The eighth perfection is Determination, the capacity to set a direction in our life and pursue it with courage and patience despite obstacles to its attainment. It is the unshakeable spirit in us that calls us to stick to our course; the kind of determination the Buddha had on the night of his enlightenment, when he vowed not to arise from his seat until he came to see the cause of suffering in his own heart and in the world, and come to freedom from it.

In sitting, when you feel sad, restless or in great pain in your life, make the determination to sit and open to it with compassion; for however long is possible, with underlying determination. When you marshal that spirit, you discover that you can create or nourish that capacity.

And it is a particularly helpful quality when there is difficulty in our lives. Having the determination to stay the course, like the Buddha, we trust in the freedom that is the fruit of practice and develop true strength. To meditate, to practice, at such times is like pouring soothing balm onto the ache of the heart. The great forces of greed, hatred, fear and ignorance in us can be met by the equally great courage of our heart.

Determination is transformative–in meditation, in our relationships, our creative endeavors, in all of life. It is always here. It is no place else and at no other time. It is always now.

The seventh parami or “perfection” of a Buddha, is truthfulness. The perfections are all grounded in truth. Every moment of mindfulness is a moment of truthfulness, of direct knowing. Direct and clear, true understanding is a relief. It is the revelation of how reality is without the constant inner chatter of the mind convincing us that self protection and self absorption are our primary causes and blocking the truth of our interconnectedness with all life.

Simply doing good, or even being a perfect and devoted meditator, cannot fulfill our spiritual potential without the painful honesty required to see clearly what we’re up to. Truthfulness is necessary to see all the ways we impede ourselves, fool ourselves and obscure our view of what it would take to live a more open, harmonious, genuine and connected life.

Truthfulness is contained in, and is the inspiration for determination, loving kindness and equanimity, the eighth, ninth and tenth paramis. Truthfulness inspires determination in practice. And when we see the truth of how things are, our capacity for loving-kindness increases. We see people just the way they are—as humans, like ourselves, struggling to be content and happy, to live with ease—not as friends or enemies about whom we have opinions and judgments. As we become less judgmental and more tolerant, more able to understand that things and people are the way they are as a result of complex and legitimate causes, our capacity for equanimity increases.

Do you see truthfully?

Patience is the sixth parami or “perfection” of a Buddha. To discover the perfection of patience is to discover the quality of taking a breath and resting in how things are, while letting go of the habits and impulses of acting from reactivity. Rather, we pause, even if just for a moment, before reacting to life’s challenges. In waiting, listening, and as the poet Rilke said, “living the question,” we stay with the possibility of new understanding which, with impatience and its concomitant reaction, had not the spaciousness to emerge.

Suzuki Roshi taught that a better word is constancy – a willingness to be ever present for the lawful unfolding of life. Recognition that clarity, peace and love are incompatible with compulsive behavior and reactivity, the need for patience becomes self evident. With patience, we rest in the rhythms of life and nature. We are responsive, not reactive. We let go of expectations and our timetables. Really, what’s the hurry?

Striving in spiritual practice is like a bud deciding it has to hurry up and open. Rather, it fulfills itself slowly and gradually according to conditions, and then in the right season, it blooms. The opposite of impatience is kindness, contentment and the capacity to rest and trust. Patience is generous, kind. It is like planting an orchard that might take 10 or 15 years to bear fruit. How is patience manifesting for you–can you plant now what may blossom far beyond your own life?

On the night of the Buddha’s awakening, he vowed: “I shall not give up my efforts until I have attained liberation by perseverance, energy and endeavor.” This is the quality of viriya, courageous energy, that is the fifth parami. The Buddha’s awakening demonstrated the power of indefatigable energy arising from spiritual urgency—the recognition that now is the only reality.

Practicing the Path to liberation demands unremitting effort exerted in the mind to abandon unskillful mental qualities and develop the skillful. Through this vitality, stillness comes–applying diligent attention, the grace and mystery of life are revealed. By this effort, we do not seek to “improve” ourselves. Rather, we open our minds to understanding the qualities of heart that keep us bound and suffering and those that set us free. This is a radical shift that requires profound compassion.

Exerting courageous energy is not striving and pushing to make something happen. It calls for balance—neither too much effort nor too little. We see when effort is tight and we relax. We see when it is flagging and we arouse energy, with equanimity.

We see when we’re caught, when we’re asleep, when we’re attached, when we’re frightened; and make the effort to let go with courage that which obstructs clear seeing. Doing so, we awaken to the unvarnished truth of experience. Through our effort to be present in body, mind and heart, wisdom arises. Will you arouse effort, energy and vitality in your practice, with some urgency?

Wisdom is the fourth Parami or quality of an Awakened Being. Wisdom is not something we accumulate over long periods of study. Nor is wisdom the same as power. We’ve all met people who are intelligent and powerful, but by no means wise. Wisdom is available to us, through direct reflection and experience.

We discover wisdom when our hearts come to rest with the inexorably changing nature of the seasons of life. Wisdom knows truly and deeply that we are given gifts of joy and of sorrow in our life, so lets go of struggle and rests the heart in them. It discovers what is universally true in all the changing circumstances of life—the difficult and painful, the beautiful and joyful.

This quality of wisdom comes to life with “don’t know mind” and thus sees the eternal laws—that everything changes, and that what is in our hearts creates how the world will be–that if we act with anger, hatred and vengeance, that will be returned to us, and if we act with love and compassion, that will grow in us. Wisdom knows that sorrow is caused by grasping, anger, fear and confusion and that happiness grows from generosity, loving kindness, spaciousness and openness. Wisdom sees and responds lovingly, fearlessly and appropriately—seeing sorrow, it responds with compassion; seeing happiness, it responds with joy; it provides medicine for the sick and food for the hungry, and acts and speaks out against injustice, with kindness.

With wisdom, the awakened heart lives fully and die unconfused, in peace.

Renunciation is the 3rd Parami or Perfection of an Awakened Being. When we discover that a key aspect of the spiritual path is renunciation, it sounds to the worldly mind like deprivation. We can feel that renunciation means giving up everything we love; depriving ourselves of everything pleasant and enjoyable in life. This is understandable, for this is really the only way that the worldly mind can conceive of letting go. But renunciation is actually an attitude, a way of approaching life, that boils down to giving up the mentally fabricated condition that for us to be happy or fulfilled, experience must have a particular (i.e. pleasant) quality. Instead, our energy can be directed to understanding experience itself, however it is. We can see our life as an opportunity to know that whatever comes to us is Dhamma, whatever its particular form or flavor.

Then, we see that renunciation is not a matter of doing, creating, or getting rid of anything. It is moving towards non-contentiousness, rest and ease—not having to manipulate, control, evade, suppress or maneuver experience any more. What a relief to give up that struggle!

We are still engaged in the conventional level of reality– society, justice, identities, mother and father, livelihood and the marketplace. However, if we grasp and expect them to offer complete fulfillment, inevitably we will be disappointed. Is this not true of your own experience?

Renunciation can seem like passivity, a “door mat” philosophy, but it is the opposite. The ability to respond wisely, appropriately and compassionately to life–naturally arises in the non-attached and consequently clear mind. Wholehearted activity and letting go harmoniously co-exist.

The peace and joy of living a life of integrity is essential. The Buddha said that “without integrity, meditation is like getting in a rowboat and rowing while the boat is still tied to the dock.”

Sila (translated, among other ways, as “virtue,” “integrity,” or “ethics”), the second Parami or expression of an awakened heart, was taught by the Buddha as the second step on the Eightfold Path to freedom: wise speech, wise action, and wise livelihood. Sila includes the five precepts that underlie an ethical life: not killing, (refraining from taking life); not stealing (not taking anything not offered); refraining from harming with sexuality; not lying or speaking falsely or harshly; and not indulging in intoxicants that cloud the mind. At first glance, this may seem straightforward, but reflect on increasing levels of subtlety.

The practice is two fold: to resolve to do no harm and practice restraint from unskillful behavior— that which causes harm, fear, confusion and suffering. In this way, we are free from remorse.

Cultivating awareness practice, we invite ourselves into more compassionate sensitivity to life – to the poignant aliveness within us and our interrelatedness with all life around us. From this perspective, we offer the gift of fearlessness to all with whom we interact. Our actions need not be contrived to be “good” or “virtuous,” because compassionate and wise acts aligned with our deepest values will naturally flow from a clear mind that loves virtue.

What are your challenges to living ethically, acting in alignment with what you love and value?

Giving or generosity (“Dana” in Pali) is the first Parami. I believe it is first because it is the very ground on which our practice is built. Without open heartedness that follows wanting to give in the presence of need, the energy of the initial impulse is blocked-the heart is closed and can neither give nor receive. Dana consists of the activity of giving that naturally springs from the feeling of wanting to give, of wanting to share what we have, based on the visceral experience of genuine care. Dana is giving, loving, compassionate energy that has been freed from the constraints of selfishness and self-centeredness, yet includes ourselves in that care.

When we feel the impulse to generosity and act on it, we allow the energy to move, and to expand into the world. We allow our awareness to stand firmly in the inexorably interconnected nature of reality. We know we are not separate. Dana is expansion of consciousness out from the belief in scarcity and impoverishment to the knowing of the abundant nature of the universe, and faith in it. It is the seed of compassion within us-the response of an open heart to the deep inner call of care for fellow beings.

How often do you experience the feeling of wanting to give? Do you give unhesitatingly when you experience that impulse? What do you need in order to experience the feeling of wanting to give more often and more thoroughly? What are the obstacles to giving for you?

The Noble Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha as a way to the cessation of suffering, consists of three branches: wisdom, integrity and meditation–and although meditation is our foundational and emphasized practice, equal attention must also be paid to wisdom and integrity. Cultivating the paramis (literally translated as “perfections” of a Buddha), of which 10 are classically taught in the Theravada tradition, (Generosity, Ethics, Renunciation, Wisdom, Vitality, Patience, Truthfulness, Resolve/Determination, Loving-kindness and Equanimity) is a vital aspect of walking the Path and is also the fruit of the Path.

The paramis are not meant simply to be conceptualized, but intuitively and practically cultivated and developed. In fact, they can be considered basic aspects of insight practice, not separate from it. When the paramis are under- or un- developed, the possibilities of development in meditation are limited. (For example, how can we develop a steadfast practice of meditation without patience, kindness, truthfulness and determination?) Just as mindfulness supports our daily life practice, the cultivation of these excellent qualities of mind/heart supports meditation practice.

A great way to work with the paramis is to take one parami for a period of time–a week, or a month, and spend that period looking at your life in relationship to it. We will be doing just this over the next 10 weeks. Consider now which of the 10 are most underdeveloped for you and which are most developed…Reflect on what supports their development and what are the obstacles to their development for you.