Wow... you explain these concepts so damn beautifully.
Stunning.
KL
So here’s my resolve: in giving, to give freely and to let go; in receiving, to receive only what is offered by family, friends, and existence.
Perhaps there's a corollary: in receiving, to give at times the gift of not receiving, when not receiving what is offered is wholly giving.
KL,
Thanks for your comment. I gotta get to NZ.
PK,
Interesting thought. It can be tricky to distinguish between offerings that it is best to decline and those it is best to accept.
dear s,
i just caught up on your blog and so enjoyed reading about your experience at spirit rock. i was there not too long after you...in late january i participated in a week long women's meditation retreat focused on "embodying the sacred feminine." it was exquisite in its deep, deep challenge and in the moments of expansiveness and ease. i have so much gratitude for spirit rock...for the teachers there, for the golden hills....and the wild turkeys roaming about. j
Jessa,
Glad to see you posting again.
I loved Spirit Rock. It is the kind of place that would make it easy to do really long retreats. It's also the only place I've ever been where I've seen wild turkeys. But several days before I saw one, I was walking from the dining hall to my dormitory late one evening when I heard what initially registered with my brain as a monster sound. Of course, it was just the sound of a wild turkey gobbling, but I enjoyed the startlement of the experience as I laughed the rest of the way to my dorm.
greenfrog, a couple of thoughts that your thoughtful post evoked:
i read somewhere that the native americans asked permission of the plants before they plucked a leaf off. then they would feel if the response is a yes or a no. quite beautiful. i've been doing this and loving it. btw i'm sure the hen & chicks loved your moving them from a rock to soil, and i'm sure they are thriving.
on giving & expecting a response - i have a different take on this than you do, at least on the singing bowl story. i think what you wanted there is not so much recognition of YOU as you wanted to give the perfect, meaningful gift: your disappointment was for what you perceive as a lack in the gift and not in the receiver. an ecstatic response wouldn't have made you the perfect gift-giver as much as it would have made the receiver fully happy with the gift. not sure if i'm making sense, but basically i think you're not being ingenerous by seeking a response, you were just wanting to give the kind of gift that you really meant to - the gift with a story. i don't see it as selfish, i see it as generous that you were disappointed in not being able to convey the idea. btw i think it's SO INCREDIBLY generous of you to give her the bowl that had so much to do with how you got into yoga.
and frankly i see nothing wrong in expecting things from people, as long as the expectations are reasonable & communicated, rather than silent / corrosive expectations that turn into resentments. relationships require a two-way balancing, and while i agree that the more removed one is from wanting a response, the freer & happier - i still think that there is room for awaiting a response. jesus wanted the 10 lepers to thank him and was sad when only 1 did.
mimi,
thanks for your perspective on the gift-giving. I think you are right that a thread in the skein is as you describe it, but I'm pretty confident that there were other threads that had more to do with bolstering me more than giving to her.
As to requiring reciprocity, I'm not adverse to that, at all -- contracts of all sorts are exactly that: reciprocal promises. My point in relationships is only that *gift giving* is and should be seen as different from contracting. When I'm not thinking clearly about it, sometimes I assume that there's a contractual obligation where there's actually none.
Great stuff, Sean. Gave me some great ideas to muse on the rest of the day. Thanks,
Hi Matt. Good to see you here.
sean, i'm just reading your response, and i'm thinking, DAMN, HE'S INCORRUPTIBLE! 
surely a very noble take on things. inspiring.
Responses to questions that came through by email:
Random thoughts about not taking what is not offered.
What does “make yourself at home” or “help yourself'” really mean? Everything offered?
When someone says that to me, I often don’t know the answer to this question, either. Perhaps there’s a learning we can take from that fact, and avoid the generalized expression (which may be taken or mistaken as an empty turn of phrase) and be more specific?
What is offered in public facilities? Everything not prohibited by sign or law?
The law would say the answer to that depends on the degree of “taking” involved. If it’s taking a path across a public square, then yes, the facility is offered to the individual. If it’s taking all the daffodil blossoms growing in the public square, the answer would be no. On a macro scale, whenever we live our lives in a nonreplenishing or nonsustaining way, I suspect that we might consider ourselves to be taking what is not offered.
Can I freely ride my bike on logging trails in Targhee National Forest? Sit in the shade under a pine tree even if I am smashing down the grass?
However you might resolve those questions, I think there is utility to being aware of the circumstances that give rise to asking such questions.
How about picking service berries for jelly at the end of a dirt road way up near the ridge of Yellowstone?
I’ve wondered at times whether my foraging for grouse whortleberries might be diminishing the number of grouse.
If I find a candy bar that fell from a previous passing biker's saddle pack, way up on a one-way dirt bike trail in the forest, should I leave it for the ants or let it provided needed nourishment to my hungry body? If I am not hungry, does that change the oughts?
For the purposes of training, I can readily see why you might forego taking and eating the candy bar. If you’re not focused on training but on something else, you could rely on the imperatives of that something else to come to a different conclusion.
Does burning a wood fire in our cabin to warm it so it is survivable for us humans take away from the clean pure air that surrounds the place? If we were to freeze to death with out the fire, would that change things?
I think there is merit (both for the purposes of training and otherwise) to being aware of how we use what is not offered to us, including such “commons” as the air, the grass of a park, the grouse whortleberries, the silence in a meeting of people before someone begins to speak.
Did Jesus need the 9 lepers to thank him for his sake or for theirs?
I don’t know. If He healed the ten lepers in order to oblige them to render him their gratitude or obeisance and did so without telling them of the obligation He wished to impose so that they could accept it or decline it, then He was taking what was not offered.
Of the nine who forewent the opportunity to express gratitude? The
The scriptural text tells us nothing, leaving us to wonder.
Perhaps for four of them, the healing didn’t really last, and they returned to their lepers’ lairs outside the city. Perhaps as soon as another was healed, he hastened back to the other lepers to render the aid to them that he’d wanted to provide for years, but had been unable to do so because of his prior illness. Perhaps two of them glorified God and went their way because they didn’t think Jesus cared about receiving expressions of gratitude. Perhaps one of them was afflicted with an issue of blood after the leprosy was healed and was unable to return to Jesus. And perhaps the ninth was returning to thank Jesus and to worship Him, but by the side of the road, he saw a man who had fallen among thieves, had been stripped of his raiment, wounded, and left half dead, and instead of returning to Jesus, he bound up the man’s wounds, poured in oil and wine, set the man on his beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Consideration? Another word for not taking what is not offered? Do unto other as ye would have them do unto you.
In law, “consideration” is what one extends to others in eliciting a contractual commitment. As I’ve noted in response to mimi, above, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with contracts, but I find that I often impose my expectations of contractual reciprocity in situations where there has been no such agreement.
Interesting question with respect to the meaning of “do unto others.” It certainly uses the structure of a contractual agreement, but is it really an implied contract, or is it a divine injunction intended to shape the way we experience existence without regard to any kind of reciprocating gestures from others.
How about initiative and gumption and doing things and accomplishing things for our sake and for others good?
I don’t think that not taking what is not offered prevents these things. Do you?
What about ask and ye shall receive and seek and ye shall find?
I don’t think those scriptures are intended to authorize taking of property of others, even when we find it in circumstances that would not physically prevent the taking.
Sharing a bed with some one who uses sleeping pills, one finds sometimes the partner's body is not on their half of the bed, do I sacrifice my sound sleep by using only the sliver of space that is left, since most of my space was taken unconsciously or demand my “rights”?
One of the things about the training precept I find interesting is that it tells me how to conduct myself, but it does not tell me what to expect others to do, except insofar as they also have taken the same precept.
A large part of ______'s time here was spent shopping for gifts for those working under him, for those he was working under and for prospective customers. He was obviously buying service, favorable consideration or sales. Legitimate gifts?
Under the law, under my view of
ethics, or under the training precept (which I don’t believe he has undertaken)?
I avoid the challenge of thinking of appropriate gifts by not giving gifts? Birthdays, Christmas, etc. are painful for me and I suspect for others by my non-giving. Most of what I get I wish I didn't get?
Interesting things to notice and think about.
If I hurry down the hall to the pool and get into the last empty lane before someone else who walks slower then me, I have the lane to myself and he has to get in a lane with someone else. Did I take something that was not offered to me?
What would your world be like if you chose differently?
In your law practice[…], are you not trying to take what others have not offered? Or not letting them take what you have not offered?
Much of law is a function of sorting out not only the communal rules our societies have developed (which differ materially from Buddhist training precepts), but also the expectations of those involved, and the extent to which such expectations are “reasonable” or not.
Maybe it's easier and better to bumble through life unaware and untroubled.
I’m reminded of a Zen master’s advice to someone who asked whether he should pursue enlightenment: “Better not to start; if you have started, better to see it through to the end.”
I have argued that I don't need compliments [flattery]. My feed back and compliment comes to me by the sound my ball [I'm the pitcher] makes when it hits the catcher's mit.
Do you need the self-reinforcement of a compliment, or is the sound of the ball in the catcher’s mitt enough?
The Buddhist monks walk around neighborhoods in Thailand, even knocking on doors, I think, but everyone knows they are begging for food. Asking or being offered? Is asking O.K. And if granted then taking is O.K.?
I’ve always thought that such a practice was subtly manipulative, and that the teaching by many Buddhist teachers that “you’ll gain merit if you feed the monks” makes the practice even more manipulative. However, I wonder whether part of my sense is a function not of the specifics of the practice, but rather a function of my own acculturation.
It pleases me to see the trees transplanted from the forest growing so fast and wonderfully round about on our lot …, reaching their full potential much faster than in the arid soil of the rocky forest. Rationalization?
Or simply a particular manifestation and embodiment of a permanent itch that is briefly satisfied by the scratching?
I have a hard time knowing what is given. And by whom? Freedom in a dictatorship? Should I do nothing to get it until it is freely given?
How does thinking about the question affect you?
Commenting by HaloScan
