Thoughts on the Paramita of Meditation.

Rev. Oriana La Chance, Prior of the Eugene Buddhist Priory

<http://www.eugenebuddhistpriory.org>, offered the following in the most

recent edition of Walking the Buddha's Path:*

Thoughts on the Paramita of Meditation

Since the priory began having our Sunday morning gatherings via Zoom, I

have been looking at the paramitas with the congregation. Not exactly in a

linear or systematic way—just picking up bits that get a “Hum, very

interesting,” or “Wow, yes” from me and exploring those bits. The

paramitas—the six perfections—are generosity, ethical discipline,

patience,

joyful effort, meditation and wisdom. In his book on the paramitas, *Entering

the Mind of Buddha, *Reb Anderson writes,

*“At the heart of this book is the assertion that the six heroic practices

of bodhisattvas are the appropriate response of the buddhas. These

practices invite us to enter the mind of buddha. . . . These practices are

methods of training bodhisattvas to leap beyond duality, suffering, and

delusion, while also leaping beyond enlightenment. These great,

transcendent practices arise in communion with buddha. They are a path of

training in being fully ourselves and allowing things to be fully

themselves. From that fullness, an appropriate response comes forth. These

teachings help us to understand the dynamism and vitality within the

stillness and the silence of the buddhas.”*

Reading this I am reminded that several years after I began giving Dharma

talks, I told my teacher that I was tired of giving talks on the paramitas.

I remember saying something like, “How much can you say about the

paramitas?” You know, ho hum, sort of a drag. I suspect this “sort of a

drag” came out of a fear of this independent self being “curtailed” by

generosity, by patience. Not freed, but held back. Yet, now, it seems to me

that the paramitas contain multitudes, and our understanding can only go

deeper and deeper, as they become more immediate to us.

The past few weeks I have been talking with the Sangha about the paramita

of meditation from the perspective of Great Master Dogen. In particular, I

have looked at Rev. Master Daishin Morgan’s thoughts, in his book *Buddha

Recognizes Buddha, *on Dogen’s “Rules for Meditation.” What I am

interested

in here is his response to Dogen’s passage:

*“Since Truth is not separate from training, training is unnecessary—the

separation will be as that between heaven and earth if even the slightest

gap exists, for when the opposites arise, the Buddha mind is lost. However

much you may be proud of your understanding, however much you may be

enlightened, whatever your attainment of wisdom and supernatural power,

your finding of the way to mind illumination, when the opposites arise you

have almost lost the way to salvation.”*

What is it about the opposites that trips us up? What hold does duality

have on us, and why is it so hard to give it up? Rev. Master points us in

this direction:

*“This is what happens when we believe that the situation we find ourselves

in lacks something. Such a feeling comes from dissatisfaction from the

judgment that the present is insufficient, and for it to be right,

fulfilling or enlightened we must add or remove something. We have divided

the present and judged the body of the Buddha as inadequate and become

immersed in the sense of incompleteness that accompanies the opposites.

Thus, we cannot see the Buddha mind.”*

What gives me pause here is, *“We have . . . become immersed in the sense

of incompleteness that accompanies the opposites.”* I’m struck by Rev.

Master’s juxtaposition of “incomplete” and “the opposites.” Yes.

Can there

be a sense of completeness when we divide things up into good and evil, I

want and I don’t want, myself and other?  Aren’t we, in effect, dividing

ourselves up? How can our lives be complete when we define ourselves by

division—what I call *“this and not that.” *When the opposites

arise, there

is always an “other,” something “over there” that we are striving

for. Or,

there is something we push away because it doesn’t measure up to our idea

of “when everything is just the way I want it to be.” This underscores

our

sense of separation, of almost being at war with the universe so that we

can get “mine,” so that we can make the world be the way we believe it

should be—if I’m honest, not for others, but for me. As long as we feel a

need to fix it, rearrange it in our image, there will be the fear and

desire that arise from a sense of something not being quite right. We feel

the gap between heaven and earth. Fear and desire become the basis for our

actions and, indeed, the Buddha mind is lost.

Rev. Master also writes,

*“The whole point of zazen is that we can entrust ourselves to the way

things are without needing to filter it through ideas and abstractions of

training, which will always be at least one step removed from the immediate

truth. Thus, in zazen, we learn to sit without adding anything or taking

anything away. To just sit is to train, and to train is to entrust

everything to the truth. . . . ”*

And, also:

*“To say that the life of the universe is training is another way of saying

that the life of the universe is the constant manifestation of Buddha

nature.”*

If the truth of Buddha nature is universal, then we cannot be separate from

it. It is already complete. Can we trust that, or do we have to get in

there with our individual spin on everything? It is our spin that creates

the idea of this separate being in a constant *competitive* dance with

everything. A dance we can only dance alone. Where is there opportunity for

the stillness and silence Dogen writes about?

In “Rules for Meditation,” Dogen begins with the idea that

enlightenment is

not created and cannot be destroyed. It doesn’t come or go. Enlightenment

is Buddha nature. Following from this, and very important, Rev. Master goes

on to say:

*“Zazen is an expression of our enlightened nature, rather than a means to

enlightenment.”*

Let me underline that by saying it again: “*Zazen is an expression of our

enlightened nature, rather than a means to enlightenment.”*

Doesn’t this make everything brighter and lighter? No intense holding

ourselves to some form which will bring us enlightenment, if we are good

enough, fierce enough, use our will enough to create some better state down

the road, maybe.

Again, as Reb Anderson begins his book:

*“These great, transcendent practices arise in communion with buddha. They

are a path of training in being fully ourselves and allowing things to be

fully themselves. From that fullness, an appropriate response comes

forth.”*

The paramitas? Maybe not sort of a drag. Maybe not so, yawn, boring.

Rather, the key to a good life. I don’t mean by this a life in which we

“do

good.” I mean a life led in accord with the truth.

I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the Dharma; I take refuge in

the Sangha.