Abundance

Just when you think you have hit rock bottom...ok, not that dramatic.

Picture it, there you are, trying to answer what seems like a straight forward question from the DISCOVERY MATERIALS (no pressure).

Over the years, you have created (and been created) from your life experiences, your accomplishments, your disappointments and your longings. Who are you today? How would you describe yourself at this point in your life?

And you are trying to answer honestly, but not too cynically. Instead, you are circling the drain, that is circling the answer, maybe dancing around the edges of what you think. In any case, at the end of too many tortured sentences, there is no resemblance to you on the paper.

Thankfully, the gong is struck and that means put your work away and get ready to meditate. Saved by the bell, for sure.

It is your incredibly good luck to be in a room too full of people who are all waiting to hear Jack Kornfield give a dharma talk. Talk about positive energy.

What is the opposite of grasping? (he asks it very innocently, and the word pops into my head: Abundance) Of course he prefers GENEROSITY. I mean, who doesn't??

Weaving in and out of stories, making his point carefully yet gently, he finally gets to the "how to" portion of his talk. There are three kinds of generosity: tentative, brotherly/sisterly, royal. He keeps telling you that it is ok to be tentatively generous, but that you will just feel more of the love when you are royally generous. Now you are just about to feel badly about yourself for only ever having been tentatively generous when he lowers the boom. With whom should we be most generous??

You got it, yourself.

Lesson learned: when you feel like giving, do it. Don't let yourself give it a second thought. Remember to be most compassionate to yourself. The more you have, compassion that is, the more you will be willing to give.