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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So, hello everyone, and welcome.

and today I want to introduce meditation as generosity that the act of meditation is a continual act of

generosity and And in that regard I'm inspired that in the classic teachings of the Buddha, the upper reaches of spiritual growth of meditation practice is a very profound letting go. And it turns out that some of the words that the Buddha uses

for letting go he has a number of words, maybe it's such a central part of his teachings that the more you're involved

in something, the more variations and names you can have. Some of us will just call a wave a wave, but an oceanographer might have many

different names for different kinds of waves. Clouds are just clouds for me, but someone who knows about clouds can identify all the different types.

So the variations of letting go, but some of the words the Buddha uses for letting go

have a double meaning, and they also mean generosity. One of those is the word chaga, C-A-G-A, which means to relinquish or let go, and it also is used in the

Buddha's teachings as an expression of generosity.

There's a word translated as

relinquishment into English, which also has the meaning of giving or generosity.

And one other way we can understand this is that if you hold something tight in your hand, in order to give it away, you have to also let go.

You have to also relinquish it.

And you can possible to relinquish under force against your will. It's possible to do reluctantly. But it's also, sometimes we do it with our generosity,

a sense of delight and appreciation, a sense of freedom here.

Like there's no, almost, maybe even no self-consciousness in the act no it's not about me

it's just about the delight of here please and this expression of our freedom

so it's in that regard that we talk about meditation as generosity to let go into the present moment, an act of generosity where the giver and the receiver and the

receiver are the same. We give fully, let go fully, not hold on to anything fully, and we benefit. We give so we can be free.

We are free so that we can give.

And meditations, the opportunity to where really that giver and the receiver are the same.

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