I love to teach the truth about the charge of the world. The subject of my talk tonight will be the Paramitas, the six or ten Paramitas. The reason I'm giving this talk on the Paramitas is that I would like to read a book, a new book by Robert Aikenrushi, and his commentary on the

[01:09]

And since that's what I'm doing, it makes it easier for me to talk about it. But paramitas are very important for all Zen students to understand and to think about. Paramita means several things, but in this case it means perfection. And it's associated with prajnaparamita, or the perfection of wisdom. Prajna, that is wisdom, is distinct from knowledge. And this kind of wisdom called prajna from intuition, so it's really our intuitive understanding.

[02:17]

And intuition, in this case, means directly knowing, with or without any mediation, like thinking. Without having to be discriminated to thinking mind, It's something that we know, like hands and feet. So it's our natural heritage, touching base with our true being, Prajna, arising. And the Paramitas represent its manifestations in our behavior, how it manifests in our behavior, or how it manifests and influences our behavior.

[03:25]

So, originally there were six prajnaparamitas, which appeared maybe somewhere around the first century, but I don't know exactly. I could have appeared that way. And then later, ten were counted, four more were added. And around that time, people started using the decimal system, and ten became a very popular number. And so the Buddhist used 10 as a way of counting various lists, making up lists, including 10 things. So he would show them 10 precepts, and 10 paramitas, and so forth.

[04:39]

But usually, when we study the paramitas, we usually study the first six, which seem to be the major paramitas. And the other four are sometimes included and sometimes not. So this book, in this book, I hope it won't be talked about all ten. I don't think I'll get there far. So, the first six, I'll read them to you. They're sometimes translated a little bit differently, so I'll give you some of the alternatives. First is dharmasparamita, which is giving, or generosity, not withholding, or relinquishment, actually.

[05:42]

And then the second one is morality, or ethics, or precepts, which includes precepts. That's how to behave. And the third one is forbearance, shanti. Shanti usually is translated as patience, or forbearance, or endurance. And the fourth one is nirya, which comes from the word Zero, or energy. And effort. Real. And I like to call it enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for practice. And the fifth is Dhyana. Dhyana, of course, means meditation.

[06:47]

gargling, for us, we might call it gargling. And the sixth is Kantanapalamita, the protection of wisdom, which means non-self-centeredness, non-dual activities. And the seventh one is Usually translated as skillful means. And here we translate it as compassionate means. And eighth, pranidhana palanisa, which translates as aspiration. an inspiration for enlightenment.

[07:56]

And the ninth one is spiritual power called Bala. The Bala is the spiritual power of God. And then the next, the tenth one is knowledge, Jnana. So it includes both knowledge and wisdom. So the first four actually are based on conduct or morality or ethics. And in Buddhism, Buddhist practice Right conduct is really the basis for practice. And in most Buddhist practicing, one learns, the first thing one learns is right conduct.

[09:13]

And when one enters a monastery, the first thing that one should learn is right conduct. teach yourself and others and your surroundings. How to take care of our surroundings and the people around us and ourselves. And it's interesting here to say Paramita, or perfection, is this. But I think it's good to say instead of just Dhanaparamita, Dhanaprasnaparamita. Because what makes the difference between ordinary doing and paramita is prajna. So each paramita, or each one of these paramitas, is only a perfection of this activity when it's

[10:22]

as prajna, as its basis. So, in giving, generosity, giving is done without a selfish or self-centered attitude. When one gives, one just gives and forgets. So, in the precept, the eighth precept is not withholding the things, we should not withhold either material or spiritual assets. We should freely give material things, and we should freely give

[11:30]

whatever knowledge or understanding we have to help people. But without expectation, without expectation that it will either help the person or that there will be any return to ourselves, So when we give material things, we are actually emptying ourselves in some way. And of course we can rejoice with people when they have something, but we shouldn't be attached to what we're giving. that we should not be attached to our generosity or even think I'm being generous.

[12:40]

But the greatest generosity is how we give ourselves. How we relinquish. not just material things, but how we relinquish our hold on ourselves. I remember, I used to be a painter at one time in my life, when in my lifetime. And once in a while, it would occur to me, should I save some of these ideas for another painting or should I put them into this painting? And if I saved some of my ideas for another painting, the painting I was doing would never work. In order for the painting to work, I had to give everything I had completely to what I was doing.

[13:55]

Otherwise it wasn't a real painting. And in our life, unless we're giving ourselves completely and wholeheartedly to what we're doing, it's not a real life. So, the thought that we can actually retain something, or have something, is a kind of joke on ourselves. If we really want something, The only way to really have anything is to give everything away, completely. People think, well, if I give everything away, I'll be drained. And you hear people say this sometimes, they say, oh, I'm always giving, and I'm always giving, and I'm so drained. There's no giving there. In this case, this is not giving. If there was real giving, there would be complete renewal. We'd have to keep emptying ourselves

[14:58]

and maybe make space for something new. But maybe we think, if I give it all away, maybe something new won't appear, and then I'll just be empty. We don't realize how wonderful it is to be empty. Sometimes people say, well, you know, I've given up this and I've given up that, And I feel uneasy because there's nothing to fill up this kind of hole that needs to be something. And I always say to people, like Renee said it to me, just be patient. Don't fill up your life with something. Because then when the thing you really want comes along, you won't have space for it. So this goes into the next karmic level, this part.

[16:04]

Patience. So holding back is, um... And protecting myself is a part of life, misery. for us. The one who is always emptying, always continually giving and emptying himself is the one who has food. So prajnaparamita is really the basis. Prajnaparamita starts in the Donna Parmita and Padma Parmita, the first of the six, are really the faces of the earth. Not lipoding, relinquishing, and...

[17:18]

Letting go. And it's also the ability, if you had, for example, Dharmakamita, it's the ability to trust the universe. So, giving is one side, and receiving is the other. We have to be able to receive, also, in the same way. And we have to have space for receiving. Which means that whatever we turn to, we let in. We have the ability to let that in. So generosity works both ways. On the one hand, On the other hand, it's the community system.

[18:30]

A lot of us have a difficult time receiving. We don't know what to say. We couldn't receive something. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Or something. We really have a hard time sometimes saying thank you. We don't know how to receive something. And if it stops with us, we're stopping something. So the vitality of life is upheld or works through circulation. It's just like the blood in our body. When our veins are open, our body has vitality.

[19:35]

It's a good circulation. But when we close down, then it stops. And that's the thing, it's giving and receiving. So, we're giving and receiving. You see how many Atmosphere. And a harmonious atmosphere is what keeps our lungs vital. And especially in the community. We can actually once talk about money. People think money is dirty. But money is just money. And it needs to circulate. When it doesn't circulate, society gets sick. As you can see. So, we have to spend money, and we have to use it wisely, but we have to use it. There's nothing wrong with money, but it has to be used in the right way, and circulated, so that everyone has a part of it, everyone is infused with it.

[20:50]

So in that paramita, shila paramita, morality, morality, it's easier to say morality changes. What was right yesterday is not necessarily right today. And what's right today will not necessarily be right tomorrow. And what was right yesterday, if not right today, may be right tomorrow. not rigid rules, but guidelines for behavior, taking into account how things change. So, this Śrīla Paramita, which is rules for conduct and the basis of it,

[22:05]

When one is ordained, as a monk somewhere in the East, they take 250 precepts, major precepts and minor precepts. So for us, in the Zen school, The 250 precepts have been instilled to 16 precepts, which include the three refuges, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the three pure precepts, and the ten prohibitory, or two-to-nine precepts. And these precepts also, as well as the paramitas, what's the guideline for behavior? People say, well, sometimes, I can't do those precepts.

[23:16]

I'll never be able to keep them. That's true. No one is able to keep them. But we're not capable anyway. Precepts are much more than anybody can manage. But we have something that's there that Now that we can manage, we may keep a precept one day and break it the next. But keeping a precept might not be the purpose of this, because we may become proud of how good we are. And since we can't be proud of how good we are, we're breaking the precept. It's very tricky. And sometimes we may break a precept in order to keep a precept. So precepts is a very profound and deep study.

[24:24]

And it's not just simply learning. Precepts come out of our own desire for knowing how to conduct ourselves. our own inner request. But sometimes it looks like they're a rope to bind you with. But to stay within the precepts gives us a way of conduct in which we can always check to see if we're actually practicing that. So when we break a precept, we realize that we're not, that it's outside of practice. And so it helps us to get past practice. So breaking a precept, we may go against a precept, but actually breaking a precept is pretty hard.

[25:30]

Unless we just completely think that some hypocritical and then breaking it, and not regarding that there's anything wrong. That's prejudice, prejudice. But we're always stepping outside, and then regretting something, or it helps us to look at our life, and it helps us to come back to our life. So prejudice is very important. foundation, as I said before, by time. There are major precepts, 10 major precepts, 15. And then there are a whole bunch of minor precepts, which have to do with the time and the site.

[26:35]

We don't observe all of the minor precepts ancient Buddhism. As a matter of fact, when Shakyamuni Buddha was ready to die, Ananda asked him, do we really have to keep all the minor precepts? And Buddha said, hmmm, not necessarily. And then later, he told this to Mahapajapa, So, what minor precepts could he say that he would go to hell if not to see? I don't know. He wouldn't say. And so, Mahatma Jaya would then repeat some more. And so, he would be very ruled on for a long time. I don't say that's right or wrong.

[27:39]

But we should always be making up our own. Our own mining precepts. We should always be developing our own mining precepts that have to do with our times and our clothes and our activities. That which is serious for our society. And we will do that. So we're always struggling. And it's good that we're struggling with them. We could just say, don't do this, and don't do that. And we could set up really rigid rules that would divide the efforts in one way. But in many cases, it really hasn't been yet. And so we've worked through a ton of difficult,

[28:47]

especially around sexual abuse, that's the most difficult area to really impose rules on. So we're always involved in sexual abuse and accessibility in this area. So the next one is Shanti, which is translated usually as patience or endurance. And forbearance, I guess forbearance is our patience. Patience usually means to wait patiently, to endure something. And that is one side of it.

[29:53]

Advocacy, I think, helps you to endure a lot of pain. You know, sashimi, going through a lot of learning how to do jajang and putting sashimi. Just stay patient. Get all the jajang. Just stay patient. It doesn't mean waiting for something. Shanti, here, means more like actually being one with whatever it is. To not wait until the thing you need to visit. Like, to be one with it. To not wait until your problem is resolved. But to be run with a problem, it's very much bound up with dharma, of giving.

[31:03]

Giving yourself to the situation. This is not something basic, that you're doing. Sometimes you have to do something to feel like that. But if you just let go of it, and just see that it's a creation, and you find that actually you come back to life, and you can accept what you didn't think you could accept. I never... There is a phrase in Zen, a categorization we use a lot, Endure the unendurable. But if you're thinking, you have to endure the unendurable. I used to put right on in bed with her. That was when I was in London. I used to think that maybe

[32:06]

I first learned to do dodging, and killing machines. You get all kinds of pictures about what's happening to you. And now the sharks are killing it my way. But it's not just dodging. Our whole life, we're waiting for something. The one long thing we're going to do is the end. And then we have more short term goals. When am I going to grow up? When am I going to get married? you know, where am I going to have this and when am I going to do that?

[33:21]

So at the end, that's one of the ways it's going to end, period of time. So there is anxiety, and there's this underlying anxiety, and then there's superficial anxiety. And when the superficial anxiety is not there, then you're You become aware of the long, underlying anxiety. You know, suddenly you're alone. Suddenly you're out in the middle of nowhere, and there's nothing on top going on, and boom, you're right there in the midst of the underlying anxiety of your life. See, because we have all this activity going on, we think we know where we are. We have our friends, and our job, and our world, you know, and we touch all these things and then we know where we are.

[34:33]

They take it out of the way, but anyway, see? So, touching this and how we touch it and how we settle into it and how to just be there with it. And in the last practice period, the staff and I were talking about what the activities were going to be every day until the end of the practice period. We were at the middle of the practice period. And I said, well, you have to make sure that you're doing this, and then you have to make sure that you're doing that, and then, hey, the type of things I'm most over. And nothing happens.

[35:35]

You're just thinking. You're still right here. But in that thinking, ah, the type of things I'm most over. So I'm the only one that's still here. So actually, it's never over. You just look into me. with some one after another. So we think about our lives in this discontinuous way. Discontinuous means at one o'clock I'm going to do this, and at two o'clock we'll do that, and at three o'clock we'll do this. But actually, life is continuous and nothing's going on at all. But it's really hard to tell in disaster. So this is guardian. This is guardian. We can find it. We can actually fix it.

[36:36]

Nothing going wrong. We can continue to find it. Without anxiety. Without patience. Beyond patience. women or trying to find themselves in the area of energy, raising the energy of the effort. And I like to call it enthusiasm. It's a practice. We really need that enthusiasm. And what keeps enthusiasm There can be various things, but if we think we're going to get something out of practice, at some point we become very disappointed.

[37:48]

You know, because the thing is, we're not enlightened yet. What is the big experience that we're talking about? If you have this kind of attitude of trying to get something, Your enthusiasm will reign. But your enthusiasm is kept up by dying. By continually giving yourself and emptying yourself. It's like the more you completely give yourself without desiring it, and without expecting anything, you like it still more than you like it. So it's like, it's filled with real vision. But when you hold back, you can hold back a little bit. You know, if you look in this thing, you know, you can't quite get through the window.

[38:53]

There's a prawn. The whole buffalo just passes through the window. It's such a big fish. can't get through. Why can't you just fail? Why can't you just go? When you go fail, get through. When the whole body gets through. But it's good, you know. We all like that, when we have fun. Something that we hang on to, that we feel that takes place. And a little bit of iron with me. That keeps holding all this pain and suffering. But we love it. And it's so hard to let go of.

[39:58]

I really appreciated my teacher because he never said... If you practice real hard, you will get something. He never said that. He never said, if you practice real hard, you will get something. He never said that. He said, if you practice real hard, you'll practice real hard. If you sit down there, you will get something. But you should really sit down there. For somebody to ask you a question, you've been sitting for a long time, you know, 30 years. How is that different to you now than it was when you first started talking? I'd say, it's not different. It's just the same. I didn't say it's not different. I said it's just the same. But time is different.

[41:20]

So, somehow my enthusiasm is always maintained the same. Somehow I always seem to have a stimulus of enthusiasm for practice. Although sometimes it drains me a bit. But only when I'm distracted. When I'm not distracted, it's always there. Just enthusiasm is just as confident. When you have confidence, you can have enthusiasm. And when you completely let go and just go for it, completely, even though you may have some problems, no problem. You know what to do. And you know you make mistakes.

[42:39]

I remember speaking to a trumpet player one time in the band. He said, well, I get up there and I play, you know, as best I can. I really play, I put my whole self into it. And when I make a mistake, I make a big mistake. So then the fifth fragment is called jñāna, the five scents, and of course, you know, jñāna and meditation. And jñāna and cosmos are two aspects of Buddhist practice. They're really just one scent. They're just two aspects of one scent. Sometimes people talk about the jnana school or the meditation school, and they're talking about the prajna school or the wisdom school.

[43:45]

But wisdom proceeds out of jnana, and jnana proceeds from wisdom, or prajna. The reason we practice is not to... The reason we practice meditation or prajna is not to attain wisdom, but because of our wisdom we practice darkness. What leads us to darkness is our inherent wisdom, inherent darkness. So it's like Zazen is like coming back home, it's not trying to gain something.

[44:55]

And in meditation, mindfulness becomes a factor in meditation. Nathan Roach plays with that, and he says he'd rather call it Recollection and mindfulness. Recollection means always coming back to what you're doing. Mindfulness can mean being very focused on each thing that you do. But recollection has more the feeling of getting off and coming back. It's like you're jogging. Your mind is always wandering and you keep coming back. It says he was good at practice. He mentioned in a book that he wrote a couple of times over there. It's a pamphlet, probably, of the practice of Jefferson. Let's see. He was very good at it.

[45:57]

He was very good at it. So these are aspects of, you know, And so the fifth one is wisdom, prajnaparamita. So prajna is not so easy to talk about, as you said, but also not so difficult. Because, you know, the perfection of wisdom, the prajnaparamita sutra, is the sutra that we chant every day. Why is there sin in the emptiness and why is there sin in the form? The sin is towards the mind, the sin is towards perception, the sin is towards mental formations, and the sin is towards consciousness.

[46:59]

And all dharma are emptying their own being. This is very important. All dharma, all things, are emptying their own being. Empty in their own being means that nothing has inherent existence. No dharma, no thing has inherent existence. Everything is related to something else and depends on something else or existence. So, interdependence is emptiness. in which everything can move and change.

[47:44]

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