The Second Paramita…Guidepost and Guardrail

So anyway, for the next couple months I'm going to be talking about the paramitas.

There are six of them, and in Buddhism they are the six liberating actions.

They're the foundation of how a bodhisattva moves through the world.

At this point, you and I are bodhisattvas in training.

We're not there yet.

We have a long way to go.

So we're in training.

So what is a bodhisattva? A bodhisattva is a being who dedicates their life to awakening for the benefit of all beings.

And so we can, to the extent that we dedicate our lives for the benefit of others, we can call ourselves at least bodhisattvas in training.

When I talk about the six paramitas, what I'm talking about is a Sanskrit word, and param means going beyond, and ita is actually gone, being gone.

And basically, there's different ways of defining them, but the one I like best is that they are movements of the mind that carry us across, across from self-centeredness to selfless openness, from isolated selfishness and selfish concerns to the liberation of all beings.

In the Mahayana and in the Vajrayana, practicing the six paramitas is a direct way to develop bodhichitta, which is the heart and mind of an enlightened being.

Paramitas, or virtues, are movements, again, movements of the mind that carry us to the shore of awakening.

These liberating actions begin with generosity, and I talked about that last month.

And basically, it's generosity is defined as giving fully.

Without attachment.

A very simple definition that Gampopa, in his Jewel Ornament of Liberation, discussed.

This is the Jeweled Ornament of Liberation.

Um, it's a thick book.

[laughs] So I wouldn't suggest you start out necessarily with this book, but...

So today I'm going to be talking about the virtue or the paramita of moral ethics or moral discipline.

Some, some people have named it actually meaningful action.

I, I like that definition too.

Uh, and so to provide some continuity between last month's talk about generosity and today about, uh, moral discipline, I'll, I'll sort of explain it this way.

They, they say that generosity opens the closed fist of attachment, allowing space for us to love and take care of other people.