Milarepa's Song on the Six Perfections: Verse 1 (Generosity)

[Bill Gardner]

A Song on the Six Perfections

For generosity, nothing to do,
Other than stop fixating on self.

When I encountered this verse, I didn't read it -- I misread it. I misread "nothing to do" as saying that practicing generous acts was unnecessary. I retorted to Milarepa: "Is there NOTHING to do but stop fixating on the self? Like maybe actually doing generous acts?" This was a stupid question. He isn't suggesting that it is unnecessary to actually practice generosity. Milarepa assumes that we are trying to be generous. What Miarepa is giving us, I think, the most direct possible teaching about how to be generous; meaning, how to give in a Mahayana way that benefits ourselves and others, as opposed to giving to assuage guilt, or giving to stockpile merit, and so on. I think that Milarepa assumes that we have tried to be generous and found that it isn't so easy. Jigme Rinpoche writes: "it is important to train in the Six Paramitas because the training... reveals to us how the conditions of samsara obscure the mind." My argumentative misreading is just such a self-deluding thought pattern.

Why would I misread this verse? Well, suppose you really were generous. This verse makes me think of Jesus's teaching to the rich young man about how to be perfect: ``Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the destitute, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come back and follow me."'' (Matt. 19:21; Milarepa, I think, is just this radical.) Contemplating this commitment evokes terror -- for me, that I would be dismissed and abandoned if I took off armor of the self (the clothes / the job / the fancy Mac on which I'm writing this). But why did I assume that I had to do that? I could have thought, what can I do right now that would be generous. Better, I could have done something right now that would be generous. Instead, the prospect of generosity evoked an experience of hunger, need, and fear, so I built a thought world that diverted me from being generous. Thinking about perfection, I protect myself from doing anything generous at all.

Seeing this, I think, is a step toward escape. Suppose I just gave. There is always an opportunity to give. Suppose we just saw it and did it. If the mind reacts in needy fear, just note the samsaric thought, and let it go. Imagine being always ready to give, because we have all we need, not fixated on the self. This, I think, is Milarepa's point.

[Leslie]

Being generous requires that we see clearly. Sometimes people ask for what they don't actually need as they are not seeing their own strengths. When I pay close attention to my body as I interact, I get warning signs-some contraction or pulling if the interaction is clouded by reactivity. Then I have the opportunity to examine myself, go deeper and see what is really needed. It can take a while for the answer to arise. My body opens when I am closer to knowing.

[Bill Gardner]

Being generous requires that we see clearly.

"Seeing" here means sensing the true state of one's own mind, via attention to the body; a kind of emotional honesty. This connects to the next verse, although I am not so clear how you see it relating to generosity. As you and I have discussed, this self-examination is key to accurate communication in relationships.

[Leslie]

I should add that it is not just about what is needed. It is also about what I have the capacity to give. We all have limited amounts of time and energy and have to make choices. When I contemplate generosity I ask myself," What is needed and what, given my strengths and my limitations, will be the wisest and most compassionate action I can undertake in this moment". Sometimes it may be to go home and lie on the couch! Sometimes it will be to give money, listen attentively, say no, run in the opposite direction, wait, do something instrumental(like transcribing podcasts), lead others, facilitate a discussion(as per you), take time away from your regular work and write a new book, meditate for many days in a row, bake cookies, help an old lady across the road, etc. etc.

Just recently I have experienced a shift which I believe has come about because of my teacher's generosity in receiving my projections. I have recognized that a lot of the drivenness within me has been connected to wanting to heal the separation I experienced from my father because of his drivenness(which resulted in much time away from his children). One way a child can heal this separateness is to want to "be like" a parent. The trouble here is that I never really discovered me and since striving to be someone else will never work, the separation never heals i.e. unsatisfactoriness. There is a decrease in the pulling and pressure I usually feel in my body and I have dropped the sense of needing to become something more than I already am. It's more peaceful.

The other issue for the driven type is that we often don't acknowledge that we are already acting generously-this separateness from ourselves creates a feeling that we act, at least to some degree, from obligation. Just sit for a moment and think of Bill Gardner as someone you are observing and see how generous you already are.

[Bill Gardner]

Leslie,
Thank you for the kind thought. Right now, I look on Bill Gardner as someone who is tired, and he is planning to follow your wise guidance and go lie in his bed...
cheers
Bill

[Rob MacLachlan]

Hi Bill,

Tremendous post! Did you stun the audience into silence?;-) I know the feeling of "calculating" one's inclination to act generously very well. I'm reminded of Trungpa's Shambhala teachings, emphasizing the discovery of our innate pre-wired capacity for generosity and compassion. Yet we hold back in fear, wrapping ourselves in a cocoon of emotional and intellectual defenses. Haven't some forms theistic worship perverted the original teachings of say Jesus, with the emphasis on "behaving" generously, building virtuous moral-code character to annul our intrinsic "sinfulness", in the hope of the big pay-off after death?

And aren't you being a bit hard on yourself, as we all think this way?

Perhaps Milarepa is suggesting rather than toil at "generosity", we practice to better discover and then trust our basic human nature (?) Thanks Bill, and hope others who know much more will chime in.

Rob

[Bill Gardner]

Perhaps Milarepa is suggesting rather than toil at "generosity", we practice to better discover and then trust our basic human nature.

I've assumed that Milarepa assumed that we are 'practicing' generosity. I have this idea (from the Then & Now podcasts, I think) that serious practice of any one of the paramitas is itself a path that can lead to more general transformation. But maybe you are right. Perhaps he is saying that we should solve the fundamental problem first, then generosity will take care of itself. Greg? Ken?

[Janet]

Bill manages to highlight the paradoxical nature of the practice well. If we are striving to be a generous person, that effort can have a unwanted, perverse effect, as we create yet another clumsy identity, which we then put our energies into maintaining and defending. I've seen how tricky things get when I get wrapped up in the desire to do things which are noble in my own mind, to be someone who meets my ideal of generosity. What is given is often not what is wanted or needed.

The generosity Milarepa is talking about has nothing to do with images and identities. Instead, it is about radically attending to what is. It's about presence, about seeing clearly and responding to what is needed. No coddling my desires or my fears. Separateness disappears.

[Bill Gardner]

The generosity Milarepa is talking about has nothing to do with images and identities. Instead, it is about radically attending to what is. It's about presence, about seeing clearly and responding to what is needed.

This is so well put, Janet. (Although it is also what Leslie and Rob were trying to tell me -- guess I have to get hit three times before I get it.) Generosity is giving the needed response, which is not necessarily the requested response. The trap to avoid here is making up your own story about what others need.

[Greg Germano]

I wonder if we can take Bill's idea a step further (if it really is a step further) - maybe there really is nothing to do.

If there is no fixation on self, there isn't any one of the myriad of our experiences (some that are easier to identify as "self") that are in any way more, or less, special. With none of these experiences "special", none get preferential treatment, and nothing obstructs perfect generosity. If this is a possible interpretation, it strengthens the already stated comment that the real effort is in shedding our fixation on self, not in being generous.

Possibly Milarepa's instruction is to let go of the idea that we are going to be practicing generosity at all, and work on unravelling the shroud of fixation. This work involves being willing to open to our experience, all of it, explore it, and know it for what it is - experience. Maybe even just a little of this knowing allows just a little bit of generosity to shine through, but it defeats the purpose to think of this as results, because that's just another thing to fixate on.

Or possibly this is just another of my self-deluded thought patterns :) There are plenty to choose from :)

Great discussion! And I echo Rob's sentiment to hear more!

[Bill Gardner]

If there is no fixation on self, there isn't any one of the myriad of our experiences (some that are easier to identify as "self") that are in any way more, or less, special. With none of these experiences "special", none get preferential treatment, and nothing obstructs perfect generosity.

Yes! That said, how are those of us who are fixated on the self going to solve that basic problem? I'd love to just let go and watch the glass and steel tower of selfhood fall. Not happening today. So I need a shovel, as it were, to undermine the foundations. Each attempt to put a paramita into practice can be a spadeful of earth. Perform the virtuous act -- encounter the reactive pattern -- understand it, let it go -- get a bit closer to the direct experience. Maybe this is like trying to polish a stone to make it into a mirror. But I'm hoping that the exercise of generosity can be a path for exploring experience.

[Greg Germano]

Yes! That said, how are those of us who are fixated on the self going to solve that basic problem?

The basic problem here may be that we think of ourselves (i.e., the totality of experience, or some portions of it) as a problem. If my own experience is any indication, no, the habits of behavior that keep me from letting go are not just going to fall apart on there own. And your comment about experiencing and then letting go of the reactivity seems on target. Perhaps the real virtue lies in opening, to whatever is going on, to whatever extent we can. Through repeated practice of this, it has seemed that (at least some) of my habits have softened, and possibly generosity (or any of the paramitas) might be expressing themselves, even if only briefly.

Maybe we're saying the same thing, just from different angles. As I learn to settle down, I'm starting to recognize that all of the practices and techniques given by our teachers that we really work and join with, are expressions of the path for exploring experience. Experience, thus far explored by me, presents many opportunities to open, most of which I shy away from, but every once in a while, it all falls apart.

Thanks to all for engaging in this discussion!

[Valerie]

And now, for something completely different: Imagine . . .

We are part of a small group traveling from Nepal to Tibet. We have gone through the green lowlands, through the pass and now are in the high rainshadow of Tibet. At a teahouse by the road, we hear that a great yogi is in retreat nearby. As we gather outside the teahouse, standing by our packs we look at one another, and agree that by all means, we must divert from our plan and take the chance to see this yogi. So we lift our packs and head away from the main road on a fork that takes us east, climbing higher and higher. Now and then, we see someone -- a boy taming a pony, a man driving a dzo. “Yes, yes,” they say gesturing farther up the mountains capped with white, “Mila, the yogi.”

Eventually the track fades out. But here and there a stack of stones indicate that someone has been this way. In the afternoon, at the top of a scree field, one of us sees what may be a cave, and so we use what feels like the last of our strength to pick our way up through the boulders, to a wide ledge. At one end, a plank spans a 20 foot gap, leading to another wide ledge and a shallow cave.

It seems we have found a cave, but no yogi. Exhausted and cranky, we decide to stop and make something to eat, and rest before descending. One person goes to look for water, another arranges rocks for a hearth, and when everything is ready, yak dung makes a smoky fire. Tea and butter and salt go in the pot, and we pull our cups from our chubas to share tea. You look up and over to the cave, and see that someone is there after all. Surprised, we all see a boney man, with greenish skin, long matted dreads, dressed (if you can call it that) in a rag. We gesture for him to join us, and to our delight, he crosses to our ledge and sits with us. You hand him your cup, and we fill it with tea and pass him the bag of tsampa. The electricity passes through us all, and we know we are all vividly present. His face is densely wrinkled and dark, showing years of hard life. His eyes are warm and his expression lively. The man says nothing, yet we feel great respect and our hearts open. After a time one of us says, “We are travelers, and students of the way. Revered yogi, Milarepa, what advice do you have for us? How can we live our active lives and benefit beings?”

After some silence, in a clear, strong voice Milarepa begins to sing, “For generosity, nothing to do . . .” We recognize the tune, it is a love song our mothers and sisters sing. It is sad and teasing at the same time. By the time the chorus comes round again, a few join in “nothing to do.” Mila’s voice is beautiful and trilling in the thin evening air. We are entranced, as each word of his new lyric rings like a sweet clear bell through our beings. When he gets to the end he starts at the beginning again, and now that we know how it goes, we join in for the paramita and the chorus, with Milarepa singing his advice solo. And then it is over, we are in the immense silence of the high mountains. No tree, no bird -- only our breathing, the faint whistle of the burning dung, perhaps the distant voice of that spring, the surge of our pulse, the ringing in our ears. The slope below has grown dark with shadows. The white peaks around us, tinted with sunset are firmly present against the deep blue of twilight. The yogi has disappeared -- if he was ever here -- and we fill our cups one more time before unrolling our blankets, and settling to meditate or sleep through the night.