Page 16 - EH60

14 EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS

time and space, and the ongoing unfolding of life. These It’s true that human activity is messing up life as we
are exquisite gifts. Life itself is generous. Life is always have known it, and this is terrible. We absolutely must
making more life. Life is abundant and expansive, never correct this. But we are not smart enough or destructive
stingy or small-minded. It keeps on going, bubbling up enough to kill life. Life is too generous and resilient for
and expanding wherever it has a chance. that to happen. And it’s not as though we exist in a special
category outside of life. We are life as much as anything
You don’t need to create life; you just have to let it in. else. Life goes on even if we do not.
The grasses on the hillside are ready to burst out green
as soon as a little rain falls and a little sunlight peeps The practice of the perfection of generosity eventually
through. Weeds and vines tangle all over the place. Life effects a basic attitude shift toward the recognition
stopped in one place pops up somewhere else. Nature is that we are living creatures who share in life’s great
prolific. Even the falling apart of things is generous: big abundance, freedom, and energy. So we always have
trees topple willingly in heavy winds; they provide food possibilities. We always find a way, no matter how or
for insects, bacteria, fungi, and other trees and plants. what, to further our life. We just have to figure out how to
It’s sad in our time to see so many species disappearing. stop getting in our own way. This is where the intentional
More than sad. But species have always disappeared, and practice of the perfection of generosity helps.
new species have always arisen. When we say we are
destroying or protecting the earth, we are expressing our Someone once asked Tang dynasty Zen Master Baijang
dismay and our love, but we are also being a bit arrogant: why giving is the gateway to the bodhisattva path.
the earth is fine, and life on earth will continue in some Baijang answered that it is because to practice giving is to
form no matter what we do, because life is generous practice letting go. The monk then asked, “What do you
and fecund and it cannot be stopped. As long as the sun let go of?” Baijang said, “You let go of narrow views. You
shines, life in some form will continue. let go of the idea that things are small and tight, graspable
and possessable.”

Baijang is emphasizing the open and wide spirit of
generosity. He is showing us that it is the crabbiness of
our thinking, the stinginess of our minds, our desire to
judge, evaluate, separate, define—holding on to scraps—
that stop us from opening to the abundance that must be
within us, living beings that we are. Why can’t we be as
generous as trees?

How to Open Up
How do we go about challenging and opening up our
stingy attitudes about reality?

First, we pay close attention to our thoughts and
“The World Could be Otherwise: Imagination and the
viewpoints, which are expressions of our attitudes.
Bodhisattva Path”
If as living beings we are heir to a generous spirit,
By Norman Fischer Shambhala Publications, 224
what blocks it? We have to investigate this. We have to
pages, paperback, $17.95
become diligent students of our own minds, messy and
unpleasant as they often are.