So I think it’s not a mistake if we spend a little while on generosity, on trying to understand what it’s about and how we should try to practice it.
Yeah. Khensur Rinpoche said that while he has been staying here, quite a few people have come see him and brought up various problems. He says somehow he feels that the practice of generosity in its various forms is relevant to each and every person who has felt that they had something they wanted to ask about. So this practice is relevant to us all probably. So when we think of who practices, well ordinary people, lay people like ourselves practice and ordained people practice.
And for ordained people, ordained people whether they are monks or nuns, the most important practice of generosity is giving people spiritual guidance. So that’s the thing that monks and nuns have as their foremost task. Their foremost practice of generosity is the giving of instruction, giving of spiritual guidance. Yeah, because it’s quite unsuitable for ordained people to be involved in accumulating a whole lot of possessions and money and practicing generosity, generosity, practicing charity on the basis of those. That preoccupation is not a preoccupation which is suitable for people who have taken ordination vows.
Therefore they are not going to be involved so much in material material generosity for which you need some resources. They’re going to be involved primarily with giving the Dharma, with giving teachings, spiritual guidance, advice and things like that. And of course, if for some reason they suddenly get rich and a whole lot of desirable possessions suddenly land in their laps, then they must give those away. He says it’s not so good to say then, Oh, I’m a monk. I don’t need to practice material generosity to tuck the money into your pouch.
In the past, ordained people really only had what was absolutely necessary for their daily life. Only a few utensils and a very limited number of robes. And that was it. Since it wouldn’t be good for a monk to give away the utensils that he needed just to sustain himself. It was suggested that material generosity was not really suitable for a monk because giving away those would create a problem for him to be able to go on living.
Material generosity, however, is something that laymen should primarily practice. It’s the most suitable practice for lay people. And that doesn’t mean that because material generosity is the most suitable for lay people, they don’t need to practice giving instruction and giving the teachings and so on. It doesn’t mean that they don’t practice that. And when you are giving something to somebody, you mustn’t in any way So when you are giving something, you shouldn’t look down, you shouldn’t be condescending towards the person to whom you are giving it.
So that is very, very important that you don’t try to humiliate or you don’t have an attitude of condescension towards the person whom you’re helping. And also you shouldn’t give out of desire to compete with somebody else who might be going to give something as well. So you shouldn’t want to give more or give first because of that kind of attitude. And when you’re teaching, if you’re teaching somebody, you shouldn’t feel conceited that nobody else will be able to explain it as well as you can. And if you’re saving creatures which is the generosity of giving protection.
So if you’re saving creatures, I mean there are many ways of practicing the generosity of giving protection but this is one. So if you rescued a whole lot of animals that were going to be trapped or killed or whatever then you shouldn’t feel, oh, only somebody like me could have done it. One has to get rid of all sorts of pride. That’s very common. Frequently think like that.
Yeah. Yeah. And when you Yeah, see this pride is often connected with generosity. I mean, it’s very easy for it to arise, you know, you’re giving material things and think of how good the things you are giving, how good the things are that you’re giving and so on. This kind of attitude can quickly lead to feeling inflated about what you’ve done.
So it’s important to practice your action of generosity without any sense of pride. Why is it important? Because it robs your action of generosity of its full force. I mean, it somehow diminishes it. It diminishes it in a certain way.
And we must learn too to be unbiased in our practice of generosity. In other words, not only to be generous to those whom we love, who are nice to us, who are close to us, but to be generous to people whom we don’t like so much, whom we aren’t close to, be able to practice generosity to those who we don’t feel so attracted to. Says we all know that that’s a great temptation to behave in that particular way. Yeah. So I’m just saying, I’m just pointing out all these things and it’s up to you to look at yourself.
Each person has to look at themselves. We have to check up. Is this how I act? Is this what I do? It is quite likely that we’ll find that quite a lot of it is relevant.
The other thing, the next thing that we have to be careful of when we practice generosity is not to hope for any reward. Not to hope for any kind of reward. In other words, not recognition, not necessarily even a thank you. So we should have no hope for any kind of reward in our hearts. So when we are giving things or when we are rescuing creatures or whatever that people should recognize us as somebody who has done something very good and all that sort of thing.
Mean there are all sorts of levels on which we seek rewards, but we should make sure that our practice is free from such a hope. And even worse than that, if you practice generosity, if you give something in the hope of getting something bigger and better back, that too is not the correct way to practice generosity because there you are completely sort of like a business deal. And then also, although it is true that generosity leads to one’s having resources in the future, one shouldn’t practice generosity with an eye to the fruit. With an eye to the fruit. In other words, we shouldn’t practice generosity because we want to achieve a powerful position in future.
Want to enjoy a lot of wealth in future lives and so on. So we mustn’t look for the fruit when we practicing generosity. I mean not just the thank you or the recognition but also the actual result of that generous action. So how should we practice it? We have to get rid of all of these attitudes because these are all attitudes which somehow drain the action of generosity.
So when somebody comes who wants something of you, then you should think, ah, this is a marvelous opportunity for me to perfect my generosity. Yeah. Then one has to think about the teachings or instructions, spiritual guidance, which is one of the things one can give, or the capacity one has to protect and love, which is the second, and then the material things, the third. And remember that actually one has already given them because one promised all this to other sentient beings when one made one’s Bodhisattva promises and so on. So in one’s wish to attain enlightenment everybody expressed their willingness to sacrifice all these things for others.
So actually they’ve already been given. They just haven’t been claimed. And so now somebody has come to claim something that we have already given. This is then if you can see the person who’s come to ask you for whatever it is, not as a horrible nuisance, but if you can see that person as somebody who is going to actually help you to perfect your generosity. Somebody who’s almost like a spiritual master helping you, allowing you to giving you the opportunity to perfect generosity.
So if you can make make an act of generosity with these two thoughts, then it becomes a really perfect, beautiful action. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So even if one is giving spiritual instruction to somebody, if that’s the action of generosity one is performing, one shouldn’t just explain what is easy for oneself.
One shouldn’t just take the easy way out, explain what is easy for oneself and avoid explaining more complicated issues because of ones own laziness. So one shouldn’t do that because that in a way is a kind of miserliness again. You’re keeping back something which is more profound. I mean not because you think that it would be difficult for the other person to understand but you’re keeping it back because you don’t want to explain the more profound things and you’re explaining something which is easy for you to do. Yeah.
Again, when you’re giving generosity of protection, if you have the ability to protect something completely but you do a half hearted job. You fish something out, a little insect or something out of the basin and then you could carry it outside and put it on a leaf. But you can’t be bothered to go outside and put it on the leaf so you just drop it somewhere else. I mean this sort of thing, you know. I just gave took the liberty of giving an example from my own life which could occur quite frequently.
But anyway, that sort of thing, you know, is half hearted giving of protection. Khensur Rinpoche says we need to give up that kind of attitude as well. Then when we’re giving things, it’s really important to give good things, to give the best things that we can afford to give. When people ask you for things to fish out the worst item that you have and think, Oh this will do. So this is important to get rid of those attitudes.
We have to do it wholeheartedly. No half measures. And then the other thing is who do you give it to? Well everybody is suitable. People whom you love, the people whom you dislike, the people for whom you have no specific feelings.
All of those are suitable. Then Khensur Rinpoche says, you should not give the things with a really cross look on your face. See again, there are times when people come to ask you for things. When you are forced into position where you have to give something and you don’t really feel like giving it and you may not make the most pleasant expression. Especially in India there’s some really horrific looking beggars that come and pursue you sometimes.
Yeah. So the important thing is that we should give if we’ve decided to give something, we should give it in a pleasant way, we should smile, and we should say something pleasant. So that’s the important thing, that our action should be accompanied by a nice demeanor. And then one needs the attitude too that one is willing to undergo whatever difficulty is involved in making the generous gesture. Because in whatever it you’re giving, it may involve you in some personal difficulty yourself, either physical or mental difficulty, that one’s prepared to bear that difficulty in order to practice one’s action of generosity.
So when we are giving the When we are practicing generosity of giving instructions, of giving instructions, so of course it can be instructions on the Buddha Dharma and so on, on the Buddhist teachings, and whether it’s Mahāyāna or Theravāda Buddhism, whatever. So it can be that, or it can be about medicinal things which are connected with spiritual practices and so on. I mean there are many different things which are peripheral subjects which are also connected. So whatever it is that you are explaining, you should explain them in a fully enthusiastic way. Yeah.
Yeah. So there are all sorts of peripheral aspects connected with Buddhist teachings. I mean, things to do with medicine and to do with astrology and so and so people should be encouraged to do whatever it is that they feel inclined to do if it’s something positive. If they want to take refuge, you should encourage them to take refuge and help them, help to set it up for them. And if they want to take layman’s vows or whatever then you need to try and present them with a situation where they are going to be able to do that.
So we have to see what the people want from us, what other people want from us, what is needed, and try to work with their needs rather than impose our own ideas on them. And then you should you should pray and you should actually say that, you know, may my action of giving this teaching or practicing this generosity of giving the teachings help that person and myself and all other beings to achieve their highest aims. So we need to use that positive potential immediately. The positive potential that we create by this generous action, we need to use immediately, steer it towards something positive and constructive. So when we talk about giving instructions, giving spiritual instructions and so on, it doesn’t have to be somebody actually who is called, a guru or teacher or anything like that.
Anybody can do it. I mean, if we see our friend, one of our friends involving themselves in action which is going to have really bad consequences, then we can try to give them some advice, we can try to help them, and that constitutes giving spiritual instruction, giving the dharma. So if you and you imagine somebody who’s working with people who have got alcohol problems or maybe drug problems. If you’re working with them and gradually giving them advice, trying to give them advice, trying to help them to get out of their problems. So this too is giving the dharma, giving instruction, giving instruction, giving spiritual instruction and so on.
So this counts as that kind of generosity. When we have an opportunity, implement our generous thoughts. And if we don’t have an opportunity at a particular time, then we need to cultivate the thought. It’s very easy. We just imagine a whole lot of living creatures around us.
We imagine us ourselves teaching them, them and then we imagine them being amazingly benefited by these teachings so that they all become really happy and pure and untroubled. Then you make a prayer that you hope that they will all be able to reach a fully enlightened state, optimum development and be free from all their limitations, from all their sufferings. And in this way, one can enhance one’s thought of giving even if one isn’t actually implementing it at that time. For example, one can imagine a hell being, really tormented hell being, and then having the opportunity to give that hell being some instruction and help in this way. And then through that, he’s able to be freed from the suffering the hell suffering he’s experiencing and is able to reach a state of happiness.
So you can just you the thing is use your imagination. Giving protection means if one has the power, one should try to free people from prisons, people who have been unjustly imprisoned. So that’s one form of giving protection that one tries to get them out of prison, get them released. Also, where human beings or animals are in a situation of great fear, where there are floods or there is famine or other really critical situations and where they are very, very frightened, if we have the power to rescue them, then we should rescue them. If one isn’t able to do it oneself, if one can’t actually involve oneself in doing that, then if has a means for doing it, if one can see a means for doing it, then one should share that means with people who could be effective in doing so.
And then when we’re not actually involved in the activity of helping, of rescuing, of doing these things, when we are not involved, what we can do is just recall how many people, how many creatures in the world are suffering in this way, who are suffering in great fear, are in really terrible situations of crisis, where there is war and so on. One can imagine that one is giving them protection, that one is able to give them love and protection. Just generating this wish to protect them, like imagining that one is giving the protection, this also counts as generosity. It accumulates the same kind of energy because one practicing the generous thought. Khen Rinpoche says, while he was in Melbourne, we saw a little news clip on the television and there was some hotel in Singapore that had collapsed.
There were so many people trapped underneath it. Khensur Rinpoche said, Just imagine how terrified you would be if you were still alive and all that rubble was on top of you. Yeah. Yeah. And just think of all the places where there’s war and just how frightening it is for everybody, how terrified they are day and night.
And then we can think of all the places where there are natural catastrophes. These days our ability to find out what’s happening all around the world keeps us informed about all of these things. If one just tries to remember even what one has heard in a week, and if one has the ability to do something about the situation, then one must do do it. But even if it’s only rescuing an insect, you know, rescuing an insect, rescuing it from heat or rescuing it from cold or from water or whatever, it’s still a living creature that one is rescuing and it becomes important to do it, not to neglect to do it because the thing is so small. We must do it at whatever level we can.
Yeah. Yeah. Khensur Rinpoche says, sometimes you see children trying to kill some animal or something like that and you can rescue the little animal. He says, it’s easy. You can practice it wherever you are.
It doesn’t really require grandiose actions. So we have two ways of approaching it. We approach it either practically where we are actually doing something to give protection and when we don’t have the chance to do something, then we can think about it. We can think about how much we would like to give protection. And in that way, our generosity of giving protection is enhanced.
And then there’s another practice that you can do in meditation. You can imagine yourself as a really powerful bodhisattva and he’s able to manifest his body in the form of rain. So then this rain falls on the hell beings, in the hot hells, and really cools down their environment and gives them tremendous relief. Then imagine again that now you’re focusing on the cold realms, on the cold hell realms, and that your body transforms into warmth, into the light rays of the sun, and into warm winds and clothes for the creatures, for living beings in the cold hells. So you can do this kind of meditation where you are pretending to give away things.
But what it’s doing is that it builds up this desire to give, the thought to give, the thought to practice generosity is enhanced by such practices. Even in this human world, we see many beings who look like hungry ghosts. If we look at the people in Africa who have been suffering from famine where there is terrible drought, Khensur Rinpoche has seen pictures of them and how thin their legs are and their belly is really swollen and their neck is so thin and arms very, very thin and head is quite big. They look exactly like the depictions of hungry ghosts. Yeah.
And he’s seen how they drink, you know, photos of them drinking. And often food doesn’t agree with them when they do get food because they haven’t eaten for so long. They can’t actually digest the food, which is just like the hungry ghosts. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Most of us can’t actually do anything directly to help them. I mean, we can’t alleviate their suffering directly. But all we can do is imagine them, and then imagine transforming our own body into medicines and food and the things which are necessary, they need and that they are being healed, that we are able to heal them through this gift that we give them. And in this way, we are practicing generosity.
We’re enhancing our own generosity. And then material gifts. There are all sorts of material gifts which we can give, food and drink and of course, all sorts of things, medicines and cars even. And then we can give our houses and our estates, if we have any, and estates. And we can even give our heads and arms and parts of our bodies.
So now if we give away and without proper consideration, everything we have, then where are we going to stay? What are we going to eat? He says, We’ll have to stop here. It’s really been quite brief because there’s a lot more that we could go into, and in the afternoon. We have to go rushing on to ethics.
The thing is, I’ve been trying to tell you something which is useful for practice, something which you can actually implement. Since we all do practice various forms of generosity at one time or another, so if we can remember some of these things and check out the attitudes with which we do perform these actions, it becomes very important.