By Armin Baier
In working with the Second Precept, “I vow not to steal,” I was moved by contemporary reframings of this vow that challenge me in ways I had not considered. One of the most poignant to me was the discussion of this precept in Diane Eshin Rizzetto’s book, Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion. She reframes the precept this way: I take up the way of taking only what is freely given and giving freely of all that I can. I this way, she allows us to understand that giving is an essential part of the vow I have come to see that this makes sense to me in practice.
As I was preparing to give a dharma talk on the precept, a cartoon in the New Yorker showed up in my phone strikingly on point. The cartoon depicts two young gentlemen who seem well-heeled and enjoying their lives of trendy leisure. One man is saying with apparent astonishment to the other, “So you’re saying that just a little bit of giving will distract from the relentless taking?”
Even if I don’t share too much in common with these characters, I know there is a distinction I can make every day between giving freely and giving with conditions, giving in order to get something, or to justify my taking. As I practice with this precept, I am increasingly aware that my truly giving freely to others has a distinct feel to it, an opening of myself. My giving to others, doing for others, loses a kind of weight it would have if I do it only from obligation or with resentment. It has a Zazen aspect to it: Instead of angrily washing the dishes my husband left in the sink, I’m just doing the dishes. I’m not even necessarily giving this to him as a gift in that moment, I’m just “giving freely.”
The ability to make that shift isn’t constant. Sometimes it feels like the last thing I’m willing to do. But it is also informed by another way of experiencing this moment of giving. There is a slogan in the Alanon 12-Step program that has new meaning for me: Give Time Time. Time doesn’t have to be just a scarce commodity that I can’t get enough of. I can also give my attention to time, be with what is in time. If I am rushing to take my dog outside in the few minutes between work sessions, I can notice my rushing and shift to just being with my dog, outside, for that couple of minutes. That is a form of giving freely that I had never noticed in that way before.