An Overview

This morning I’d like to give an overview of the ten perfections.

As you remember, the perfections are these: giving, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. This list does not come from the original suttas. Individual perfections are taught in the suttas, often to monks and laypeople, but the list as a whole comes from a later period, probably just before the Canon was closed, about two or three hundred years after the Buddha passed away.

The list is associated with the Jātaka tales, which are tales of the Buddha’s lifetimes prior to his last one. In these tales, he’s usually a layperson, which is why the perfections are useful guides for reflecting on how to live lay life in a way that leads to awakening. There are a few Jātaka tales in the early parts of the Canon but, over time, more and more tales were added to the original ones. As different schools of Buddhism began to develop, each added a separate collection of Jātaka tales to its version of the Canon.

As a result, there are different collections of Jātakas from the different early schools of Buddhism. These, in turn, resulted in different lists of the perfections. One school, called the Sarvāstivādins, listed six perfections, a list that was later adopted by the Mahāyāna: giving, virtue, endurance, persistence, jhāna (mental absorption), and discernment.

In all the early schools, many pan-Indian tales with well-known heroes were added to the Jātakas. For example, Rama is included as a previous lifetime of the Buddha. This was perhaps to help Buddhist converts sense that, in adopting Buddhism, they were not abandoning the good elements of their cultural heritage. If this had happened in France, they might have included the story of d’Artagnan. Had it happened in the British Isles, they probably would have included Robin Hood and King Arthur. So, as you can imagine, it’s quite an eclectic group of tales.

Still, even though the Jātaka tales may not represent actual lives of the Buddha, they do reflect the values of the people who collected them—people trained in the values that the Buddha taught.

While the different schools were compiling their collections, they asked themselves, “What can we learn about the Buddha’s path of practice from these tales? What are the qualities that he developed in each case?” These are the questions that led to the list of the perfections. Now, as you’ll find, the individual perfections in each of the two mains lists are also found in the arahant path as defined in various suttas. The question then arose, what is the relationship of the Buddha’s path to the arahant’s path? Was the difference quantitative or qualitative? “Quantitative,” here, means that arahants developed the same perfections as the Buddha, but the Buddha simply developed more of each. “Qualitative” means that the perfections for the Buddha were actually of a different type.

The Theravāda and other early schools decided that the difference was quantitative. The Mahāyāna, which came later, decided that it was qualitative, specifically in the case of discernment. The discernment developed by the Buddha, they said, was radically different from the discernment developed by the arahants. Instead of discernment into how things arise and pass away, which would be the arahant’s discernment, the Mahāyāna schools taught that the ultimate discernment—the Buddha’s perfection of discernment—was that things don’t really arise or pass away. This difference informed all the rest of the Mahāyāna perfections.

Even within the Theravāda, there are some differences between the Dhamma as taught in the Jātaka tales and as taught in the suttas. For instance, discernment in the Jātakas is more a matter of cleverness than of right view. But the Jātakas do share with the suttas the idea that discernment should be strategic.

There is also the issue that the actions of the bodhisatta—the future Buddha as portrayed in the Jātakas—are not always a reliable guide to good behavior. Sometimes he kills, sometimes he steals, sometimes he has illicit sex, sometimes he drinks, although he never lies—and we’ll come back to that point later when we discuss virtue. The Theravāda interpretation of the Jātakas explains these ethical lapses by saying that because he wasn’t yet awakened, he still didn’t fully understand the Dhamma. In English, we’d say that he was still learning the ropes.

There’s also an issue in that the perfections are never explained in the Jātakas. They simply say that the Buddha-to-be had these qualities, but they rarely explain how or why a particular tale exhibits a particular perfection. This is why, for the purpose of this retreat, we’re going to be looking at the individual perfections—what they are and how they’re developed—as they’re explained in the suttas and also in the teachings of some of the forest ajaans.

There’s one other problematic feature of the list: There’s no clear progression from one perfection to the next. So, to bring the list into line with a list the Buddha did teach—and to give an organic unity to the discussion—we’ll organize the perfections under the framework of what the Buddha called the four determinations. This means that we’ll be looking at all ten perfections under the framework provided by one of the perfections, which is determination.

The four determinations are these:

• not to neglect discernment,

• to guard the truth,

• to be devoted to relinquishment, and

• to train for calm.

If you place the ten perfections under these four categories,

• under discernment you would have discernment and goodwill,

• under truth: truth, virtue, and persistence,

• under relinquishment: giving and renunciation, and

• under calm: endurance and equanimity.

This placement is somewhat arbitrary, in that some of the perfections could fit under a variety of categories. Equanimity and renunciation, for instance, can also be seen as aspects of discernment. Virtue is taught in the Canon as a form of giving: the gift of safety. However, the fact that these perfections could fit under a number of categories simply underlines the point that there is an organic unity to the practice of the perfections and that each perfection contains elements of the others.

This is the first point emphasized by this way of organizing the material: Each perfection contains elements of the others.

The second point is that, as with every determination, all of the perfections grow from an act of will. This is in line with the Buddha’s observation that all phenomena are rooted in desire. We have to want the perfections for them to come true. They are qualities of the heart and mind that we can choose to develop consistently to pursue the goal we’ve chosen, which is awakening.

It’s important that we realize that we’re always making choices and that they matter. Awakening is not the inevitable result of our true nature, nor is it our entitlement. We have the potentials for the perfections in our hearts and minds, but we also have the potential for their opposites. There are some times when goodwill, for example, comes naturally, but there are other times when ill will is equally—or even more—natural. All you have to do is look at the behavior of little children, and you can see that both goodwill and ill will are very natural—which means that if we want these perfections to develop, we have to make the choice to develop them, and we have to stick with that choice to go beyond what’s natural to something better than natural.

This is why, when we discuss the perfections, we will start each discussion by identifying the desire that underlies our determination to develop that perfection as part of our quest for awakening.

Determination is basically a focused desire. It’s an attempt to bring our random desires into some kind of order, to give priority to some over others, so that our conflicting desires don’t work at cross-purposes and get in the way of what we really want.

That’s the second point.

The third point is that the perfections begin with discernment. The reason we don’t get what we desire in life, even though experience is rooted in desire, is because our desires are ignorant of how cause and effect really work. They don’t know which causes are skillful—leading to genuinely good results—and which ones are not. So, for desires to lead to happiness, they have to be guided by right view and right resolve—the first two factors of the noble eightfold path. You have to see that it is possible and worthwhile to develop each perfection. This requires the ability to imagine that true happiness is possible and that you’re capable of attaining it. At the same time, discernment gives guidance in how to bring these perfections about. For example, goodwill, generosity, and persistence are qualities with which we’re already familiar, but they have to be informed by discernment if they’re going to become genuine skills. That’s why discernment has to come first.

However, in actual practice, we’ll also find that, as we develop the other perfections, our discernment develops further as well. In other words, the perfections develop reciprocally. They help one another along. Discernment gives guidance to the other perfections, at the same time that the act of developing the other perfections helps to make our discernment more penetrating and precise. For example, you don’t really know the truth of right view until you’ve followed through with right resolve and mastered the appropriate tasks assigned by right view. You don’t really know the truth of craving until you’ve learned how to abandon it. You don’t know the truth of the path until you’ve developed it to see that, yes, it really does lead to the end of suffering.

This type of knowledge brings together the two meanings of the Pāli word attha. Attha can mean the meaning of a word or teaching—how it can be translated into other words—but it also means the goal to which a teaching is aimed. As I’ve already noted, both meanings apply to the Dhamma at the same time, in the sense that you don’t really know the meaning of the Dhamma until you’ve had at least some experience of the goal to which it leads.

This means that discernment has to begin with conviction. In other words, the teaching sounds good, it makes good sense, but you don’t really know how true it is until you’ve reaped the rewards of the path. That kind of confirmed knowledge comes only with the practice. And to practice the perfections, you have to be convinced that they’re at least worth a try. The proof of these teachings lies in developing them and enjoying the results they yield. That’s when you’ll see for yourself that by giving priority to the perfections—not only as you meditate, but also as you fulfill the duties in your daily life, in your family and at work—they really are beneficial to you and to the people around you.

So, try to keep in mind the three lessons taught by the way we’re organizing the discussion of the perfections:

• Each perfection contains the others.

• They all require focused desire in order to develop.

• In each case, they have to be informed by discernment in order to lead to awakening. In other words, to get the most out of developing each perfection, you have to understand what it is and how it fits in with the others. But for your understanding to be fully developed, it has to learn from the process of developing the others.

If we think of understanding as a quality of the mind, and the desire to find true happiness as a quality of the heart, we can see that the perfections show us how the development of the heart and mind together can lead to a happiness that’s genuinely satisfying—a happiness that’s good for you and for the people around you.

Questions

Q: Is it good to regard the ten perfections as new members of the committee of the mind?

A: Actually, they already are members of the committee, simply that they may be weak at the moment. What you’re trying to do as you develop them is to take these weak members and train them so they have more power in the committee. This is your strategy for going beyond the perfections towards awakening.

Q: What is the difference between relinquishment and renunciation?

A: “Relinquishment” is the word we use to translate the Pāli term cāga. Renunciation we use for nekkhama. The terms in English are very similar, but the Pāli terms are different.

Cāga basically means giving up either a thing or an attitude: You can give up a desire; you can give up a defilement; you can give up your BMW. Each of these actions would be a form of relinquishment. Nekkhama means specifically giving up thoughts of sensuality. Sensuality is not so much a matter of sensual pleasures as it is your fascination with thinking about sensual pleasures. We tend to be more attached to our thoughts and plans about sensual pleasures than we are to the pleasures themselves.

For instance, suppose you decide to sneak out tonight to get some pizza in town. You could sit here for the rest of the day thinking about what kind of pizza you want. When you get to town, it turns out the pizza restaurant is closed. But that doesn’t matter. Other restaurants are open, and you can go for the pleasure of some other sort of food instead. However, if I were to say that for the next five hours you cannot think about pizza at all, we would have a rebellion. Once you decide that you want to think about something, you tend to be very attached to your freedom to think those thoughts. But, as the Buddha said, this kind of thinking tends to weaken the mind. When you tell yourself, “I’ll be happy only if the conditions are this, this, this, and this,” you’re like a hothouse plant: Your happiness can survive only under certain controlled conditions—conditions that could change and go out of control at any time. When we’re practicing meditation, this kind of thinking is one of the first things we have to put aside. If you can substitute those thoughts with the skills of meditation, then you can use those skills to make yourself happy in any situation.

Q: In the ten perfections, there is the perfection of virtue. What kind of virtue is this?

A: Essentially, the virtue of restraint or of avoiding harm to others and to yourself. This means no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, and no taking of intoxicants. This kind of virtue is paired with the perfection of generosity, in which you actively go out of your way to be helpful to others.

Q: Of the four brahmavihāras—mettā, karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā—two of them, mettā, goodwill, and upekkhā, equanimity, are also perfections. Why are compassion, karuṇā, and empathetic joy, muditā, not perfections?

A: Because compassion and empathetic joy actually come under mettā, or goodwill. Goodwill is a wish that all beings be happy. Compassion is what your goodwill feels when you see that someone is suffering. Empathetic joy is what your goodwill feels when you see that someone already is happy and you want that person to continue in that happiness. So, in actuality, all four brahmavihāras are included in the perfections.

Q: To which perfection does the practice of bowing belong?

A: It belongs to the perfection of giving. You give respect, because it’s in an atmosphere of respect that you’re most likely to learn. When you bow down, it’s not a sign that you’re going to obey the person you’re bowing to. It’s simply a sign of respect and of a willingness to learn.

Q: Sati, or mindfulness, appears in many parts of the 37 Wings to Awakening. How does it fit into the ten perfections?

A: Sati is a faculty of the memory, your active memory: what you keep in mind as you’re acting on a particular problem. Right sati has two functions in the path. In its first function, it applies to all parts of the path and works together with right view and with right effort to develop the path. With every factor of the path, you try to have the right view as to what is skillful and what is unskillful. Then right mindfulness (or right sati) remembers what is skillful and what is unskillful, how to deal with skillful qualities in order to develop them and how to deal with unskillful qualities so that you can abandon them. Right effort is what actually does the work of developing and abandoning.

In a similar way, sati functions in relationship to every one of the perfections: You have to remember what the perfections are, the fact that you should develop them, and whatever lessons you’ve learned from the past in how to develop them and to abandon their opposites.

The other function of sati is its specific role in giving rise to right concentration. In this case, sati would be a part of the perfection of renunciation.

Q: Considering that mindfulness means keeping something in mind, how do we use mindfulness in a skillful way to develop the ten perfections?

A: You have to keep in mind the desire that you want to develop these ten perfections, so that when you meet up with challenges in your life you remember to tell yourself, “This is nothing to get upset about. This is an opportunity to develop the perfections.” In fact, there’s a Thai saying: “No obstacles, no perfections.” Let that thought give you encouragement. Then, as you’ve been able to develop a perfection well in that situation, you hold that skill in mind for the next time you’re faced with a similar challenge.

Remember, too, that all of the perfections are a form of determination, and with every determination, you have to keep remembering it as contrary desires come up in the mind. It’s in this way that the development of the perfections is a form of mindfulness.

Q: What is the common thread among all ten perfections that allows you to apply them in daily life?

A: The common thread is that you always have to think about the long-term consequences of what you’re doing, and to remember that the most important aspect of any activity is what qualities it develops in your own mind. For instance, suppose you’re at work. Your boss has said something really stupid and infuriating. You have to ask yourself, “What would be the best thing for me to say right now that would give the best long-term results?” Now, you may be able to think of a very clever, sarcastic reply, but then you have to ask yourself, “If I let this out of my mouth, what will happen? What kind of person will I become? What kinds of qualities will I be developing?” That’s a simple example.

So, think about the long-term consequences of what you’re doing—and we’re talking really long-term: throughout this lifetime and into future ones. That’s the perspective that the perfections provide.

Another example would be one that actually comes from the life of one of my students when I was in Thailand. He kept wanting to go into the forest. He said, “Here in the monastery there are too many distractions.” And that was a forest monastery! Finally, he got into the forest, and his meditation was miserable. Fortunately, he was able to realize, “Well, at least I’m developing the perfection of patience and endurance.” Remembering that purpose can carry you through a lot of difficulties.