Prajnaparamita: The Perfection of Wisdom

The heart of wisdom

 is the ever deepening awareness of emptiness,

 and the way of living

 that arises from such awareness.  

       Prajna means wisdom, which in Buddhism refers to having deep insight into emptiness.  Wisdom is the sixth and last perfection.  The practice of the perfections supports the growth of wisdom, and all of the perfections in turn are perfected themselves in through the growth of prajnaparamita.  

–      Three aspects of emptiness, 219: Sunyata is a Mahayana term; but it brought together under one name three earlier Buddhist concepts: impermanence, dependent arising, and no-self… all of which served to undermine the dominant Indian notion of svabhava.  “Nothing generates itself, nothing stands on its own, and nothing just is what it is forever.” 

–      Against eternal truth, 222: “If you seek a kind of wisdom that is unchanging, an eternal wisdom that exists in and of itself, something that just is what it is without reference to context, relations, and time, then you seek it unwisely.”  So, if someone claims, “but the Buddha said that emptiness…”

–      The Vimalakirti Sutra: Wisdom is “overcoming the habit of clinging to an ultimate ground.”     

–      Prajnaparamita and language, 225:  In The Large Sutra of Perfect Wisdom: Bodhisattvas refer to the ideas in their minds as “notions, agreed symbols, and convenient expressions,” but not as truth.  The Buddha says: “Beings are supported on words and signs, based on imagination of that which is not.”  Wright: “The tendency to assume the solidity, the permanence, and the independence of things is grounded in the familiarity of language.”  Part of the perfection of wisdom is recognizing how the way we perceive the world is shaped by the language we have about it. 

–      Why do we not speak of wisdom today?  Are we unsure of it’s meaning?  Do we associate it with a timeless truth and morality in which, as a society, we no longer believe in?  I feel we have trouble conceiving of wisdom, and that Buddhism is an aid in gaining a fresh understanding of it. 

–      Wisdom as flexibility: wisdom does not follow rules, it looks at whether or not rules are appropriate in a situation; wisdom requires improvisation.

–      Wisdom’s relation to knowledge: Wisdom involves being able to see “how all the elements of a situation fit together, how each factor should be weighted in relation to the others, and how this particular situation stands in relation to overarching ideals.”  “Wisdom includes a realistic understanding of the contours of our ignorance.” A wise person will understand the value of knowledge and seek it constantly.   

–      “Experience disillusions us.  It divests us of ‘knowledge’ that is sometimes so dogmatically held that it gets in the way of learning.” 

–      Wisdom and suffering: A wise person opens themselves up to being wrong, to not understanding, and perhaps even to needing to fundamentally re-analyze the world.  A wise person seeks out the transformative powers within moments of disruption and suffering. 

–      The word “perfection” can be misleading.  Perfection is emptiness, not a final goal that looks the same for everyone.  It is not “an established ultimate level beyond which we cannot go.”  Practicing the six perfections means being engaged in the constant act of perfecting, of moving towards greater vision, greater wisdom. 

–      Form is emptiness, emptiness form, 240: “When the early Mahayana sutras claim that ‘form is emptiness and emptiness is form,’ they contemplate the relationship between individual things and the always moving contexts within which they receive their identity.” 

–      Wisdom involves contextualization, 241: “Whenever we understand anything, we do so from a position within a particular context, a setting that defines a particular point of view, a perspective.  We never stand outside the world to see it as a whole, but always understand in finite ways from a position within it.”  A wise person examines the context in which they stand and examines all things contextually.

–      The discipline of truth: “We are always charged with the discipline of truth, the effort to see the world for what it is.”  We should always “strive to see things as clearly and profoundly as we can, given the circumstances in which we find ourselves.” 

–      “Wisdom calls on us to release ourselves from dogmatic self-assertion, setting aside insecure claims to absolute certainty, while at the same time avoiding the hopeless posture of relativistic arbitrariness that prematurely surrenders the quest for understanding.”     

–      Genetic fallacy, 250: “the common assumption that the value of something is based solely on its origins… the fact that something comes into being through particular circumstances, all contingent, does not in any sense undermine its value.  Indeed, there are no alternatives to this form of origination.  Everything that exists arises out of dependent circumstances, and everything is for that reason open to reformation.”  The genetic fallacy is important to consider because we have inherited a notion that the “pure” form of a religion is its original form, which impedes us from examining how religious traditions brilliantly transform themselves to make sense in new contexts. 

–      Working with traditions: Traditions offer powerful ideals, and are a place to start and advance from.  We can use traditions to articulate and refine contemporary ideals.  In thinking creatively about traditions, and morphing them to suit current needs, we are not overthrowing tradition but standing on it.  Mindfulness requires us to create our own Buddhist traditions, such as these non-traditional reassessments of the paramitas. 

Dhyanaparamita; The Perfection of Meditation

The perfection of living a meditative life.

Dhyana, or meditation, is the second to last perfection, following energy and preceding wisdom.  

–      “Meditation names a set of practices and disciplines that suspend daily activity in order to cultivate the mental orientation behind all other activities.”  214. 

–      Three forms of meditative/suspending activity: presence, critical reflection, and reflexivity. Presence/mindfulness is awareness of the immediate experience of the internal and external world, environment and body.  Reflective thinking steps out of this immediate experience; what one is aware of in a present moment is extended into reflection.  Reflection is the ability and habit of understanding how things work rather than getting stuck in the delusions of habits and conventions.  Reflexivity is self-awareness; the understanding of how ones mind works.  Mindfulness alone does not lead to compassion, all three forms of meditative activity are required.

–      Traditional Buddhists understand each of the six perfections to be character traits as well as bodies of practice. To be meditative is to be calm, thoughtful, contemplative, and imaginative.

–      Bhavana, the art of cultivation or of bringing into existence.  Bhavana requires siksa, or training, “in mental experiences that differ qualitatively from ordinary forms of awareness.”   174.

–      Energy and meditation: The perfection of meditation – changing the content and patterns of ones mind - follows after energy because it requires enormous amounts of it.  Raw energy requires guidance; the fifth and sixth perfections guide this energy. 

–      Meditation counters the three poisons and five hindrances:  The Three Poisons: Greed – we pull the world towards us.  Aversion – we push it away.  Delusion – we are oblivious to our true circumstances.  The Five Hindrances: sensual desire, ill-will, laziness, elation and depression, and doubt.  Wisdom is understood to be the state of mind that is untouched by the poisons and hindrances.

–      Two basic styles of meditation: samatha, “calming,” and vipassana, “insight.”  Samatha is geared towards stillness of mind and begins with following the breath.  Vipassana focuses on visualizing wisdom, which is a state of realizing impermanence, selflessness, and suffering.

–      Meditation on immediate experience aims to enhance the quality of pre-reflective experience – to become undistracted, aware of the present moment.  Awareness of the present requires a mental balance of relaxation and alertness.   

–      Breathing and observing the minds activity cultivates awareness of the present moment.  In both, we see how much influence our body has on our mind, and our mind on our body. 

–      Immediate experience involves thought, but it does not involve reflection.  Awareness is accompanied by thoughts like, “my breathing is soft,” “I feel cold,” etc., but these do not get extended into reflection.

–      Attentiveness to the present moment, or mindfulness, is not innately ethical. Sheer power of attentiveness and awareness of the moment does not lead to compassion; reflection and reflexivity are required.   

–      Reflective thinking and phenomenology, 193.  The main purpose of reflective thinking for Buddhists has been to observe and classify mental experiences.  In philosophy, this is called phenomenology, “the effort to study the contents of consciousness systematically by analyzing their different appearances and the effects they have on our minds.” 

–      Buddhist ethics arose out of phenomenological insight and description.  Its ethics were based on how actions affected consciousness.  

–      The link between meditation and philosophy, 197: “Both ‘philosophy’ and ‘meditation’ are extraordinary cultural practices, activities that suspend the ordinary, everyday flow of life.  In both philosophy and meditation we withdraw from the surge of ordinary, worldly experience, temporarily stepping back in order to gather ourselves, and through a transformative cultivation of the mind, to prepare ourselves to reenter ordinary life with greater perspective, vision, and efficacy.  Moreover, wisdom is the primary goal of both practices.  Meditation and philosophy, conceived as two forms of a larger comprehensive sphere of mental practice, have been understood in Buddhism to work in conjunction, both active in the service of human emancipation.

“The split between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ that occasionally surface as a vexing problem in Western cultures is only occasionally visible in Buddhist contexts.  Theoretical reflection is a practice, one that is central to the maintenance of all other practices.  If you do not think about your practices and your goals in comprehensive, theoretical terms, they will remain undeveloped, unsophisticated, and, in some sense at least, ineffective.  Philosophical practice is therefor conjoined with other practices and serves them by clarifying and honing their connection to life.  Like other practices, theoretical thinking aims to transform daily life by bringing insight to bear on it.” 

–      Reflexive Meditation: This is meditation on forces that shape ones thoughts… desires, motives, and actions, but most importantly, no-self.

–      Freedom as ability to analyze our causes and conditions, 206:  In saying that our nature, like the nature of everything else, is interdependent, the doctrine of emptiness may seem to say that we are not totally free beings… that we do not shape ourselves.  But to think that we are not interdependent beings or beings determined by our world - that we have a self that is totally independent of the world and would be just as it is regardless of the forces of the world – is to live in delusion.  In one sense, to be conditioned is a restriction on freedom – we cannot chose to be anything; we are not who we are today simply because we chose to be that.  The true restriction of our freedom is to think that we are the product purely of our choices.  This restricts us from being able to analyze the true causes and conditions of our experiences.  

–      Certainty as ignorance: If we exist in certainty, we are not perceiving “the contours of our ignorance,” and are experiencing delusion.     

–      208: “The way you participate in your current given worldview shapes the extent to which you will be able to see alternatives to it and be able to reach out beyond it in freedom.” 

–      Imagination: fantasies that are detached from possibility are fun; fantasies of how to actualize an ideal have a distinct ethical character.  Imaginative meditations are based on self-knowledge.  “Imagination, in its most creative and productive forms, is a discipline.”  This imagination has the goal of transformation… “of breaking through the weaknesses of previous orders… products of the imagination are often counterintuitive… they run against the grain of our previous ways of understanding ourselves and the world… Our measure of them is the degree to which they open up new dimensions of reality to our mind.”

Viryaparamita: the Perfection of Energy

Viryaparamita;

The cycle of energy

Arising from the commitment to enlightenment

That further fuels that commitment. 

–      The perfection of energy includes both the cultivation of energy, and the observance of energy as it manifests in all of our actions, thoughts, and feelings.   Observing the energy that accompanies our acts of generosity, patience, and other paramitas is an important part of understanding them and visualizing how to perfect them.

–      Energy as awareness of possibility, 139: “Energy level shapes our understanding of what is possible in life and is therefor critical in determining what kinds of self-transformation we might seek and attain.”

–      The most basic technique for creating the sort of energy that allows one to ardently practice is the visualization of enlightenment. 

–      Energy and ethics: There are two basic ways to fail ethically: to commit a wrong, and to not develop oneself.  A kind and loving person who does not develop themself is lacking in the perfection of energy.

–      When we do not have energy, we may lack the motivation to care about morality at all.  Lacking energy, we are not driven towards anything.

–       Energetic: observant, attentive, responsive, awake, sensitive, alert, attuned

–      Energy and release: to expend energy all the time is not perfection – perfection requires knowing how to release into laughter, playfulness, meditation. 

–      Energy and pleasure: great energy is gained through learning to enjoy more profoundly, including learning to enjoy the pleasures of the body more profoundly.  There is always more subtlety and beauty to be seen and felt.

–      Desire as restriction of self, 155: “Desires encourage us to emphasize our own needs and perspectives over others and tend to block a wider understanding of the situation in which we find ourselves… our self-understanding shrinks… I become the one who seeks my own satisfaction… the act of grasping shrinks our vision and character… narrow, restricted desires can give rise to narrow, restricted lives.”

–      Addiction and desire, 155: “Addictions are desires that distort our judgment, and because of that, restrict our freedom… When they are not fulfilled, they become forms of suffering that come to be experienced as desperation…. Wanting something need not be destructive, but allowing it to block judgment, restrict freedom, and derail pursuit of enlightenment is.  Captured by craving, energy is diminished…”  

–      In the midst of desire, yet fully present with all being. 

–      Desire and rationalization: Desiring strongly, excuses and rationalizations come easily. 

–      Perfecting energy requires overcoming spiritual weaknesses; facing spiritual weaknesses requires courage; therefore perfecting energy requires courage.    

–      Three types of courage:

1.    Courage in response to the physical threat of injury or death.

2.    Courage in the face of emotional pain, such as despair or loss of purpose.

3.    Courage as an everyday act of self-care and development… of viryaparamita.

–      Everyday courage: “Courage is the capacity of body and mind not to allow the fear we all face to hold sway over our thoughts, emotions, desires, and activities.  It is the everyday courage to expand and change, to feel joy, to experience beauty, and to love both the world and our own existence in it despite all the ways that our lives are endangered.” 

–      Despair as temptation, 166: “Despair is the disappearance or surrender of hope, the release of all desire directed at the good life.”  Because continuing to struggle and grow is so hard at times, the urge to let go, to forget, to give up is enticing.  Despair is an easy way out, especially because we are often unaware that we are despairing.  (For example, broken hearted, I abandoned taking the precepts.  I couldn’t figure out why, I only later realized that I was in despair.) 

–      Depression: “A motionless urge for seclusion, invulnerability, closure.”  We find ourselves “unable to withstand the pain of a new beginning, opting instead for unconscious strategies of self-protection… We find ourselves willing to give up all together rather than face it again.”   

–      Faith generates energy.

–      Energy is not only about quantity but quality.  Meditating on energy, gain awareness of all that impedes it and facilitates it.