The Six Perfections
March 28, 2016 Daniel Scharpenburg Patheos
The most important teaching for walking the bodhisattva path is the six perfections. The six perfections free us from delusion and lead us to Awakening. This is, above all else, the path to awakening that I really connect with. If we practice the six perfections in our lives, then we can dwell in Enlightenment. This is, to me, the central point of Buddhism.
The six paramitas (usually translated as perfections) are a teaching of
Mahayana Buddhism. They are said to be vehicles to take us from shore of sorrow
to the shore of peace and joy. We are on the shore of suffering, anger, and
depression and we want to cross over to the shore of well-being and
transcendence. Practicing the Six Paramitas is said to help us unleash the joy
within.
This six paramitas are: Generosity, Virtue, Patience, Diligence, Concentration,
and Wisdom.
The Paramita
of Generosity
People tend to think that this means just giving material things and that isn’t
necessarily the case.
We can give all sorts of things. We can give our time, our patience, our love.
The best gift we can offer is our presence. To be there when someone needs us,
to listen when someone needs to talk. When we give our presence to someone that
wants it, we are practicing the perfection of generosity.
Because of our meditation practice, we can be more mindfully present. Listening
instead of waiting to talk, paying attention when attention is needed.
We can also give stability. When our thoughts and feelings are unstable, we can
cause all sorts of harm and unhappiness to ourselves and others.
We can also give peace. When we are peaceful and have a peaceful relationship
to the world around us, it brings benefit to everyone.
We can also give space. Staying away when someone wants time alone is a form of
giving.
We can also give understanding. When we pay attention to what others are going
through we can better understand how to interact with them in ways that are
helpful.
Generosity is a wonderful practice. The Buddha said when we are angry at
someone we can practice generosity toward them as a way to soften our anger.
The Paramita
of Virtue
The Second Paramita is something we cultivate in two ways.
One way is through mindfulness training and the second way is through precepts.
I’m going to write about the five mindfulness trainings now and save the
precepts for another time.
Practicing the Five Mindfulness Trainings is a good way to transform our
behavior in a positive way. This is a teaching created by the Zen Monk Thich
Nhat Hanh.
Some of these overlap with the precepts a little, so it would be repetitive to
write about both here.
The Five Mindfulness Trainings
1) Protect other beings. This applies to humans as well as other animals and
plants. We should protect and help whenever possible.
2) To prevent the exploitation of humans and other beings. The normal way of
doing things is often to step on others in order to get ahead in life.
3) Be faithful in relationships.
4) Practice deep listening and loving speech
5) Be mindful about your consumption.
The Paramita of Patience
This
represents our ability to receive and transform our suffering.
The Buddha compared acceptance to water. If you pour some salt into a glass of
water it will have a big impact. If you pour it into a river it will have no
impact at at all.
We are the same way.
If our ability to accept is small, then we will suffer a great deal even when
very minor things happen, like someone saying an unkind word or annoying us.
But if our ability to accept is large, then such things won’t have quite the
same impact on us. It is so easy to carry the weight of an unkind word or
action with us.
This Paramita represents our ability to receive, accept, and transform any pain
and suffering that comes our way. We often tend to make things worse for
ourselves than they really need to be.
The Paramita of Diligence
This
represents our motivation on the path.
This Paramita is our devotion to cultivating the other five. It’s the one that
really keeps us inspired to continue rather than giving up.
We can recognize the things that cause suffering in ourselves and others and we
should do what we can to lessen these things.
The Buddha sometimes described life in terms of watering seeds. The seeds of
anger, jealousy, and despair exist in our minds and we should try to refrain
from watering them if we can. This means trying to bring happiness to ourselves
and others.
The Paramita of Diligence represents striving to water positive seeds in our
minds instead.
It’s said to have three components:
1) courage: the development of character. The will to walk the path with a
sense on conviction and also to motivate others by our desire to walk the path.
2) spiritual training: taking our practice in our own hands. This component
represents expressing our commitment to practice, not just when we’re in
meditation, but in our daily lives as well. Talking about Buddhist concepts is
great, but we really need to put them into practice at home too. Learning about
the Paramita of Generosity, for example, is good, but we also need to actually
put it into practice and be generous.
3) benefiting others: the Buddhist path is helping us to lessen our suffering
and clear away our delusion and that is great. But, another important aspect is
our wish to not cause suffering for others. We call this the way of the
Bodhisattva.
The Paramita of Meditation
Meditation
in this sense consists of two aspects.
First is stopping. Our minds run through our whole lives, chasing one idea
after another. Stopping means to stop in the present moment, to settle our
monkey minds and be here now. Everything is in this moment. With this
meditation practice we can calm our minds. We can practice mindful breathing,
mindful walking, and mindful sitting. This is also the practice of
concentration, so we can live deeply each moment of our lives, touching the
deepest levels of our being.
The second aspect of meditation is looking deeply to see the true nature of
things. This is where we really cultivate an understanding of ourselves and the
world around us.
The Paramita of Wisdom
This is the
highest form of understanding, free from concepts, ideas, and views. Prajna is
the seed of Enlightenment within us. This is what carries us to Enlightenment.
There is a lot of Buddhist literature on the Paramita of Wisdom (prajnaparamita),
including the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra. I really recommend reading
these.
What we can talk about is looking deeply at the nature of things. Waves have a
beginning and an end. Some are big and some are small. But they’re all made of
water. They all come from and return to the same ocean. And, more importantly,
they’re never truly separate from the ocean.
If we look deeply at ourselves and the world around us, we can come to
understand that we have the same nature as these waves. We share the same
ground of being as all other beings.
The Paramita of Wisdom represents our understanding of the oneness of things
and it’s really considered the most important of the six perfections.
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