Generosity First

Generosity is the foundation of both virtue and meditation.

It is the idea that you gain happiness by giving things away. After all, when you give, you put yourself in a position of wealth. The gift is proof that you have more than enough.

At the same time, it gives you a sense of your worth as a person. You are able to help other people.

Because the world we live in is created by our actions, the act of giving creates a spacious world: a world where people have more than enough -- enough to share.

From there, the ground is fertile for virtue. Generosity has shown you that you can be happy by doing something counterintuitive. Likewise with virtue: that you are going to be happy by not doing certain things that you want to do. For example, as when you want to take something not given, or when you want to gossip to injure another.

Lastly, the spaciousness that comes from generosity and virtue gives you the right mindset for the concentration practice, gives you the right mindset for insight practice. The mind that you have been creating through your generous and virtuous actions is the spacious mind of a person who has more than enough to share, the mind of a person who has no regrets over past actions.

According to the Buddha's teachings, true happiness is something that, by its nature, gets spread around.

In the act of giving, you gain rewards. In the act of holding fast to virtues, you protect others from your unskillful behavior. In concentration and mindfulness, you gain in your own sense of worth as a person, your own self esteem.