I see two parts here, so I'll go a little "roundabout".
When you're generous, it's a beneficial action; there's a beneficial mind state - when you want to give and do something for others. Now, a beneficial mind state cannot exist at the same time as an unbeneficial mind state. They might alternate at a high speed, but they cannot exist together at the same time. Imagine I give you a gift, I say, "Here, this is for you", but I want something back, then I have both beneficial and unbeneficial thoughts in my mind that are alternating back and forth. But if I just give, not wanting anything back, then I have only beneficial thoughts in my mind. So, the development of generosity can certainly help us to avoid unbeneficial thoughts and behavior.
Now, not only do the generous actions that we're doing help us, but we also teach you to reflect on your generosity. So not only will you have a beneficial mind state now, but later, when you reflect upon it, you'll have a beneficial mind state then. Now, that beneficial mind state of reflecting on your generosity, one of the biggest purposes of that is to give you inner happiness, contentment and joy. So by being generous, and reflecting on it, you'll get more contentment and joy. As you've heard me say, that contentment and joy then gives us more energy. We see how wonderful it is to be generous. How it gives us more energy; how it makes us happier. Hopefully it becomes addictive, we just want to do more of it, because it's just so nice. It's nice for me, it's nice for the people I help, and, "Why not? This is great!" We start to see that being generous is part of being a true human being. Now, I think that answers the second part.
For the first part: Can you share your experience of balancing generosity with wisdom and compassion?
When we give, it can be very helpful to realize, what are the possible results of our giving. Am I giving in the best way? Am I giving in the way that will produce the best fruit? Everybody knows, that if you walk down the streets, say of New York, or Washington DC, or Sydney, in the more run down areas, and if you see a drunk on the street, and if you give them money, the money's usually going to go to more alcohol. Most people know it's not the best kind of giving to that guy on the street. When we think of giving to anybody, it's good to think about how we can maximize the gift. Can we give it in a way that the person gets a lot out of it, and there's more benefit?
About 12 years ago I read an article about a guy who died. I believe he was about 65 years old, from New York City, and he had a nickname. His nickname was "Gloves". How did he get this nickname "Gloves"? Every winter he walked the streets, going to beggars with a huge big bag of gloves, and he would hand them out, so the beggars could have warm hands.
The story said that a lot of the beggars thought the guy was crazy, they just wanted him to stay away from them. However, as the word spread that he was okay and just wanted to help, he was looked forward to. Every winter, the beggars would look forward to his visit on the streets, handing out, something like a thousand pairs of gloves. Every winter. So, rather than give them money, he realized this was something that would be better, for the beggars.
So, to have more wisdom in our generous deeds. How can we do the best for some other people? Out of our compassion, we want to help them, we try to be generous, but we need the wisdom there, to try to figure out what's the best way we can help.