Buddhist Hour
Script No. 435
Broadcast live on Mountain District Radio 3MDR 97.1 FM
9.00 pm till 10.00 pm.
On Friday 7 July 2006 CE 2550 Buddhist Era

This script is entitled:
"Lifetimes of Learning - A Do It Yourself Approach to Happiness"

Class 2 - Part 2

If you tuned in last week to the Buddhist Hour, you may recall we finished our reading on the perfection of Truthfulness, or in pali Sacca Parami. Just to refresh our memory, the preceding seven paramis are: 1) dana parami, the perfection of generosity, 2) sila parami, the perfection of morality, 3) nekkhama parami, the perfection of renunciation, 4) panna parami, the perfection of wisdom, 5) viriya parami, the perfection of energy, and 6) khanti parami, the perfection of patience.

So now let us discuss as we promised last week the concluding three paramis, which are adhitthana parami, the perfection of determination, metta parami, the perfection of loving-kindness, and uphekka parami, the perfection of equanimity.

The Perfection of Determination

The eighth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Determination, or adhitthana-parami in Pali.

It’s not difficult to recognise why determination is an indispensable aspect of working towards a goal which may be difficult to achieve. For example, scaling a mountain is a tough thing to do. It's physically strenuous and requires great determination on behalf of the hiker. If, however, halfway up the hiker thought, "Oh, this is too hard. I will just give up now and go home," then he would go home and the mountain would remain unscaled. There may not have even been an impassable barrier to him achieving his goal.

Enlightenment, like the mountain, is difficult to scale. To reach the summit requires us to transform ourselves in a way that we have never done before. Thinking thus, we engage in the methods for developing the Perfection of Determination.

In our course we will find out how relying on such methods as motivation, enthusiasm or reacting to our likes and dislikes are much too weak and unreliable. What happens when our motivation falls away, for example? They are useful up to a point but eventually they give out. We will examine how to develop deep determination and robust methods, which do not exhibit such flaws and weaknesses.

Sometimes to discover one thing it is useful to learn another, often its opposite. To gain a glimpse of what determination is, it is useful to know what it is not.

Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhist Society of Australia, writes in his book Meditations on the Path to Enlightenment:

"With the laziness of procrastination you have a willingness to practice Dharma but a sense that there is not time for it now. You postpone engaging in virtue until later. There are so many excuses! 'At the moment I do not have sufficient intellectual knowledge of the Dharma to be able to practice properly. I will wait until the children leave home and then do a degree in Buddhism so that, when I do come to practice, I will do so properly.' Another may think, 'If I do anything, I want to do it wholeheartedly. I'm too busy to devote a high level of effort now, so I will carry on with business until I amass a large amount of money and can retire. Then I will be able to devote myself to the Dharma.' Or else, 'You cannot gain realisations without doing a lot of meditation. I have no time at the moment to meditate because I have to nurse my sick old mother. When she has passed away I will have time to meditate, so I will practice Dharma then.' There is usually a major misconception of what Dharma is and how to go about it that supports the attitude of procrastination." (Loden)

Procrastination is a habit many of us use, as if it is an old friend. It is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as to "postpone, put off, defer, prolong", and then we often hear ourselves saying, "Oh, if only I hadn't waited", or "If only I'd begun sooner!" We lament, but alas, the window of opportunity passes.

Geshe writes:

"Never fall into the trap of waiting for the right circumstances to be able to practice Dharma according to some pre-conceived notion as to what constitutes practice. Whatever your present circumstances they are perfect for you to apply the Dharma in the most effective manner according your specific karma. You are a unique individual. Your circumstances are unique, and you can uniquely apply the Dharma according to those particular conditions." (Loden).

Now we get to determination, of which the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary tells us, "a bringing or coming to end, a termination. The action of coming to a decision, the result of this; a fixed intention. The action of definitely locating, identifying, or establishing the nature of something; exact ascertainment (of); a fact established, a conclusion or solution reached." Then, the dictionary notes, "it is the definite or motivation of the mind or will towards an object or end. Resoluteness, determinedness; fixity of intention."

Venerable Shi Wuling writes:

"Right Effort (or determination) is enthusiastically approaching everything we do in our work, in our home, and in our practice. It is replacing unwholesome thoughts with those that are wholesome." (Wuling)

The ninth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Loving-Kindness, or metta-parami in Pali.

The major obstacles to us having a happy mind most of the time are negative states or negative aspects of our mind. Just like a few drops of ink turns a glass of clear water into a murky dull colour these negatives similarly affect our minds. One of the three main negative stains in our mind is hatred or aversion.

In order to increase our wellbeing and happiness we need to do learn how to reduce and then remove these negative aspects. The development of loving-kindness or metta in Pali removes hate, it is a natural antidote of hate.

There is a real difference, though, between normal love and the Perfection of Loving-Kindness. Giving our friend something nice because we like them is usually not an act of Perfect Loving-Kindness, there is more to it than that. Perfect Loving-Kindness is impartial and extends to even those people who do us harm. Loving-kindness is a state of mind where love is present towards all beings independent of who they are or whether they are friendly to you.

You wake up in the morning and the instant you wake loving kindness is there; flowing to yourself and others from your heart chakra. It eventually becomes unshakable in your mind once the remaining traces of hate are gradually removed. Under the effect of loving-kindness you are favorably inclined to developing friendship, kindness and empathy to others and you automatically have mental ease, lightness of mind and peace.

During the course we will help you develop loving kindness through such practices as metta (loving-kindness) meditation, through recollection that we depend on the kindness of others for our existence and survival in the world, and through cultivating friendship and harmony with others.

In Metta, Loving Kindness, the Buddhist Approach, professor L.G. Hewage writes:

"Buddhist literature as found in Sri Lanka abounds in passages explaining different methods of practicing metta. Therefore one could select any method appropriate to one's temperament and the socio-cultural conditions of the society, provided the basic underlying principles of the meditation are understood well." (Hewage)

One example the professor mentions is, "May I be happy and free from suffering at all times and on all occasions. May those near and dear to me also be equally happy. May those neutral as well as those hostile to me be happy too. All beings living in this village or city, in this district and country and in other countries, extending, to all parts of all world systems. May they all live in peace."

"In this method we start from our own selves and extend metta gradually from ourselves to the whole universe crossing all conceivable barriers one by one." (Hewage)

As a simile to illustrate how metta defeats many barriers, the Vissudhimagga says something to this effect:

Suppose you are seated with a dear friend, neutral person, and a hostile person; a bandit comes and asks for one of the four to be used as a sacrifice. If you wish that they take you leaving the other three, you are one who has not yet broken down the barriers. But if you see not one person that could be given over to the bandits, your reason being that all the four including yourself must be saved, then you have broken down the barriers.

This is the quality of metta, impartially wishing all beings to have peace and be free from suffering, including even yourself.

Venerable Shi Wuling, an American Buddhist Nun, in Path to Peace simply writes:

"As a mother protects her only child with her life,
We too can cultivate a boundless love for all beings.
Eventually our love will pervade the whole world."

The Perfection of Equanimity

The tenth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Equanimity, or uphekkha-parami in Pali.

The definition of equanimity given in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is: evenness of mind or temper. The quality of being undisturbed by good or ill fortune."

A useful simile to describe the function of equanimity is to imagine we can be like the surface of an ocean - rising and falling with every new wave, tossed by the winds as they whip along the water and burnt by the sun; or we can be like the whole ocean, aware but unmoved by the comings and goings of life on the surface.

Equanimity allows peace of mind within the midst of the ever-changing conditions of our lives.

The normal condition of human life is that, along with each desirable worldly condition such as gain, fame, praise, and happiness comes it's counterpoint; loss, defame, blame and pain. In life there are these eight worldly conditions, and, depending on the karma we have made, we will experience a mixture of them.

Venerable Narada Thera says:

"Like the pendulum that perpetually turns to the right and left, four desirable and undesirable conditions prevail in this world which everyone, without exception, must perforce in the course of one's lifetime." (Narada)

Our attachment to the four desirable worldly conditions, and our aversion to the four undesirable conditions, makes us unstable in our mind, rather than living in peace we are being swayed and jolted by the dynamic conditions of the world.

If happiness is dependent on these conditions when we're so deeply attached to them, it follows that, if we could be free of this attachment, our heart would become quite immovable, unfazed by the appearance of the desirable and undesirable.

This is called the Perfection of Equanimity, and it is quite distinct from unintelligent indifference, the attitude of "not caring." It is, in fact, very much the opposite. The Perfection of Equanimity has, as its base, the Perfection of Wisdom, or in other words, understanding that the conditions that we experience now are a result of our actions in the past. Knowing this, we also understand that, for example, when we react to anger with anger, we ensure seeing anger towards us again in the future. When we live with Perfect Equanimity, understanding this, we remain undisturbed and can continue our cultivation of the other Perfections regardless.

There is a teaching given by our Teacher Master John D. Hughes some years ago which you may like to try this week as a first step in the practice of equanimity and becoming happier. You adopt the position of the following statement: "My life is going extremely well".

You say this to yourself many times a day. "My life is going extremely well".

Usually our minds pick up every little thing that is not going perfectly for us. We seem to let our attention focus on disagreeable things. We tend to complain about this thing, and whinge a bit about that. There may be 100 things going fine, but still our mind gets caught up in the little things which may only last five minutes. For example, someone cuts us off when we are driving, we burnt the toast, it's raining when we want it to be sunny, it's sunny when we wanted rain, or someone says something unkind to us. We need to get used to being happy when things are just going along normally, imperfectly. Normally the world is imperfect; that is "normal" if you like.

We don't need some special event or great thing to happen to us before we think we can be happy. Some people in the world haven't got enough food to eat today, some are in war zones, some are in hospital with life threatening illnesses. Why should we be worried about the guy that cuts us off in traffic. "My life is going extremely well"

Even when things do go "wrong", often our minds tend to exaggerate the problem making it seem much bigger than it really is. Get things back in proportion by saying "My life is going extremely well". OK, something went wrong - life's like that, it's always going to be like that. Cut off the worrying mind, the frustrated mind, the annoyed mind - all of them are unpleasant to experience anyway. Just say, "My life is going extremely well".

Finally there is another meaning. From a Buddhist point of view we are in a wonderful life. Above all, we have a life where we can learn how to overcome suffering forever, which is the purpose of Buddhist teachings. We have a healthy human body, which is the best birth of all to practice Buddhism, we have sufficient leisure time and the teachings we need are in our world, available to us now. There is a clear path of practice and there is nothing to stop us from achieving the goal if we are determined enough to do it. So the real view is:

"My life is going extremely well".

Venerable Shi Wuling writes:

"Do not ask who has caused me to suffer,
But who I can help to be free from suffering."

"Equanimity is viewing those we love and those we hate,
And wanting both to be happy." (Wuling)

This can be your homework for the coming week! Make your "normal" life happier.

Finally, Venerable Shi Wuling writes:

"May all beings savour the nectar of loving-kindness to overcome thoughts of controlling others, bring forth serenity and the insight to find happiness and harmony."

Next week on the Buddhist Hour, we will go back to the beginning of the Ten Perfections to discuss the perfection of Generosity or dana and how to practice it in your daily life, specifically in your kitchen.

Please tune in to the Buddhist Hour again and again.

May you develop the determination that brings you true happiness.

May you come to develop the boundless love of metta.

May your mind be unshaken by the vicissitudes of life.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was written and prepared by Julian Bamford, Anita Carter, Frank Carter, and Alec Sloman, and is the labour of countless beings.

Carter A, Carter F, Sloman A. "Lifetimes of Learning - A do it Yourself Approach to Happiness" Class No.2 Presented at the Dandenong Ranges Community Cultural Centre, Upwey Vic 3158. 7 February 2006.

1. Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden. 1996. Meditations on the Path to Enlightenment. Published by Tushita Publications, 1425 Mickleham Road, Yuroke 3063, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

2. Hewage, Professor L.G. Metta, Loving-Kindness, the Buddhist Approach. Published by the Siri Jayanti Youth Section (Publication Committee), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

3. Venerable Shi Wuling. 2005. Path to Peace. Published by Amitabha Publications, Chicago, USA.

Word count: 2,525

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