"You get what you give." The Law of Kamma is that you get what you deserve, if you give a lot, if you are very generous supposedly stuff will come back to you. I'm not quite sure "you get what you give" is exactly rightly quoted, but it gets close to the fact that the Law of Kamma is that if you are a good human being, you are going to get benefits later. If you are not a good human being, you are going to get stuff that is not beneficial later, you are going to get more Dukkha. Now doing the Compassion/Lovingkindness wish in order to get something, no. We don't want to do that, that is very selfish. I'll give you a Compassion/Lovingkindness wish if you are going to give me something back later... We are not doing this practice in order to get! So we don't want to have that sort of concept, I'll do this if I get something... On the other side, if you don't get some benefits in your practice, you are not going to want to do your practice at all. So looking at it that way you are going to do the practice in order to get benefits. Am I confusing you enough yet?
The whole thing is about the intention, is that ok? Yes. We are going to grow as a human being and Buddhism says to me if I grow as a human being I am going to get benefits. That is fine. But quite frankly, do I get benefits all the time along the way or do I have to wait for later to get my benefits? No, no, I get my benefits along the way. If I see that my giving makes people happy, I am happy right then. I don't have to wait for somebody to give me something back later. Somebody gave us a note yesterday about the five minutes thing that I mentioned to you guys and they were really inspired. They promised that for the next year they are going to do it. Or for the next two years or for however long it takes before they are going to do another retreat with us, they are going to do five minutes a day. Wow, neat. Now I didn't give that information to you guys in order to get anything back, but when I read the note I got something back, that is very nice.
Now, in the sense of giving, when I give that stuff out, I don't even care if I get stuff back any more because I have gotten so much, 20 years, that is nice. And it is nice to get things back but, the thing is that I absolutely know is that the things I am giving out are going to help you guys. I know it. I don't see it happening, but I know it works. Of course, not every single thing that I have given you guys is going to work for every single one of you, but there is going to be stuff during these nine days that is going to help you all, and I know that. And that is neat. I get happiness, I get joy just knowing that what I am doing is going to help people, I don't have to get anything back later. So this is an important aspect of the practice, that the giving itself can be enough. And that everything else is a bonus. It is a bonus to have watched some of you people for 17 years, it is neat. Some of you only a couple of years, that is also neat.