To Understand Buddhism - The Six Paramitas

The Six Paramitas

Now that we understand the Three Conditions, the Three Learnings and the Six Princi" ples of Harmony, how do we use them in our daily lives when interacting with people, mat" ters and objects? To answer this Buddha Shakyamuni gave us the Six Paramitas of giving, abiding by the precepts, patience, diligence, deep concentration and wisdom. If we follow these in everything we do, from brushing our teeth in the morning till going to bed at night, we will be genuinely practicing.

The Giving of Wealth. Generally speaking, the majority of people seek wealth as their foremost pursuit for without it, life can be very hard. After this, people pursue intelligence and wisdom, health and long life. Regardless of whether they are in the east or in the west: whether they lived either in the past or are living now, these are major pursuits of humankind. If Buddhism is supposed to fulfill our wishes, can it provide these things for us? We have heard that  in Buddhism, every sincere plea will receive a response. Then why have most people not received what they wished for? They are not aware of the true reality of life and universe or the right method to fulfill their wishes. If we understand these principles and truths, all our wishes can be fulfilled.

The Buddha taught us that wealth, wisdom and long life are all karmic results. If we want to obtain the result, we must first nurture and establish the cause. Good causes result in good results: bad causes result in bad results or retribution. Where there is a cause, there will be a result and where there is a result, there was a cause. This is a law that never changes and the law around which all other laws in the universe revolve.

Consider someone who is very wealthy. How did this happen? It is not because the person is unusually clever or has better ideas to make money. Many other people are clev" erer and have better ideas. Why are they not successful? The Buddha taught us that having wealth is the karmic result of a cause planted in former lifetimes. What was this cause? It was through the giving of wealth.

The giving of wealth results in obtaining wealth, the giving of teaching results in attain" ing wisdom and the giving of fearlessness results in obtaining health and long life. Therefore, if we wish to have wealth, wisdom and long and healthy lives in our future, we need to nur" sults from causes they developed in their early years. Regardless of the time frame, we must develop the cause to receive the result. This is the Law of Cause and Effect. And this law never changes.

Giving is the most important requirement for practicing the Bodhisattva way. If we could sum up all the methods in Buddhism, we would find that all methods accord with the Six Paramitas. When we condense the Six Paramitas, we find that their essence is giving. One of the types of giving is that of wealth. When most people hear this they often think of donating money to a group, church, temple or way place. This is wrong because such think" ing is too narrow in meaning and is far from the true Bodhisattva way.

Selflessly remembering the welfare of others is the giving of wealth. Thus, everybody is practicing the giving paramita daily and in this way we are emulating Bodhisattvas. We are just not aware of it. For example, when we get up in the morning and prepare breakfast for the family, we are practicing giving and kindness as did Universal Worthy Bodhisattva. By do" ing so we will be happy. In this way we will have no thought of  Poor me, my family regards me as a servant. I have to wait on them every day. If we complain like this, all the good fortune we have achieved will vanish. But once we change our complaints and problems into the Paramita of Giving, we will immediately enjoy the benefits of the joy and wisdom of the teachings.

An employee who works very hard every day to make as much money as possible or to receive a promotion is not practicing giving. However, if this employee works hard just to benefit the company and society, and not for the sake of money or a promotion, he or she is cultivating giving and will never be tired. I, myself, enjoy traveling around the world to help people to understand the Buddha s teachings, and in this way, am practicing the giving of will be able to reduce their troubles, obtain joy and wisdom and thus be able to lead a bet" ter life.

In 1984, I made my third trip to Los Angeles. I went straight from the airport to the site where the speech was being held and began a talk that would last nine hours. I delivered the talk while standing but at the end, it was the listeners who were tired, not I. The longer I spoke, the more energized I felt and the stronger my voice became. Why? Because I was so enthused about introducing the profound and subtle Buddhism to the listeners. This is the joy of teaching of Buddhism and frankly, the best nutrition. Nowadays, people talk a great deal about nutrition. But it is false nutrition. Buddhists talk of keeping a pure, quiet and happy heart. Having this heart and obtaining this joy will enable us to remain healthy and young. Worry will only make us old and sick.

In the US, some social practices are actually giving. Most people pay for medical in" surance for protection against catastrophic medical bills in the event they become ill. How" ever, if we think that we are making preparations for a possible illness as we make our monthly premium payments, then we are bound to become ill. If we do not then we will have wasted our money. But if we change our way of viewing this to the thought that our money has been used to help those that are sick, then we will have practiced giving and will never become ill. Why? Because we have developed the cause of no illness. If we give to and look after aged people, we will receive good karmic results in the future. When we our" selves become aged, then others will come to take care of us.

Today, most people have car insurance. If we think that we are making payments just to help those who may encounter accidents, then we will never encounter misfortune, be" cause we have given of wealth and compassion. So our way of thinking makes the differ" dhisattva is awakened and always does things to benefit others, whereas ordinary people are always doing things to benefit themselves. When we do everything for others, we can get wonderful benefits, too wonderful to imagine. The kinds of giving are boundless and can be practiced any time, any day.

In Buddhism, the giving of wealth consists of external and internal wealth. External wealth is comprised of worldly possessions whereas internal wealth concerns our body. For example, organ donation is an example of the internal giving of wealth as is helping others physically. If we volunteer to help others without expectation of benefit, we are again prac" ticing the giving of internal wealth. We can practice this giving of internal wealth all the time.

We see that in the Buddhist criteria for good and bad, all deeds arising from the wish to help others are good and all deeds arising from selfishness are bad. This may all be diffi" cult for a beginner to follow. Why should we not benefit ourselves? The reason why ordinary people cannot attain Buddhahood is due to the two attachments of self and all knowledge. By ridding ourselves of self-attachment, we attain the level of Arhat. By ridding ourselves of the knowledge-attachment, we attain Buddhahood. If we have every thought to benefit ourselves, our self-attachment will grow daily. Even as we plant some good causes, we will only increase our attachment. The Buddha told us that if we wished to transcend the cycle of birth and death, we must rid ourselves of both self and the knowledge-attachment. Self-attachments are afflictions that hinder us from attaining purity of mind. Knowledge-attachment hinders us from uncovering our all-knowing wisdom, our true wisdom.

The Giving of Teachings. The second form of giving brings us wisdom, intelligence and skill. Generally it falls into two categories: Buddha s teachings and worldly teachings. To en" thusiastically impart all of our knowledge to others, who are interested in learning, is the giv" cooking, engineering, etc. It is the unconditional and free imparting of knowledge or skills in any field.

A schoolteacher who instructs out of the sincere desire to help others is also practicing the giving of teaching. A teacher who does so just to earn a living or prestige is not. A genu" ine practitioner of the giving of Dharma is very enthusiastic and never wearies of giving. When we give for self-benefit, we will become disappointed upon failing to obtain fame or other benefits and will thus loose our enthusiasm. On the other hand, a Bodhisattva is always compassionately working for the benefit of all sentient beings and never attaches any con" ditions to what is given.

In the Infinite Life Sutra, the Buddha told us that of all the kinds of giving, that of the teachings is foremost. Worldly teachings do not get to the heart of the matter. Only Bud" dhism is a perfect education which can help us to attain the boundless wisdom, virtue and skill to enable us to be free of all worries, leave the three realms, put an end to reincarnation and ultimately to attain Buddhahood. This giving is perfect and remarkable, and it is only found in Mahayana Buddhism. All Buddhas praise this giving. In Buddhism, the most impor" tant form of giving is that of books, audio and videotapes, CDs, as well as that of accepting other s invitations to create opportunities for them to learn the Buddha s teachings.

However, many currently circulated Buddhist materials are printed with copyright warnings. These are not the giving of Dharma but are commercial endeavors. Some Dharma masters, when requested to speak, ask how much they will be paid. These are not true giving of the teachings. The act of a Bodhisattva is to benefit others, not self. If a person truly wanted to learn of Buddhism, a Bodhisattva would simply go to them to fulfill their wish. They would never do anything that would make it difficult for any person willing to learn, as

The Giving of Fearlessness. This form of giving has broad implications as it helps to re" move the fears and insecurities of others. For example, if foreign forces were invading our country, we could join the army to help protect the citizens. If someone was afraid to go home alone at night, we could offer to go with him or her. Being a vegetarian is another ex" ample, because if we all followed this practice, then all living creatures would no longer re" gard us as a threat. Any act that helps sentient beings feel safe and secure is the giving of fearlessness. In doing so perfectly, we will definitely gain health and long life.

Emperor Qian Long of the Qing Dynasty, attained wealth, intellect, wisdom, health and long life.  Honorable as a great emperor and wealthy as one who possesses the entire world". He was truthful, clever, wise and lived a long time. He was emperor for sixty years and Supreme Emperor, Father of an Emperor, for four years. He was endowed with these great virtues because in his previous lifetimes he had practiced the cultivation of the Giving of Wealth, Dharma and Fearlessness.

The Buddha teaches that Bodhisattvas must practice the Paramita of Giving. Pa" ramita means perfection. The question is how can we practice giving to the state of perfec" tion? We do so simply by turning our thoughts around, by no longer thinking of ourselves but solely of others. In this way we will be practicing  giving anytime, anywhere. But, we will not yet have achieved perfect giving. Perfect giving is to let go, to be willing to give all that we possess and to help all others. Giving and gaining are one. If we have not practiced giv" ing, we will not gain. When we give less, we gain less. When we give more, we gain more. Do you have fears, worries? Do you have birth and death, reincarnation? Why aren t you willing to discard them? Giving is to part with all of these to attain great perfection and great freedom. This is the ultimate perfect giving, the Paramita of Giving. We start by part" of our afflictions, birth and death, then we will uncover the purity, wisdom and abilities within our self-nature.