"To Give is to Receive ..."

Nona & Sawyer ~ August 2013

"The more we care for the happiness of others,

the greater our own sense of well-being becomes."

 ~ His Holiness The Dalai Lama

It is said that the greatest gift we can give another is our own happiness. An interesting concept, yes?

It leads me to think about: well, how do I generate my own happiness? I mean, when we're happy, it's inevitable that we share the resonance of lightheartedness with another as it effortlessly emerges, generally catalyzing a similar lightheartedness in them. Lightheartedness allows for seeing the world from a better perspective, through lenses that allow for greater possibilities.

What is particularly interesting in the Dalai Lama's quote, is that paying attention to another's 

well-being, being interested that another feels uplifted, actually increases our own well-being.

How does this make sense?

If I am paying attention to what you need, my attention on my own issues is suspended for the moment. I become present, listening to what is important to you. When I become present, a whole world of ease and wisdom becomes available to me, for as I stop paying attention to my own thoughts of concern, those thoughts lose the substance gained from my attention to them, and fade into the background, as if I turned down the sound of one radio station while I listened to another frequency.

What exists in the Present, in the moment of attending to what is happening in the Now with nothing else on our mind, allows for all of the attributes of well-being that exist in the present moment to be available to us.

My own happiness and well-being increases as I pay attention to increasing another's well-being because the resonance of the Present has to come through me before I can give it away to another.

"To give is to receive."

Get it?!