Generosity - Dana Paramita

The Dana Paramita, the perfection of generosity, is the first of the six paramitas. Perfect generosity requires selflessness, non-attachment, boundless openness, trust, non-judging and so on.

I was touched this weekend by the spontaneous acts of generosity began from one simple post. I asked on Twitter who else out there loaned via Kiva.org. I didn’t hear back directly from anyone, however not long after I saw a post from a Facebook (FB) friend that he had made a loan to a women in Guatemala and there was $225.00 left to fully fund her loan. I signed into Kiva and saw more than half that amount had already been loaned so I completed the loans funding and messaged my friend. He reveled to me in his return message that he had taken part of 3 loans that morning. It was exciting to see how that post triggered this action, I posted the question out of curiosity, I saw someone in action. Touched by this event I then saw a FB friend post that she would be giving away $100.00 to someone that needed it, no need to explain why. Simply add your name to a list from which the person would be selected at random. I referred a friend that was truly in need. He didn’t get his name on the list within the pre-set time so he missed out on the drawing. However the person extending the offer felt that my friend really needed the money and said she would send him $100.00 too. This selfless act extended to a stranger that simply stated they could use the help, no explanation necessary.

Beyond this I’ve learned of others initiating Kiva loans that were sparked by that post, a group on one site to pool resources to make loans to entrepreneurs around the world. Not knowing who else may have picked up on the posting and took action themselves makes me wonder once again at how simple actions can spark small fires that one-day could be fires ablaze with awakening.