The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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Hello and I delight in the greetings in the chat, the YouTube chat and both the greet and both the greetings and all the locations that people are connecting

from.

And I feel kind of this radiating field of goodwill from all these locations.

And so thank you for being part of this.

Many years ago, I was very inspired or encouraged by a and a little bit amazed by a very little simple Zen teaching.

There's a Zen they have a lot of stories of practitioners students asking the Zen master a question.

And someone asked the Zen master, what is the gate of Zen? And I think on the surface of

the question, what is the entryway to get to Zen?

And the teacher answered, generosity.

And that's it, that two ways, one was that generosity is often seen as the entry level.

And why it struck me two ways, one was that generosity is often seen as the entry level experience practice Buddhism. It sets the stage

for everything else and also because generosity because a gate is also the way you

leave you enter and leave a monastery through the gate and so you enter and leave Zen you enter and leave Buddhism through the

gate of generosity. You enter being generous and you leave being generous.

And this is also encapsulated in a fantastic way that many of the kind of words for the great relinquishment, the great letting go,

we say in English, that Polly in ancient language the word for letting go is more

like giving away it has the word generosity in it.

And actually there's a series of words

for the final deep release of liberation that has a double meaning to also mean generosity.

And to give something, we have to let go of something.

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