Charity
In a hero’s journey, the hero eventually returns to their home from the beginning of their adventure. They bring back the lessons and boons they acquired on their journey to integrate with and positively transform the community they started from.
Charity guides us on this return and helps us to create a more abundant world. Charity also helps us recognize our growth, our ability, and our capacity to help others.
In the One Sun Path, we practice 3 forms of charity:
- Charity of resource – Share with others your abundant resources.
- Charity of strength – Help others with your strength and energy.
- Charity of knowledge – Guide others with your wisdom and experience.
Charity encourages us to better ourselves for a communal, unselfish good:
- Work hard so that we have the resources to share.
- Train diligently so that we have the strength to help.
- Study earnestly so that we have the knowledge to guide.
Practicing generosity dissolves the barriers between ourselves and others and transforms a life of scarcity into one of abundance. Living a life focused on our own needs and desires creates a constant focus on what is missing. And it is all too easy for that focus on what is missing to become all-consuming. This results in a life whose energies are dissipated in never-ending worry and anger over shortages.
In embracing generosity, you will find your own abundance. And in sharing, you will open up the hearts of others to share as well. Practice generosity with honesty and diligence, and you will stop struggling and start living. Be like the Sun, and your light will warm the world.
Charity Practice
- Work hard so that you have wealth and resource to share.
- Share generously with causes and people who need it.
eg. donating to a cause.
lending someone cold your jacket.
sharing with someone your food. - Recognize that wealth and resources are a potential with which we transform the world.
- Recognize that wealth is a not a source of shame.
- Train diligently so that you are strong and capable.
- Help others, through sweat and effort, with your strength.
eg. helping someone pack & move.
picking up something someone dropped.
helping to clean the beach or highway. - Know that your strength is a capacity to physically help the world.
- Know that cultivating your strength and ability is not vanity.
- Learn so that you have knowledge to share.
- Bring clarity to your thoughts so you have wisdom to guide.
- Share, kindly and appropriately, the knowledge and wisdom you have with those who would benefit from it.
eg. Show someone how to change a flat tire.
Listen honestly to someone whose emotions are hurt.
Teach someone an exercise to help them improve. - Know that wisdom is inherent to us, when we have freed ourselves of that which blinds and confuses us.
- Know that wisdom & understanding cannot be forced.
- Know that you can plant the seed, and you can water. When the time is right, the seed will sprout and the tree will thrive.
Reflection
Having practiced honesty, you will recognize the abundance that is in your life. You will recognize also the infinite potential that is your ability to respond to the world around you.
Congratulations! You are now actively participating in your life.
Continue to accept and love yourself. Continue to improve yourself the way you’d want a loved one to improve. Share your growth. Use your understanding and ability to make a positive difference in your world. As each person awakens to living genuinely and meaningfully, our world will surely become more and more wonderful.
Take a moment to appreciate the journey you’ve taken thus far. Your light has chased away the shadows of your self doubt, your fears, and your sense of scarcity.
With the courage to be your genuine self, and the acceptance (and love) of yourself and your world, you have started to live in a positive and transformative way.
You are becoming like the sun, whose light warms the world.