Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about the highest giving. So when we do a favor or a kind deed for another person, we sometimes don't realize that in the back of our mind, we're giving with a subtle expectation for something in return, or we have an assumption that people should act the way that we act. So we might not actually set out thinking that we want anything to come back our way, but then when nothing much does, we realize that we're feeling resentful or we're kind of keeping score in our heads of how many things we've done in comparison. And so in some way, there's been a subconscious expectation there all along.

So then we might get a bit resentful towards others or disappointed. So I recently had a friend tell me a story that he and his partner went camping. And before they went camping, they joyfully went to the store and got all this food so that they could do a surprise feast for the people they were camping with. And, you know, each night they made these feasts and they gathered everybody's dishes and did the dishes after the meals. But after doing this day after day, they found that they were feeling a bit resentful because they felt they were doing all of this work for others, but no one was doing the same kind of gestures in return for them.

After they went home, they were feeling really irritated and they complained to each other about what had happened. But then one day his wife paused and said, you know what, no one actually asked us to do anything, did they? We just wanted to make it special so we kept doing those things. She said it was actually fun in the beginning when we were just giving, when we weren't expecting anything in return. So he then told me how they were able to let go of the negativity. And after that, they actually started to get excited about cooking more feasts for friends again.

So it feels really wonderful to do kind deeds, but it can be really subtle how we start keeping score in our minds or how these expectations start creeping in. But when we're training in awareness and compassion, there's a real emphasis on the intention behind our actions. And so when we're giving to others in some way, the highest form of giving really is just to give, simply with the intention that your actions lead to the happiness of that person, nothing more. Each time we give in this way, we're planting the seeds of compassion, joy, and wisdom in our own minds, even as we share a good deed with others. So the invitation for practice today, and if you care to, throughout the rest of the week is to see if you can find opportunities to practice the highest form of giving.

As always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. And let's now settle in for today's meditation.