Shadowing Practice: Unlock the Secret Power of Generosity - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Good morning everyone all the way from Thailand.
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Today I wanted to talk about generosity, specifically giving.
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This practice of generosity is so powerful and there are so many benefits.
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You can harness it if you use it properly, but I feel like many people are not using it at its full capacity.
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That means you're leaving a lot on the table and you're not fully benefiting from it.
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So in this video for me, I just kind of wanted to share with you my journey of how I was able to deepen my practice of generosity,
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give you very simple and practical tips that you can start to implement and practice in your daily life now,
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and then also share with you why is this important And also, how does this come to help with your daily life?
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So with that for me is I'll start with kind of my journey.
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And I found with regarding generosity, it went in three phases.
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The very first phase for myself was in the very beginning is generosity wasn't part of my practice.
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Let's keep it real.
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Because for me living in the West, I was busy.
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I was trying to advance my career.
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I was trying to be someone.
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I was trying to achieve that material success in the outside world.
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So with that, I didn't see so quite the full benefits of generosity.
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But my mom and my family, luckily from a Buddhist family, they always shared with me of practice generosity.
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Slowly, bit by bit, I started to give and to even learn what is generosity.
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And for us, generosity, we can give of our time.
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We can give of our resources through donations.
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We can give of our knowledge.
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We can give of our encouragement.
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We can give through forgiveness.
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But there are so many different ways to give.
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When we practice this, when we practice generosity, what it does is it releases greed from the mind.
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It brightens your mind.
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So for me, the first phase was just giving.
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and giving through giving donations to the temple,
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different organizations, giving of my time, giving of teachings.
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So these are the types of way
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and for me is I would try to do my best just to start with the basics.
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Start to give in any way I can and again just build this practice of giving, giving consistently and giving as much as you can.
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This was the very foundation of how I started to change my relationship with generosity.
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That was the first phase.
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The second phase for me, as I was starting to give a little bit more, making it be more consistent,
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I started to go to the meditation center in Azusa, California, the meditation center there to practice meditation,
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to again change my life for the better.
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And one of the things that I kept hearing over and over that people were teaching me, the monks were teaching me, my friends were teaching me,
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is when you practice generosity, feel good.
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Not only feel good when you're giving it, but feel good when you're giving before the act of giving,
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during the act of giving and also after the act of giving.
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It was very surprising for me because when I saw other people give, when I saw my mom specifically give, wow, they felt so good about it.
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For me, if I were to be truthful, I felt good when I gave, but they were saying, wow, Nick, you're leaving a lot on the table.
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You're not getting the full benefits.
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And if you can, try to expand that.
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Instead of feeling good for just a few seconds, a few minutes, then if you can, practice before, during, and after.
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So for me, I had to integrate it into my life where, okay, when I would go, I would practice generosity at the temple.
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I would have to train myself.
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I was there at the temple in Los Angeles for about two, three hours.
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and for me I had to I knew I was gonna
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practice generosity to the monks I was gonna make a donation
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to the temple I had to train myself okay before I
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was gonna give what am I doing I know soon after meditation I'm gonna have an opportunity to practice giving
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so I had to remind myself to train myself to know
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what what are you actually doing what's at stake here then when I was giving then I would feel as good,
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as happy as possible to know that I'm purifying my mind.
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I'm doing something good for myself.
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And then afterwards, don't just forget it, but when I was done giving, how long can I extend that period?
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When I was eating lunch with the people after, can you still recall that?
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And for me, I would do my best and slowly from not remembering or just feeling good in that moment, I was able to expand it a few minutes,
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then a few hours, eventually then I can feel good the whole time.
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And even to go bigger, then I would try to expand this feeling before, during, and after even longer for the whole day.
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And for me coming from at that time coming and driving from San Diego all the way to Los Angeles, it was a full day.
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It was a full day because a lot of traffic
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and I had to train myself of feel good on your drive up The drive up was about two
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and a half hours So for me when I was driving up, I had to remind myself of wow,
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this is a self-care day This is you taking the time and effort.
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You could be doing something else But you're going there to practice generosity to give of your resources and your time
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train yourself to feel good.
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I did not feel good in the beginning but slowly I had to teach myself.
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Again, a few minutes turned into a little bit longer
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and then again during the time I was at the meditation center
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and doing good deeds and meditation and then I had to train myself as I was driving down.
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Driving down from Los Angeles in Los Angeles traffic all the way to San Diego, not not fun not fun
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but instead of complaining for me I had to teach myself
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of recall feel good in the blissful feeling of you just did good you took time
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and you put intention and effort to do good
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so I had to train myself as I was driving down
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as I was going to the rest area as I was getting coffee on the way down feel good
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and carry that as much as possible
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but for me is this took a long time it took
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a few years to really feel good from all the way
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from the beginning of the day all the way to the end of the day
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so this for myself was phase two of practicing generosity of feeling good before, during, and after.
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And then phase three for myself after I was able to improve those areas,
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the next phase that they taught me was recollect those good deeds.
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You've already done those good deeds.
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You already practiced generosity.
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You already feel good.
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You've been doing it for a sustained amount of time, now can you recollect that?
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What it means is recall it.
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You already did it.
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It already feels good, but you just forgot it.
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And if you can, bring it back.
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Bring it back and you can sit in that feeling like you just did it.
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And if you can recall the things that you've done today, the things that you've done this week, the things that you've done in this lifetime,
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and again recall that and feel that good proud feeling.
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So in the beginning with all of these things it was not natural
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and it just took for myself almost a decade of this
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kind of practice to the point where now it becomes second nature.
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So then coming back to all of you why am I sharing this
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and how does it help you is
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because I feel like this is a very important tool
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that anyone has access to and
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that you can use to help to train your mind and also you can use for your daily life.
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Let's go with the very first one.
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And the first one, it helps you by being able to recall, recollect and practicing generosity.
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It helps you to access these good states, states of mind.
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Again, in the outside world, in the real world, wow, life is hard.
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There are a lot of challenges.
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There are a lot of obstacles, things that we can control, things that we cannot control.
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And when we're not mindful, then we can go into those negative spaces.
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Then these negative spaces can be a rabbit hole where you just continue to go down.
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Next thing you know, you're in a funk.
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A funk turns into an hour.
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An hour turns into a whole day, into a whole week and now you're just in a bad mood.
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But if we can, when we practice generosity and learn how to anchor our mind, recollect it, come back to this good space.
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Teach yourself to snap out of it or replace.
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Replace and go back to a positive memory, a positive moment.
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And if we haven't done this, then it's a bit foreign.
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It's harder to come back.
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But the more that we can practice this, the more we can use it to anchor ourselves.
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Also, I find when we practice this, then we're just more content.
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We're able to access the brighter part of our mind.
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When something happens to us, you'll either go to a negative aspect or you can see the bright side of things.
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You can see, is there an opportunity?
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Is there a benefit?
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You can see things clearly, objectively.
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And the more, like I said, that we practice generosity, we cling more, we're less greedy, we're more content with what happens.
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And again, this is not like a fake positivity, but it really is an anchor.
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Then we can see how much do we actually have.
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It gives us an opportunity to be grateful.
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Okay, this is what's happening.
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This is what I can anchor myself to.
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It's not the end of the world.
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Let's see the positive side of it.
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But again, come back to this positive state.
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I think that's the first one that we can benefit from practicing generosity and consistently recollecting.
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Another benefit of this is to be able to make merit, be able to share with yourself and others,
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specifically when people are not well, when people are sick.
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Just this week alone, just the past three days for myself, I got reached out to by a few of the supporters.
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A few of our students contacted us and they're saying their parents are sick.
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Their parents are in the hospital.
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Another student shared with me that their dad passed away last night.
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So again another person shared that they're not feeling good and they have like a disease or an illness within their body.
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Well how does generosity help us.
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For us it's important to understand that when we practice generosity, when we practice giving, what it does is it produces pure energy,
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produces pure positive energy.
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In Buddhism we call this merit and from this merit, from this brightness, this good energy,
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you can actually share this and dedicate this to others
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and this can help them to support them
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and the people who are going through these difficult times then
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they don't know what to do I feel helpless I feel
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hopeless what can I do my dad just passed away what
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do I do my dad is in the hospital what do
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I do with all these challenges well what we can do is with the goodness
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that you've done with the goodness that you collected with the good, pure energy that you collected.
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Now, an abundance of it.
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And you can recall that, just like a bubble.
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Share this with those who are suffering.
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And for myself, I get an opportunity and I practice sharing this good merit with anyone out there who is suffering.
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Whether I know them, I don't know them, whether they're alive or they're not alive.
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But I find that just having this tool
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gives you something that you can access that can be very helpful for your mind.
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Also then helpful for us when we feel like we can't do anything and it's not true.
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And we can do something.
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And what we can do is through the power of our goodness, through the amount of our merit,
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how strong that is, I can't tell you because that depends on how deep is your practice.
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Like I said, when you can feel good and recall it, When you can combine that energy together,
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now your signal is very clear and it's bright, then people can receive it faster.
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Just like the internet.
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If your signal is not strong, if you haven't done enough good deeds, the signal is not that strong, they can't receive it.
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But if we can deepen our practice like this, then again, for those who are experiencing suffering,
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yourself or other people, dedicate this merit, this good, pure energy to yourself and to others.
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Practicing generosity and being able to recall it can help you with your meditation practice practice.
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Hopefully many of you out there are practicing daily a meditation practice, but I find this is a very powerful tool.
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We get to be around a lot of amazing, a lot of advanced meditators here in the temple.
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One of the things that they always share with us as a powerful tool is being able to recollect your merits.
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All the good deeds that you've done before, like I said, were recall.
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What did you do today?
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What good deeds?
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What acts of generosity and giving did you practice today?
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Start there.
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What did you do this week?
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Okay, now feel that feeling.
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You don't have to go into the details, but collect that feeling.
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Also, what did you do this year?
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What did you do this month?
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Wow!
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If you were to go back, you've done a lot.
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So recollect that good feeling, close your eyes, feel proud of that, put a smile on your face, cover yourself like a bubble.
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Cover yourself like a blanket, this brightness, this pure energy, and sit in it.
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And sit in it and this can help your meditation practice.
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Just that good feeling of meditation with that power it will clean and purify your mind.
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You don't have to do much.
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Just sit.
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Sit in that good state and understand that when you are sitting,
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when you're comfortable, when you're aware and you're very relaxed with this good feeling, the mind begins to clean itself.
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The momentum starts to move but this is a a little cheat code, a little tool for those who are practicing meditation.
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Sit in that pure energy.
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Another way that this practice of generosity can help us is with our sleep.
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When we travel around the world, this is one of the biggest issue that many people are facing.
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They can't sleep.
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Poor people, rich people, famous people, not famous people, one thing that they struggle with is sleep.
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And what I find, and for me personally, that was very helpful because I used to struggle with this as a person who strives, as a person who is very motivated,
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well, we can get attached to the outside world, to our goals.
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And for me, the way I was sleeping before, and it makes sense, where I would always just reflect on my problems.
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I would take time, this was like an extracurricular activity,
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where I dedicated so much time thinking about the issues in my life, thinking about the things that are heavy before sleeping.
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And what I found out in the monastery, this was a game changer for me because I would always have to take sleeping pills before coming to the monastery.
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I couldn't sleep.
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And one of the key things that my teaching monk shared with me, this changed everything, was he said,
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Well, Venerable Nick is the last thing you think about before bed is the first thing you'll think about
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when you wake up.
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So if you're actively just thinking about all the negative things in life, the problems that you have, when you wake up, you're not fresh.
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Immediately, how many of you can relate to that where you wake up?
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You're already on the problem.
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You're already in that same state.
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It's like I didn't even sleep at all.
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I didn't even get to fully rest my mind and stop.
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But what we're taught here in the monastery that you can all use is before going to bed,
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instead of thinking about your problems and knowing that the last thing you think about is the first thing you think about, then shift that.
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Think about the good things.
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Like I said, collect.
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What did you do today, this week, this month, this year, this lifetime?
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feel good allow it to consume you allow it to cover
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and radiate all around your body like a blanket a pure white shining bright blanket
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that it's covering over you cover over you like a bubble like a blanket go to sleep sleep in
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that and I can guarantee you when you wake up it may take time
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when you wake up then you'll start to feel more fresh.
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Your mind will be more relaxed and when you're sleeping, your mind purifies itself.
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Instead of sleeping in dirt,
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in cloudiness, in impurities, now what you're sleeping in is pure bright energy.
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Let it heal you, let it clean you, let it purify you.
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Go to bed.
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Go to bed and you will feel so much better.
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But if you can, give this a try.
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Sleep in a sea of merit.
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And the very last way that it can help us is this will maybe morbid but it's reality.
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And one day you will pass away.
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One day you will be on your deathbed.
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And for us we get so many opportunities to be around people who are passing away.
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And one of the things that they teach us, and one of the things that we see is when people are passing away, it's scary.
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It's scary because what is happening after that?
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And in Buddhism, they teach us that the moment of death, your state of mind at that time of passing is very important.
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And instead of being in fear, instead of panicking, instead of taking your mind to that dark space,
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we have to train ourselves to reconnect with this good feeling, reconnect with the proud feeling.
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Imagine when you're passing away, many times it comes with a lot of pain, it comes with a lot of suffering, it comes with physical pain,
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and it's easy for our mind to go there.
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And what our masters or what our teachers are teaching I say, train yourself to make it a habit, to come back to the positive side, to come back.
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Because when you're in pain, you're going to forget that.
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And it needs to be secondary.
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It needs to be this second nature where, uh-uh, come back to that good feeling.
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Come back to the proud feeling.
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And for me, when I was working in hospice before, regardless of anyone from any tradition, when the family members are with the person who's passing away,
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they always tell them, loved ones, forget everything.
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Just leave all the heavy stuff.
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Just think good thoughts.
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Go to that good space.
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Think of positive things.
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And if we have not been practicing that, it can be hard to access.
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So why our master teaches us every single day for us is we're practicing to recollect this, to go there because in our time of need,
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in our time of transition and passing, it's going to be more challenging if we have not developed this habit.
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But for me, I just wanted to share all of this because like I said, it took me almost a decade to develop this habit.
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I didn't know and I wish someone would have broken down those steps
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and I wanted to share all of this with you is because hopefully if you're on this path to the spiritual path, the path to developing your mind,
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then hopefully this shortens your learning curve, your time, and with this then you can use it to apply into your daily life.
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But again as always I hope these things are helpful.
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Please if you can share your experience, what are you doing and what specifically was helpful for you.
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As always just I just wanted to send you my blessings all the way from Thailand.
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Hope you all are doing well.
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Satu everyone.
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Take care.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Unlock the Secret Power of Generosity”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: practice, generosity, giving, feeling. This video has 274 sentences and 3544 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:47. The speaker talks at a natural 156 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| generosity noun | /ˌd͡ʒɛn.əˈɹɑ.sə.ti/ | The trait of being willing to donate money, resources, or time. |
| meditation noun | /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/ | A devotional exercise of, or leading to, contemplation. |
| recollect verb | /ɹɛkəˈlɛkt/ | To recall; to collect one's thoughts again, especially about past events. |
| merit noun | /ˈmɛɹɪt/ | A claim to commendation or a reward. |
| deed noun | /diːd/ | An action or act; something that is done. |
| purify verb | /ˈpjʊɹɪfaɪ/ | To cleanse, or rid of impurities. |
| anchor noun | /ˈæŋ.kəː/ | A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river to resist movement. |
| blanket noun | /ˈblæŋ.kɪt/ | A heavy, loosely woven fabric, usually large and woollen, used for warmth while sleeping or resting. |
| dedicate verb | /ˈdɛdɪˌkeɪt/ | To set apart for a deity or for religious purposes; consecrate. |
| monastery noun | /ˈmɑnəˌstɛɹi/ | A residence for monks or others who have taken religious vows. |
| monk noun | /mʌŋk/ | A male member of a monastic order who has devoted his life for religious service. |
| donation noun | /doʊˈneɪʃən/ | A voluntary gift or contribution for a specific cause. |
| goodness noun | /ˈɡʊdnəs/ | The state or characteristic of being good. |
| bubble noun | /ˈbʌbəl/ | A spherically contained volume of air or other gas in a liquid, commonly a soapy liquid. |
| deepen verb | /ˈdiːpən/ | To make deep or deeper |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pass away verb | To die. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| drive up verb | To cause or force a price, quantity, rate, etc. to increase. | |
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| drive down verb | To cause or force a price, quantity, rate, etc. to decrease. | |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You can see, is there an opportunity?
- What did you do today?
- What did you do this week?
- Also, what did you do this year?
- What did you do this month?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | You've been doing · have not been practicing |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | You've already done · you've done · haven't done |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · those who are · person who strives |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 69 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, you've, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: deathbed /ˈdɛθˌbɛd/, truthful /ˈtɹuːθ.f(ə)l/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: meditation /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/, donation /doʊˈneɪʃən/, shorten /ˈʃɔɹtn̩/, shine /ʃaɪn/
- Long words — get the stress right: generosity /ˌd͡ʒɛn.əˈɹɑ.sə.ti/, monastery /ˈmɑnəˌstɛɹi/, extracurricular /ˌɛkstɹəkəˈɹɪkjʊlə(ɹ)/, objectively /əbˈd͡ʒɛktɪvli/, positivity /ˌpɑ.zɪˈtɪv.ɪ.ti/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like generosity, meditation, recollect.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.