Excerpt from Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance
Translated by Lew Richmond and Kazuaki Tanahashi

"Giving" means nongreed. Nongreed means not to covet. Not to covet means not to
curry favor. Even if you govern the Four Continents, you should always convey the
correct teaching with nongreed. It is to give away unneeded belongings to someone you
don't know, to offer flowers blooming on a distant mountain to the Tathāgata, or, again, to
offer treasures you had in your former life to sentient beings. Whether it is of teaching or
of material, each gift has its value and is worth giving. Even if the gift is not your own,
there is no reason to keep from giving. The question is not whether the gift is valuable,
but whether there is merit.

When you leave the way to the way, you attain the way. At the time of attaining the
way, the way is always left to the way. When treasure is left just as treasure, treasure
becomes giving. You give yourself to yourself and others to others. The power of the
causal relations+ of giving reaches to devas, human beings, and even enlightened sages.
When giving becomes actual, such causal relations are immediately formed.

Buddha said, "When a person who practices giving goes to an assembly, people take
notice." You should know that the mind of such a person communicates subtly with
others. Therefore, give even a phrase or verse of the truth; it will be a wholesome seed for
this and other lifetimes. Give your valuables, even a penny or a blade of grass; it will be a
wholesome root for this and other lifetimes. The truth can turn into valuables; valuables
can turn into the truth. This is all because the giver is willing.

A king gave his beard as medicine to cure his retainer's disease; a child offered sand to
Buddha and became King Ashoka in a later birth. They were not greedy for reward but
only shared what they could. To launch a boat or build a bridge is an act of giving. If you
study giving closely, you see that to accept a body and to give up the body are both
giving. Making a living and producing things can be nothing other than giving. To leave
flowers to the wind, to leave birds to the seasons, are also acts of giving.

King Ashoka was able to offer enough food for hundreds of monks with half a mango.
People who practice giving should understand that King Ashoka thus proved the greatness
of giving. Not only should you make an effort to give, but also be mindful of every
opportunity to give. You are born into this present life because of the merit of giving in
the past.

Buddha said, "If you are to practice giving to yourself, how much more so to your
parents, wife, and children." Therefore you should know that to give to yourself is a part
of giving. To give to your family is also giving. Even when you give a particle of dust,
you should rejoice in your own act, because you correctly transmit the merit of all
buddhas, and for the first time practice an act of a bodhisattva. The mind of a sentient
being is difficult to change. You should keep on changing the minds of sentient beings,
from the first moment that they have one particle, to the moment that they attain the way.
This should be started by giving. For this reason giving is the first of the six paramitas.

Mind is beyond measure. Things given are beyond measure. Moreover, in giving,
mind transforms the gift and the gift transforms mind.