[Nirvana]

There are three degrees of giving. One is called one-handed giving. With this degree of giving, you give things away because people ask you, or because you are pressured into it, or because people are looking. But you are also holding on with one hand. You may not really want to give, but, reluctantly, you do. Let's say that a beggar keeps on badgering you. To get rid of him, you give him something. If you've ever traveled in India, you've probably encountered situations where beggars follow you around like a shadow and won't let you go until you finally give them something. That is a form of giving, of sharing with others. But it has a limited value, because, of course, the whole spirit of giving is really letting go. This is letting go to some degree, but not fully.

The second degree of giving is friendly giving. That means you give because you like to give. It feels good. You don't have to pressured into it. Whenever you see somebody in a situation of need, if you have enough for yourself, if you have two of something, you give it out of friendliness. If you have two bananas and somebody is hungry, you usually give them one. That's a higher form giving because you're not being pressured into it-it's coming from your own friendliness, and you're not tightly holding on.

The third degree is called kingly giving. In kingly giving, you give anything at any time. You give the shirt off your back. You give the last food you have to someone who is hungrier. Because there's no thought-you give the best that you have. There's no holding on nor even thought of an "I" involved in the giving.

Everyone is basically in control of their own karma and I don't believe in past life karmic black clouds. I think that is a wrongly interpreted sutra. The Buddha was not the one that wrote down his teachings, and there was probably some embellishments by monks that had meaning for the people at the time they were written. But all things change and that is the only constant. Some people do not want change and resent it so much they cause their own "bad luck" by refusing the reality of the situation. Some do not look at death as "bad luck".