Report 58

Sila Paramita (Ethical Conduct)

It struck me as odd to think of sila paramita as being 'a perfection', because I think of the paramitas as energetic expressions of Buddha Nature, and I think of ethical conduct as being behaviors one becomes aware of when they have set an intention toward 'do no harm'. The latter may indeed bring one to cultivate allowing former, but I asked myself "Are they the same?"

In light of Dao's comment during last week's session though, of paramitas as path AND fruit, ethical conduct itself with all its various behaviors, makes much more sense as an energetic expression of Buddha nature.

So it seemed useful to clarify: Precepts v. Paramitas by referencing The Noble Eightfold path   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path, by and re-considering each precept as the other. Going deeply into any one vow/decision/intention, as some of us first discovered in early WoK sessions, we run first of all, into the limitless limitations of even our best intended 'self' :), and second of all, into the rest of the precepts.  

By sincerely setting out to  'do no harm' one begins to notice how utterly impossible that is to muster up by ordinary means/will... how utterly hopeless. Also, one perhaps glimpses how impossible it is to find where one's "own" being (including actions and inactions) leaves off and "another's" begins... how interconnected we are.

Seeing that, seems the beginning of 'enlightened expressions' coming into play. Ego bows, allowing Grace.

-Toward the end of the workshop a few weeks ago, some of us also noted the parallels to religious frameworks other than Buddhism. In Proverbs for instance, there is a section that really came alive to me after I began studying Buddhism: "Guard your heart with all dilligence for out of it flow the issues of life." 

That can be read as a kind of "Keep Out" sign ... perhaps causing a person who desires to live a 'spiritual' life to close up and set themselves/their heart apart from the world ...to stop taking risks or being vulnerable ... to see the world as full of 'other' phenomena trying to break 'in' and contaminate 'these things' they are guarding. 

Within a context that does not have a sense of hope of keeping/owning something, I find that this sentence opens up beautifully. I rewrote it for myself as: "Cultivate the heart with all attentiveness for out of it flow the virtues of life." There seems an endlessness in that.

Cultivating conjurs images of working with the messy material all around, with getting sweaty and dirty and feeding others/caring for something (everything?). 

Life (others/world/etc/everything) as obligation AND privelege. 

And this (to me) resonates with the focus on 'Aliveness' I so appreciate of Stim's, and with the focus of PaB ... dropping what we (think we) have to see (be?) what we are, which is (already) generous and ethical, etc.  

Ethical conduct as energetic expression.  

Haha... And sorry but I have to do it. I won't be here so you can throw tomatoes at me later (giggle):

"You can't do it, but what you are in a larger sense can." S.T.