The Optimism Of Generosity

Sometimes I think, how is it even appropriate to talk about optimism? Every day there's another shooting, tragedy, political, or legal debacle. And yet I feel like we can't give up. Or at least I can't. Maybe you feel the same way. Studying generosity, like studying any wholesome quality of mind, is the opposite of giving up. It's a study of being optimistic. For one thing, it's a study of character-building and that's an optimistic activity: imagine if we could re-form our own character i

Transcript

Hi everyone,

It's Judy Cohen,

And this is Wake Up Call 354.

We have just dipped into the Paramitas,

The six perfections of heart and mind,

Which are generosity,

Ethical conduct,

Patience,

Joyful effort,

Meditation,

And wisdom.

And here we are.

We've come through,

You know,

More mass shootings,

The most publicized,

But not the only.

In Highland Park,

Illinois,

Which is down the road from Northwestern,

Where I went to college.

I used to go running up there.

On the 4th of July,

As if,

You know,

As if Independence Day wasn't already fraught enough this year,

Right?

So given everything,

And you need to think the word everything should be like a capitalized term,

You know.

But anyway,

I was sort of asking myself,

Well,

How could I talk about optimism?

What causes there for optimism?

And I don't know about you,

But I've been feeling waves of many things.

Devastation,

Helplessness,

Sorrow,

Fatigue,

But not as many waves of optimism.

But I'm beginning to see,

I'm beginning to see how the cultivation of generosity and of all of the Paramitas is a fundamentally optimistic endeavor.

So I've been talking about Norman Fisher's formulation of the Paramitas as imaginal and unattainable.

The qualities of heart and mind we can aspire to,

Knowing we'll never attain perfect generosity or perfect ethical conduct or perfect patience or joy or mindfulness or wisdom.

And knowing instead that these are qualities we can imagine living into and in imagining that we can actually get pretty far.

And we can be glad for how far we get,

You know,

For the incremental progress that we notice,

Which can lead us to be optimistic about our chances for cultivating even more generosity or joy or mindfulness,

For example.

It can also give us hope because of the effect of our work,

You know,

That being more generous might influence those we come in contact with.

Who might feel a resonance or some joy when they experience our generosity or patience or whatever.

Because that's something to be joyful about and optimistic about and maybe even consider that they may consider learning about or emulating those qualities themselves.

And if they do any of those three things,

You know,

If they feel joy from our generosity,

If they decide to learn more,

If they decide to emulate,

Then that can provide even more optimism because we can see how our work could have an effect on whatever systems we're in,

Whether they're family systems or legal systems or our communities or our world.

And here again is Adrienne Maree Brown's quote from Emergent Systems.

Here's the whole quote.

That what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale.

So Dale Wright in his book,

The Six Perfections,

Which is another wonderful book about the pyrometes,

Says that when we are practicing the pyrometes,

What we are perfecting is our character.

I love this.

He explains,

I reserve the word character for that part of our overall identity that is shaped by the choices we ourselves make.

And he continues,

Unlike other dimensions of your overall identity,

Character is neither given to you at birth nor imprinted upon you by environment.

Many unique developments will shape you into a particular kind of person,

Often without your being aware of them.

But none of these forces will individuate you more than the development of character through a lifetime of deliberate choices.

When you act in view of your own vision of the good,

Your acts will be shaped by that vision.

And through that shaping,

Your character will be gradually formed.

Cultivating character in this way presupposes conceiving of yourself as both free and responsible.

Free to choose what you do and responsible for the outcome of those actions.

It also implies the capacity to cultivate the desires that motivate your action and the depth of character to take responsibility for the kind of person your desires will create.

Your desires will create.

So how is this optimistic?

Because,

I mean,

It also could feel like a warning or an admonition,

You know,

Develop the Parmitas or your life will be shaped by non-deliberate choices and those could be bad.

Take responsibility for the development of your character or you're not taking responsibility for the development of your character.

And it is in a way,

You know,

It is an admonition in a way to the extent that I can say that I've been non-deliberate,

Which is,

You know,

All the time.

Throughout my day,

I'm not deliberate all day long,

For sure.

My default isn't always wonderful.

To the extent that I've been deliberate,

Right,

And have cultivated motivations for my actions,

Deliberately worked on a better character,

Better qualities of heart and mind.

Things do seem better.

And not only that,

But I noticed there's a better chance that a more wholesome state of mind will spontaneously arise the next time.

Right.

And that's such a big deal is that we do the work and then the work is sort of self-generating as long as we keep practicing,

Or at least in my experience.

So for me,

That latter piece is the optimism that there is this chance that we are not relegated to our defaults or as Wright puts it,

To the imprints of our birth or environments.

And in fact,

That seems to me to be the great underlying and fundamentally optimistic nature of mindfulness,

That we can change our minds.

So here are our rose-colored glasses.

I invite you to just put them on just for a minute,

If you can see the screen.

So we changed our minds for the more loving,

The more compassionate,

The more empathically joyful,

The more equanimous by practicing the Brahma Viharas,

Right?

We already do that.

And here we go with the Paramitas.

Working with the Paramitas,

We can change our minds for the more generous,

For the more ethical,

For the more patient and joyfully energetic and mindful and why.

By practicing,

By practicing these qualities simply,

You know,

Simply but not easily,

Because like any training,

Like the law,

You know,

Like becoming a decent tennis player,

Like making a good spaghetti sauce takes time,

Takes practice.

But yes,

In the end,

Simply by practicing.

And one of the things that I really love about Dale Wright's book is that he says that the greatest awakening of all is to see this.

Here's what he says.

He says,

The greatest awakening of all is the first one,

A point in life when we awaken to the fact that we are both free and responsible to engage in enlightenment and enlightenment.

We are both free and responsible to engage in enlightening self-transformation.

Right?

Like we get to do this,

We can do this.

So for me,

When I heard that news,

When that first sort of dropped in in my practice many years ago,

It was the best possible thing.

And it still feels like a profound and also a very practical optimism.

As Adrienne Marie Brown says,

What we practice at the small scale really can and does reverberate to the largest scale.

You know,

What if that's true?

Because then in that case,

We aren't just practicing to cultivate our own well-being,

Our own positive qualities of mind,

Although to me,

That's optimistic enough.

We're also practicing so that our practice reverberates into our relationships,

Personal,

Professional,

Into the institutions we're part of or lead,

And into society.

And that to me feels like a deeply optimistic way of imagining our work.

So let's sit.

Finding a comfortable posture,

Your own most supportive posture.

Connecting to the earth in some way,

Whether it's beneath your feet or 10 stories down,

Having an imaginal connection with the earth.

Letting her support you in your practice.

Connecting with each other.

There are 31 of us here practicing today together.

So connecting with each other.

Imagining your connection with your family,

Your community,

Your workplace,

Your firm,

Your organization,

Your school.

Your broader community,

Your connection to all beings,

If you want to open up your imagination to the deepest possible connection.

And connecting to yourself.

Really to the goodness inside of you that got you to the wake up call this morning,

Gets you to your cushion in the mornings,

Or to your practice,

To your mat.

If your practice is yoga,

To whatever your practice is,

The goodness that reminds you to take a breath once or twice throughout the day and just get grounded.

Just that real goodness in your own heart.

Just taking a moment to notice the generosity of spirit that you have.

To be able to connect with community,

To be able to sit together,

To be able to notice your own loving heart.

This is not a small thing.

To be generous enough to remember,

To notice.

Our own goodness.

This is an important thing.

This is an important thing.

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