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Guided Meditation: A Gift to Yourself; Dharmette: Step-by-Step Into the Dharma (1 of 5): Giving Comes First - Shelley Gault

The following talk was given by Shelley Gault at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 17, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: A Gift to Yourself

So, here I am. [Laughter] It's been several months since I've been here with you. I'm really happy to be back. My name is Shelley Gault. It's always a delight to be able to spend Friday mornings—mornings in California, that is—with this worldwide sangha. Gil is teaching a retreat this week at IRC, and I'm really happy to be here.

The last couple of weeks, Gil has been sharing some really beautiful teachings and practice that point to what's ultimately possible on this path—really deep experiences and liberating insights. This week, I'm planning to take us back to the beginning of the path. Often, we talk about the Dharma as a kind of spiral where we move through the same understandings and ideas over and over again, each time with a little bit more wisdom, a wider or deeper perspective.

There are lots of ways of talking about how the Dharma begins to unfold in our lives, in our hearts, and in our minds. But there are two common shorthand ways of describing the stages or aspects of the path. Probably you've come across them in the past. They are both kind of three parts.

One is Sīla, Samādhi, Paññā. Sīla, the cultivation of virtue or ethics. Samādhi, the meditative path. And then Paññā, wisdom. Often the Noble Eightfold Path is described as having this pattern. It has three sections. All of them are essential to our development, our maturity on the path.

The second is also a three-legged stool. I kind of like to think of it that way. Dāna, Sīla, Bhāvanā. So, Dāna first is giving. Sīla, again, is ethical development. And then Bhāvanā is mental cultivation or mental development, especially the meditative cultivation.

Both of those are like three-legged stools. And all three legs, of course, on a three-legged stool are necessary for it to stay upright. In the West, ever since the first Western teachers brought this Theravada tradition back from Asia in the 1970s with the intention to teach Westerners in the local languages, English for the most part, what's always been given the most weight is the meditative cultivation aspect of the path.

Those who brought the tradition to the US began by offering meditation retreats and establishing meditation centers. In the fifty years or so since then, teachings about Dāna and Sīla—about giving and ethical development—have often been neglected, and in some places, sometimes just ignored. Those legs of the stool are weak.

Here at IMC, Gil teaches a course that is titled "The Equivalence of Ethics and Enlightenment," really emphasizing how intrinsic ethical sensitivity is to our maturation in the Dharma. That's something that is really useful to contemplate. What does it mean? What might it mean to make ethical development and being enlightened equivalent? It points to a really profound understanding about how essential these aspects of the path are.

I'd like to suggest that the Bhāvanā leg of the three-legged stool, the cultivation leg, doesn't have to be understood to relate just to meditative practices. Of course, we also cultivate beautiful mind states like the Brahma-vihāras¹—mettā (loving-kindness), compassion, joy, equanimity—in our daily lives, not just when we're sitting on a cushion or wherever we meditate formally. We cultivate patience, truthfulness, diligence, generosity, this ethical sensitivity in relation to others, in relation to the world, and discernment as well.

So this week, my intention is to talk about cultivation in relation to generosity, ethical conduct, action and its consequences, and renunciation or letting go (nekkhamma), with a little smattering of a talk about heavens. I hope that piques your curiosity a little bit about the week. With that introduction, let's meditate.

Taking your meditative posture, inviting ease. Inviting ease into the body. Inviting ease in the mind, along with awakeness, along with interest in what you're experiencing.

Often I think of a meditative posture as having a sense of dignity. Meditation is a part of our path to freedom. It's one of those legs of the stool. It's valuable. It's worthy of respect. It's worthy of our care.

Just begin by bringing attention to sounds. Sounds in the room you're in. Sounds of my voice. Maybe there are sounds in your body. Just receiving the sounds as they arise. No need to reach out. If your ears are working, your sense of hearing is intact, sounds will just be heard.

Then bodily sensations. Just incorporating those into your awareness, your attention as they arise, where they arise. They can be known, sensed really simply.

Sometimes people think of meditation as a kind of a chore, something to get through in order to get to the tasks of the day, the pressing important tasks. But it's so not so. If we're practicing as a part of a path that's designed to free us of dukkha²—of stress—it's a really great gift that we are giving ourselves.

So, I invite you to think of this time that we're spending right now as a gift you're giving to yourself. An offering of careful attention, a kindness that you're doing for yourself. As we sit, if you find your mind or your body tightening up, straining, just ease up. Look on what arises kindly. This is your life right now. And it's a gift to be awake to it, present to it.

All that's happening right now within you is your life. All the sensations—sensations of breathing, other sensations, anything else coming in through the sense doors. Mind states, sense of settledness, whatever is going on in the mind and the body, it's your life right now. And giving attention to it is a gift. It's a way of caring.

Now, in our meditation practice, we bring a hopefully warm and open attention to what's going on within us. And it is, as I said, a gift that we give ourselves. It would be lovely to take that same warm, open attention and bring it as a gift into our daily lives—to the situations that we meet, to people that we meet during the day—including them in the gift of our warm attention.

Dharmette: Step-by-Step Into the Dharma (1 of 5): Giving Comes First

As I said before the meditation, in this Western insight tradition, which came down to us from several Theravada lineages mostly in Southeast Asia, the main focus of teaching has been meditation—especially, of course, Insight Meditation, Vipassanā. This lovely practice has the potential to lead to awakening, to the end of dukkha. It's a wonderful practice. It's a powerful practice. Because of the emphasis that's been put on it, other aspects of the Dharma are often kind of overlooked.

In Asia, when lay people are introduced to Theravada Buddhism, to the practice, it's traditional to start with generosity (Dāna) and ethical behavior (Sīla), not with meditation. That's the conventional wisdom there about the best way to introduce people to the Dharma. It's based in the way that the Buddha is described as having taught people new to the Dharma in the suttas, in the discourses.

First, to establish a foundation in generosity, and then in ethical conduct. Then in understanding of karma, understanding the effects of wholesome and unwholesome behavior. And then understanding the downside of depending on sense pleasures for happiness, which is the typical way people live their lives. Once that's understood, that leads to a sense of renunciation, of letting go of clinging to those desires. With the strong basis of all those as a foundation, then the Buddha would consider people ready to hear the deeper Dharma teachings, the teachings described as special to the Buddhas—the Four Noble Truths, usually, is what's mentioned.

So when the Buddha taught people who were new to the Dharma, he gave what came to be called a "graduated talk" or a "progressive talk" or a "step-by-step talk." That's what I'm going to do this week, is kind of a step-by-step exploration of these topics. He began by teaching about giving, which is of course something that's not specific to Buddhism. Something that most people could relate to. Probably something universally approved of and encouraged, not only in his culture but since then also pretty much everywhere.

So today, that will be my topic: Dāna, the practice of giving as a possible first step in developing a mind that is ready to receive and to deeply understand those teachings that are special to the Buddhas.

I'm sure we all have an experience of giving and of the effect of giving on our minds and hearts. Giving as a result of feeling generous, not out of a sense of obligation or duty, which doesn't really have the same effect, I don't think. What does it feel to you to give anything from generosity? I know for me that it feels really good. There's a kind of upwelling of a gentle contentment in my heart. A satisfying feeling, and it brightens the mind. It makes me more likely to engage in thoughts that are wholesome, that are skillful.

There's a quote from something that Bhikkhu Bodhi³ wrote on this topic of giving thirty years ago. He said:

"[Giving] does not come at the apex of the path as a factor constituent of the process of awakening, but rather it serves as a basis and preparation which underlies and quietly supports the entire endeavor to free the mind from the defilements."

A basis and preparation which underlies and quietly supports the entire endeavor. That's pretty high praise, I think, for this quality of giving.

And it can be so simple. A smile, opening a door, a call to a friend, a meal for someone who's ill. And it can be, of course, very grand—giving away a family fortune, funding a scholarship, starting a charitable foundation. Giving our attention to ourselves in meditation. All acts of giving that come from a place of generosity have that power to undercut the tendency to be self-centered, the tendency to harbor ill will.

Another thing that Bhikkhu Bodhi said in that same article is that giving "directly debilitates greed and hate while facilitating that pliancy of mind that allows for the eradication of delusion." Facilitating that pliancy of mind that allows for the eradication of delusion. So giving undermines these roots of unwholesome action in us, these roots that are the source of our dukkha in life. It directly debilitates greed and hatred.

He says in the Buddhist texts, giving is often spoken of as a basis for merit. That is, it's a condition for the arising of something good in the future—good karma, that is. I think for many of us that isn't such a motivator. Maybe what's more inspiring to me is the sense that giving does good things to my mind. It supports the development of renunciation and weakens attachment to things, to things I own, to money. It facilitates that pliancy of mind that allows for the eradication of delusion, as Bhikkhu Bodhi said.

So Dāna, giving, is also the first of the Pāramīs⁴—the perfections of character, sometimes we call them—that are to be fully developed in order to become free. In this list of the Pāramīs, Dāna is followed by Sīla, ethical development, which is going to be our topic tomorrow, as it was the second thing that the Buddha taught new people about in these graduated talks.

Dāna is also listed first in other lists of wholesome activities or actions. It's always described as important, as essential to progress on the path.

Joseph Goldstein, the well-known American teacher, one of our senior teachers in the tradition, shares a story sometimes about having been in India a long time ago. He was at a fruit stand buying some fruit for himself, and he gave a piece of fruit to a child who was standing next to him who was begging. The child just took the fruit and walked away. Joseph, being mindful, noticed a little bit of something—kind of reactivity—arising in him. He saw that he had an unconscious expectation of something in return, some kind of acknowledgment of the gift.

So, he could see his motivation had not been pure generosity. There was some kind of transactional thought in the mind. And I'm sure we've all experienced something similar. Later, Joseph decided that at any time he felt the urge to give something away, no matter what it was, he would follow that impulse. And he has continued to do that, and he has said that he is never sorry afterward, no matter what it was.

It's really useful to look at our motivations when we're giving. Is there some kind of bargaining operating, some expectation of return? Maybe just praise, maybe just thanks. There will be, of course, mixed motivations in our giving. It's natural, it's conditioned. But we just keep giving. I think we just keep giving, and if we do this, true generosity will keep growing in us and serving as that basis and preparation for the whole path that Bhikkhu Bodhi spoke of. Gradually uprooting the tendency to hold on to things, to grasp and cling.

The Buddha famously said that if people knew the true value of giving, they would never eat a meal without sharing it.

I know a couple of Dharma teachers who have a habit of giving gifts to people that they're in conflict with as a way of breaking through the sense of opposition. A gift in a situation like that can express respect, and it puts the people back in relationship in a much more wholesome way. Think about it.

And then Ajahn Sucitto⁵, another senior teacher in the tradition, has suggested that doing an act of Dāna—that is, giving something, either something tangible or something intangible like your time or your ear to listen—anytime you feel depressed, is a really good thing to do. He said because it can give rise to a quiet and satisfying way of being happy. Check it out. See if that's the effect for you.

And it's important to recognize that giving continues to support our development on the path as we mature in practice. It's not like we start out giving and then after a while we let go of it and go on to something else. The impulse to give actually grows, I believe, as we deepen in practice and as our hearts become more aware of how wholesome it is, how good it feels, how useful to others that we can be.

So, the Buddha began his teachings to people who were new to the Dharma, who were untrained—to use the language in the texts—by teaching them about the value of giving and the generosity that motivates giving. It's a really beautiful basis for the development of ethical sensitivity, which was the next thing that the Buddha taught, and that's what we'll address tomorrow.

So, of course, I encourage you to give a little today. Give your attention. Give whatever comes naturally to you and just notice the effect on the mind and the heart as you do that. It's a little homework for today, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Have a good day of practice, of life. Life and practice, not different. See you tomorrow.