A good friend of mine and I were sitting at a busy cafe in downtown Oslo. We had been discussing our different perspectives on our buddhist practices and on how to better introduce buddhism to the growing Norwegian laity. At some point in the evening a group of friends sitting to the table on my right rise to leave. In the corner of my eye I see that one of the girls has unknowingly dropped her purse under her chair. I interrupt the interesting conversation I was having by rushing over, getting the purse and calling in not a quiet voice across the cafe “Your purse!”. Needless to say she…

This story isn’t really about an act of kindness *I* did, but two that two people did for me yesterday and today. For the last few years, I’ve been telling my friends at university, through text-messages or SMS, to look at the sky whenever I think it’s particularly beautiful: an almost unnatural greenish-yellow haze near the horizon blending to an unnaturally deep purple on perfectly clear days, towering thunderclouds, those almost-completely-white overcast days that make every tree and building look like it’s been painted on paper–the universe’s canvas. I’ve had a fascination with the sky ever since going to Texas, where the sky is HUGE beyond description. (I live in…

My Wife left our house for a Doctor’s appointment. I didn’t wake her up in time to get there without rushing. While she was on her way, I called the doctor’s office telling them that she might be late. When she arrived, the receptionist told her that her Husband informed them that she would be there.Everything turned out okay. My Wife thanked me. Small act of Kindness

My friends husband had a stroke earlier this year. I took her some vegetables from the garden. I don’t have much money, or much time with life being so demanding, but just taking a few moments to give something I had plenty of, was enough thoughtfulness to let her know I care.

My family donates some money to buddhist temples for making and maintaining temple.And I always try to help people who are in need of help like beggars on the street or poor people.

Thank you for this opportunity to reflect on giving and kindness. For a few minutes, I had the awful feeling come over me that my self-image (of a selfless boddhisattva, of course) is completely wrong, and that maybe I’ve been fooling myself completely– no acts of kindness came to mind at all. There’s certainly a lot of truth to that, but after more introspection, I can remember that, yes, OK, there were one or two “grand” selfless things I’ve done…But perhaps my more effective actions have been very small, tiny ones that I like to repeat as often as possible: thanking other people for THEIR acts of kindness and generosity,…

I am a member of the Pure Karma Society in Gold Mountain Monastery, San Francisco. I went to two end-of-life caring cases – chant Amitabha Buddha’s name, Heart Sutra, etc. in a funeral and in a cremation ceremony in the past.On July 10, 2009, it was my first time to go to a hospital to help someone who was dying at the moment.The patient was a Buddhist and he wished to have someone/a group who can recite Buddhism Sutra and Buddha’s name around him when he was dying.However, none of his relatives is Buddhist so his family had no resource at all.Here the story begins:His request came from an email…

A few days ago, I was at the airport to go to San Francisco from Seattle. There was a man in front of me who looked really agitated and angry. When I saw him, my mind said oh no he doesn’t look nice he looks angry. Then my body softened and I remembered that when I feel angry or agitated its usually that my mind is telling me something mean or aggressive and it really hurts because I can’t relax. So I turned to him and said boy these lines are a pain and smiled. He immediately smiled too and his shoulders relaxed.I thought oh that’s just what I need…

I heard about this cool initiative while listening to the talk by Venerable Reverend Heng Sure “Being Buddhist in America” that I downloaded from iTunes. And I decided to go for it, not in the least part because I would like to listen to the CD!Right, so, as I was listening to the talk, I started thinking about what I good deed I can do. the thing is, I already volunteer for Amnesty International and for a local sustainability organisation. So, whatever I would have done for them could not really count, ‘cos I would have done it anyway. I caught the train home and when I was preparing to…