Buddhism for Today, p36-37The third of the Six Perfections is perseverance, a quality that is especially important for people today. Śākyamuni Buddha was endowed with all the virtues and became the Buddha through his constant practice. Although it is a sin against him to emphasize only one of his virtues, the greatest virtue of the Buddha as a man seems to have been his generosity. No matter what biography of Śākyamuni Buddha we read or which of the sutras, we find that nowhere is it recorded that the Buddha ever became angry. However severely he was persecuted and however coldly his disciples turned against him and departed from him, he was always sympathetic and compassionate.
If I were asked to explain with a single phrase the character of Śākyamuni Buddha as a man, I would answer without hesitation, “A person of perfect generosity.” Therefore, I think that there is no action that makes Śākyamuni Buddha more sorrowful than when we become angry about something and reproach others or when we blame others for our own wrongs. Above all else, we should refrain from such actions toward each other. Perseverance is, in short, generosity. As we persevere in the practice of the bodhisattvas, we cease to become angry or reproachful toward others, or toward anything in the universe. We are apt to complain about the weather when it rains and to grumble about the dust when we have a spell of fine weather. However, when through perseverance we attain a calm and untroubled mind, we become thankful for both the rain and the sun. Then our minds become free from changes in our circumstances.
When we advance further, we come not only to have no feeling of anger and hatred toward those who hurt, insult, or betray us but even to wish actively to help them. On the other hand, we should not be swayed by flattery or praise of the good we may do but should quietly reflect on our conduct. We should not feel superior to others but should maintain a modest attitude when everything goes smoothly. All these attitudes come from perseverance. This mental state is the highest point of the practice of perseverance. Even though we cannot attain such a state of mind immediately, we can attain an attitude of compassion toward those who cause difficulties for us sooner than we expect. We ought to advance at least to this level. If this kind of perseverance were practiced by people throughout the world, this alone would establish peace and make mankind immeasurably happier.
Category Archives: Higan
Six Perfections: Precepts
Buddhism for Today, p36The practice of keeping the precepts is the second of the Six Perfections. This teaches us that we cannot truly save others unless we remove our own illusions through the precepts given by the Buddha, and that we should perfect ourselves by living an upright life. However, we must not think that we cannot guide others just because we are not perfect ourselves. We cannot improve ourselves if we shut ourselves off from others in our efforts to live correctly. A major point of keeping the precepts is to render service to others. The more we do for others, the more we can elevate ourselves, and the more we elevate ourselves, the more we can render service to others. Each reinforces the other.
Six Perfections: Donation
Buddhism for Today, p35-36[The Six Perfections] doctrine teaches us the six kinds of practice that bodhisattvas should follow to attain enlightenment. The Six Perfections are donation (fuse), keeping the precepts (jikai), perseverance (ninniku), assiduity (shōjin), meditation (zenjo), and wisdom (chie).
A bodhisattva is a person who, unlike the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha, wishes not only to extinguish his own illusions but to save others, as well. Therefore, the doctrine of the Six Perfections has the salvation of all living beings as its aim.
The practice of donation comes first in this doctrine. There are three kinds of donation: donating material goods, donating the Law, and donating fearlessness (the body). The first means to give others money or goods. The second refers to teaching others rightly. And the third means to remove the anxieties or sufferings of others through one’s own effort. There is no one who is unable to perform some form of donation. No matter how impoverished one is, he should be able to give alms to those who are worse off than he or to support a public work with however small a donation, if he has the will to do so. Even if there is someone who absolutely cannot afford to do so, he can be useful to others and to society by offering his services. A person who has knowledge or wisdom in some field should be able to teach others or guide them even if he has no money or is physically handicapped. Even a person of humble circumstances can perform donation of the Law. To speak of his own experiences to others can be his donation of the Law. Even to teach others a recipe or how to knit, for example, can be a way to donate the Law.
It is essential that we be useful to others by practicing these three kinds of donation within the limits of our ability. Needless to say, nothing can be better for us than to practice all three. The fact that donation is the first of the practices of the bodhisattva is highly significant.
On the Journey to the Other Shore
Higan is a seven-day period that happens three days before and three days after the Spring and Fall Equinox. During this period Buddhists are asked to consciously reflect upon themselves and their deeds in relation to the Six Paramitas, the perfections in behavior that make up the Bodhisattva practice. The three days before the Equinox and the three days after focus on each of these perfections. On the day of the Equinox, a ceremony his held honoring one’s ancestors and loved ones who have passed away.
This year the Equinox occurs on Sunday, March 20. Last year, I devoted the entire month of March and September to the topic. This year, since I’m already in the midst of my 800 Years of Faith project, I am going to post a single quote on the three days before and after the Equinox. For March, I’ve decided to use Nikkyō Niwano’s definition of the perfections found Buddhism for Today.
Energy: Universal
Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 171Buddhists claim (1) that everything is change, and this flux is without beginning or end, (2) that all things arise and pass away dependent on the force of energy surging forth from other things, which themselves were similarly generated, ad infinitum, and (3) that therefore there is “no-self” or essential unchanging core to anything, since all things are temporary formations of energies that are simply passing through their current states.
No traditional metaphysical system, whether religious or philosophical, comes as close to prefiguring modern physics as the Buddhist one. Contemporary physics works out of an understanding of energy as the generator of all things. Energy is thought to take a broad range of forms – from nuclear energy, gravitational energy, electrical energy, heat energy, chemical energy, kinetic energy, elastic energy, radiant energy, to mass energy. We are told, by no less a source than Albert Einstein, that matter is energy – that the two are essentially interchangeable. The various theories of creation in contemporary physics all point to the energy required to give rise to the universe. The leading theory – the Big Bang – sees the cosmos resulting from a primordial explosion of energy that is still expanding into increasing complexity. Nevertheless, we are told, the amount of energy in the universe is constant. It never changes, even though the forms it takes are constantly changing. The energy of an exploding star is the same as that of a boulder tumbling down a mountain, which is the same as that stored in a carrot, released in the spin of Einstein’s mind or the play of a small child.
Opening the Gate
During the Month of September, as I did in March, I am publishing articles related to Higan, which occurs on the Spring and Fall Equinox and extends three days before and three days after to involve the six pāramitās.
The word myō means gusoku (to be equipped with perfect teaching); “six” means all kinds of practices collectively designated as six pāramitā or six kinds of practices required for the attainment of Buddhahood. Śāripūtra and others wished to know the way in which a bodhisattva could fulfill the six pāramitā in order to obtain Buddhahood. Gu in gusoku means “mutually-possessed characteristics of the Ten Realms, and soku means to be satisfactory, that is to say, it is satisfactory for each of the Ten Realms to contain in itself characteristics of the other Nine Realms. Altogether of the 69,384 characters of the Lotus Sūtra, in the twenty-eight chapters in eight fascicles, each contains the character myō; each of them represents the Buddha with thirty-two or eighty marks of physical excellence. As each of the Ten Realms contains in it characteristics of the realm of the Buddha, Grand Master Miao-lê states in his Annotations on the Great Concentration and Insight, “Each realm contains characteristics of the realm of the Buddha, not to speak of those of the other Nine Realms.”
In response to the request by Śāripūtra and others to know how to fulfill the six pāramitā, Śākyamuni Buddha declares in the second “Expedients” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra that all Buddhas hope to open the gate to the wisdom of the Buddha for the people. The people here refer to the men of the Two Vehicles such as Śāripūtra, who had been considered unable to obtain Buddhahood, men of icchantika lacking the Buddha-nature and all those in the Nine Realms (except the realm of the Buddha). Therefore, His vow to save all the numerous people was at last fulfilled in preaching the Lotus Sūtra. That is what He meant in declaring in the same second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra: “I had vowed to make everyone exactly like Myself. The original vow of Mine has already been fulfilled.”
Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 67-68
Tolerance: Uncertainty
Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 130The most difficult challenge associated with the perfection of tolerance is tolerating the truth of uncertainty that derives from human finitude. Having learned to accept the uncertainty of life and its very real risks, we are now asked to tolerate the uncertainty of all the wisdom we have acquired. Mahayana Buddhist texts unflinchingly proclaim that the highest realization, the truth that is most difficult to encounter, is that all the teachings of Buddhism and all the other “truths” you have acquired are “empty.” Recall that “emptiness” was the term used to coordinate the realizations of “impermanence,” “dependent origination,” and “no-self.” To say that all things without exception are “empty” is to say that all things change over time because what they are is dependent on other equally impermanent things. Change and dependence imply that there is “no-self” to anything in the sense of a permanent identity that is what it is, independent of other things. Being “empty” and having “no-self” are thus the same realization.
But what, then, does it mean to say that in addition to everything else to which it applies, “emptiness” is applicable to itself; “emptiness” is itself “empty”? Insight deriving from long-term reflection on this one thought in Buddhist history is extensive. One outcome of this meditation is the realization that no doctrine is final, permanent, and beyond doubt. “Emptiness” was in many ways a teaching about how to live well in view of the prospects of human finitude. Through reflection on this teaching, Buddhists contemplated the uncertainty of human thinking and sought ways not around this insight but through it to greater and greater realization. They sought to learn through experience how to live well in the absence of certain knowledge, yet without being rendered immobile by the fear of being wrong or getting stuck in sheer hesitation.
Morality: Bodhisattva Vow
Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 59-60[The] ultimately communal orientation in the pursuit of morality links the perfection of morality directly to the bodhisattva’s vow, the vow to pursue awakening on behalf of all beings. The point of moral action is not just one’s own purity or enlightenment but also the perfection of human society as a whole and its movement toward enlightenment. Indeed, one’s own enlightenment is linked to that of others; the pursuit of one is the pursuit of the other. To seek the enlightenment of others is to enlighten yourself, and seeking your own enlightenment will help bring about the enlightenment of others. Nevertheless, because enlightenment is defined in terms of certain qualities of selflessness and because our uncultivated inclinations are already shaped toward self-seeking, Mahayana Buddhist texts orient most moral practice in the direction of compassionate concern for others rather than concern for one’s own enlightenment.
Obon vs. Higan
Attended the Fall Higan service at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. Rev. Igarashi used the occasion to explain the difference between Obon and Higan, since both involve memorial services for our ancestors.
Rev. Igarashi explained that the two are completely different. For one telling of the story of Obon see Urobon-e or consider this excerpt from Nichiren’s On the Ullambana Service.
For Obon, Rev. Igarashi said, we just invite our ancestors to visit and serve them a lot of food and chanting. Higan, on the other hand, is a full week of focusing on the six paramitas.
As explained by the Nichiren Shu brochure on Higan, the Six Paramitas are:
- fuse means to offer one’s self wholeheartedly and unconditionally, without any expectation of its return.
- jikai is to follow and maintain the general precepts of the Buddha.
- nin-niku suggests a resilience to persevere through hardship.
- syojin refers to the necessity of conscientious effort in accomplishing one’s goals.
- zenjo points to qualities existent in meditation, calling upon one’s concentration, adjoined by calmness and poise.
- Chie is the Buddha’s wisdom, reinforced with its practical application.
In Rev. Igarashi’s telling, jikai or precepts, the 250 or 500 Hinayāna rules governing behavior of monks and nuns, were replaced by Nichiren with chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. In the age of Mappō, the latter age of degeneration, chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō is jikai. “Just chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. That’s the same thing as upholding the precepts,” Rev. Igarashi explained.
“It is very important to understand that precepts is practice,” Rev. Igarashi said. “Of all the paramitas, the most important is practice.”
After a retelling of the Parable of the Magic City, Rev. Igarashi said:
“That’s why we need more practice, practice, practicing. We need to extinguish our bad karma, otherwise we will never get a better life. That’s why we need more practicing.”
Generosity: Skill-in-Means
Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 33If, engulfed in our own world of concerns, we do not even notice when someone near us needs help, we will not be able to practice generosity. Similarly, if we maintain a distant posture toward others that, in effect, prevents them from appealing to us for help, we will rarely find ourselves in a position to give. The first skill that is vital to an effective practice of generosity is receptivity, a sensitive openness to others that enables both our noting their need and our receptivity to their requests. Our physical and psychological presence sets this stage and communicates clearly the kind of relation to others that we maintain.
The traditional Mahayana image of perfection in the capacity for receptivity is the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin), whose multiple arms are always extended in the gesture of generous outreach. The bodhisattva of compassion welcomes and invites all pleas for help. Other familiar forms of presence, other gestures, restrict the field of asking and giving; they are more or less closed rather than open to others. Arms folded tightly around ourselves communicate that we are self-contained, not open outwardly; arms raised in gestures of anger say even more about our relations to others. The extent to which we are sensitively open to others and the way in which we communicate that openness determine to a great extent what level of generosity we will be able to manifest. In sensitivity we open our minds to the very possibility that someone may need our assistance, and welcome their gestures toward us. Skillful generosity is attentive to these two basic conditions.