Reflections on Generosity

         The Indo-European root of the word generous, gene, means “to give birth” and gives rise to words like germinate, generate, genius, and kin. Generosity is the act that connects in profound ways through the process of giving and receiving. 

     Buddhism stresses the practice of giving and the virtue of generosity. This is dana, which is one of the “ten perfections.” The simple rice bowl becomes the monk’s begging bowl, a symbol of a vow of poverty.
Daily the monks go out into the town or countryside to have their bowls filled by the people living there. This ritual is one of profound reciprocity: the lay people in the community provide physical support to the monks and the monks provide spiritual support to the people in the community. Sue Bender writes that “the essential practice of a monk is to accept what is placed in the bowl—and be grateful.” Because the relationship between the monk and the community is one of profound mutual benefit, the term begging bowl is inadequate. It is, in fact, a bowl of generosity and possibility, a bowl of compassion.

     Other religious traditions stress generosity. In Judaism, tzedakah, a Hebrew word, is equated with charity. This act of kindness, however, combines generosity with justice. Ironically, such giving is understood to spiritually benefit the giver more than the recipient. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul listed generosity as one of the fruits of the spirit. Generosity is also a fruit of gratitude. The parable of the Good Samaritan told by Jesus is an enduring portrait of the power of generosity when least expected. Tzedakah is similar to one of the five pillars of Islam, which is zakat. It refers to charity, but also means both “purification” and “growth.” At its essence, dana is considered to be revolutionary, as is tzedakah and zakat, because it is giving freely without any expectation of receiving something in return.

     As these examples imply, generosity is a spiritual practice. Generosity is framed in different ways to try to capture its profound nature: revolutionary generosity, extravagant generosity, generosity of spirit, compassionate generosity, generosity seeding possibility, sacred generosity, storms of generosity, etc. Tom Owen-Towle writes, “A synonym for generosity is magnanimity, which adroitly combines two Latin words for ‘large soul’ (magna and anima).” He adds, “Without generosity, one loves sparingly, if not stingily; without generosity, our acts of justice happen rarely; without generosity, we hoard our precious gifts of time and soul and other resources.”

     Generosity sings through the phrase “practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” It was written by Anne Herbert on a placemat in Sausalito, California in 1982. Paloma Pavel writes, “Anne Herbert and I were responding to our despair at accelerating systemic violence, specifically domestic Rodney King incident of racial violence and police brutality and the international drumbeat to war in the Persian Gulf that was engulfing the nighttime news. We wanted to stop the wars… To create a spell that would shatter the trance. So, we took the phrase “random violence and senseless acts of cruelty” and created a “reversal” (to use feminist philosopher Mary Daly’s strategy). It was not too tough to find kindness for violence. Not wimpy kindness but tough Dalai Lama “never give up kindness.” “Beauty” for “cruelty” was the radical innovation.”

     This concept of generosity is compellingly conveyed in the movie, Pay It Forward, directed by Mimi Leder and released in 2000. Twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney accepts the challenge offered by his new social studies teacher, Mr. Simonet. The assignment is to think of something that will change the world and then put it into action. Trevor comes up with the idea of paying a favor—not back to the person who helped you, but forward with new good deeds done to three people. The ripple of one good deed, paid forward to 3 people, then 9, then 81, illustrates the exponential power of generosity as each person pays it forward to three others. By contrast, failure to pay things forward has a chilling effect. Barbara Rohde writes, “Gifts that are not received die. Gifts that we try to hoard die. Gifts that we cannot or do not hand to another die.”

     Poet Galway Kinnell, a New Englander who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, captured the power and process of generosity in his poem St. Francis and the Sow. Kinnell wrote, “The bud / stands for all things, / even for those things that don’t flower, / for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; / though sometimes it is necessary / to reteach a thing its loveliness, / to put a hand on …[the] brow / of the flower / and retell it in words and in touch / it is lovely / until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing; / as Saint Francis / put his hand on the creased forehead / of the sow, and told her in words and in touch / blessings of earth on the sow….”

     To reteach a thing its loveliness we have to be present, we have to pay attention, we have to gaze with the eyes of love to see the inner reality of loveliness of a child, of a sow, of a stranger. Re-teaching a thing its loveliness is an act of generosity so that it flowers again and again and again from within of self-blessing.

     And finally, the story of a very wealthy father who took his son on a trip to the country with the intent of showing his son how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what was considered to be a very poor family. Driving back to the city, the father asked his son, “How was the trip for you?”

     “It was great, Dad,” replied the son.

     “Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.

     “Oh, yes,” the son said.

     “Well, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?”

     The son answered: “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them.”

     The father was speechless.

Then his son added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”

     Generosity is not about how much we have compared to others, but about how much we can joyously share with others.