By Michele McDonald-Smith

For the past three years I have had the privilege of teaching a three-week silent mindfulness retreat with Sayadaw U Lakkhana at his 650-year-old monastery in upper Burma. Teachers, monastics, and lay people continue to keep alive the depth and purity of the Buddha's original teachings there. People have been practicing meditation there for well over 1,000 years. The monastery is an integral part of Wachet Village life. Village, monasteries, nunneries, and the irrepressible Ayeyarwadi River have an intricate inter-relationship.

The Buddha taught: "If you knew what I knew about generosity, you wouldn't let one meal go by without sharing it." In the village of Wachet, most children are surrounded by the happiness generated by the power of generosity. Children easily learn these teachings through the energy of genuine happiness that they experience in the field of kindness expressed by the people around them. They learn the benefit of generosity before they can talk: giving results in joy.

At the monastery we eat two silent meals together, while the village people and cooks watch us eating the food they have offered us. We know how difficult most of their lives are and we see the sparkle of joy in their eyes as we receive their food. About half-way through this past retreat in Burma, one student shared with me that sometimes when he was eating, he didn't feel worthy to receive the village people's generosity. Sometimes when we are touched by such purity of heart, that kindness cracks us open. We see how hard it is for us to connect with our own goodness. It was important for him to learn how to work skillfully with the experience of unworthiness. Mindfulness allowed him to allow the experience to surface, to not resist the painful feelings. He also learned that he didn't have to believe the thoughts about himself that appeared with that experience. He learned not to take the unworthiness personally and let it simply come and let it go. He was less fearful of getting lost or overwhelmed by the experience of unworthiness, so he was able to receive the kindness of the villagers with ease as well as deepen his wisdom practice. If the truth is deeply understood, the separation between giver and receiver breaks down. The more we live by the truth of interconnectedness, the more we can live what the Buddha taught: we wouldn't want to let one meal go by without sharing it.

The Buddha lived in the same simple way as his nuns and monks. He begged for food. He taught and lived a Way of Life. The Buddha said, "Thus you must train yourselves: We will be thankful and grateful. Not even the least thing that is done for us shall be forgotten." The meaning of the word for 'begging bowl' in Japanese is "Just Enough." The imagery of the begging bowl is so important. As lay people, we usually don't have this daily reinforcement of begging for our food to deepen our appreciation for the kindness shown to us. We can miss something quite profound in this. Learning to receive each meal and the moments of life that come to us with humility and gratitude is to experience the contentment of wisdom.

When the Buddha-to-be left the royal palaces to undertake his spiritual search, he embarked on a journey of many years of ascetic practices. He was a wanderer, lived in the forest, and fasted so much that eventually he fainted from hunger and was extremely close to death. A young woman, Sujata, was walking through the forest to make an offering to the forest gods for her mother. She saw the Buddha-to-be and was so moved by his emaciation that she offered him the rice gruel instead of continuing on to make her intended offering. Her kindness saved his life. She brought him rice gruel several days in a row until his strength came back. Understanding the significance of her generosity is how the Buddha discovered the happiness and peace of the Middle Path - the spiritual journey being one of avoiding the extremes of excessive self-mortification or self-indulgence. After receiving several days of rice gruel from Sujata, he then had the strength to make an unshakeable determination to sit all night, protected by the branches and leaves of the Bodhi tree, until he completely understood the truth of things.

While teaching at Sayadaw's monastery this past year, I saw more clearly than ever the beauty, purity, and importance of the relationship between the food we were receiving each day from such generous people, and the strength of resolution we had for deepening of our meditation practice. Another meaning for generosity is letting go. We can see how this relates to the meaning of the image of the begging bowl ("just enough" ) and to our meditation practice. Learning to let go of control, to just take what is given, means we can receive and live each moment of our life in the same way. This doesn't mean only with food, but with any experience, we can receive what happens and trust that it will be "just enough" for our spiritual growth. This means a fundamental shift in attitude. We can shift from being mostly caught in an underlying stream of dissatisfaction, believing that our experience isn't quite good enough or that we or others aren't quite good enough - to more contentment. We can learn to do this initially with our breath. We can let go of control, let go of being lost in thought about the past or the future (inner generosity), and experience the breath fully. We receive the direct sensations of the birth of the breath, let it live its life out, and pass away. If we're able to value the exquisiteness of such ordinary moments, we'll start to see clearly our potential for being awake this lifetime. We can apply this quality of awareness to any experience - pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We can learn to apply wise attention to the touch of a soft breeze on our cheek, to a smile from someone to us at a grocery store, to doing the dishes, to emotions such as anger or betrayal or loss. We can learn to be generous and kind, to receive life fully and to be grateful, knowing that this leads to more contentment and well-being. We can liberate ourselves and all beings.

May we learn to use the precious gift of our lives wisely.