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Good morning & welcome everyone. For the last few weeks I've been talking about the six paramitas and somehow we've arrived here at the sixth one, Prajña Paramita. Before I go right into Prajña Paramita I'd like to say a few words about my experience of giving talks.
It has been a wonderful practise for me to spend some time studying different topics and then somehow come up with something to say about them. It has definitely deepened my appreciation of each different aspect of Buddhist practise and teaching.
As a beginning priest, I sometimes feel concerned about the talks that I give. I am just another zen student, not all that different from the rest of you. I may have been involved in formal practise longer than many of you, or have attended more retreats, but right now, just like everyone else, I'm just trying to be where I already am. I want to say I'm trying to do my best, but that might not be true. I'm just trying to find that out.
When I first started giving talks, I really wanted to make each talk a good one, to say just the right things that would help everyone to understand the topic. I wanted my talks to be just right.
And then after giving one, I would worry if said things right, if people understood my meaning, if I myself understood what I was talking about. Sometimes I would think of something or come across something that I thought I should have said, but didn't.
These were all pretty self-centred concerns. I was trying to prove something to myself, to you, to my teacher and other practitioners. I can't say that all of this is in the past. I can see it a little more easily when it comes up, that's all.
Like I said before, studying each topic and then deciding what to say has been a good practise for me. And there are two things in particular that have been reinforced by doing that each week. One of them is that the more I study and look into a topic, the more I see how that topic relates to everything and how everything relates to it. In talking and thinking about generosity, one begins to see that absolutely everything is generosity. Everything comes from giving, and at the same time everything is giving. Everything. Without giving nothing could exist. And the same is true for each of the other paramitas. When we say "conduct," everything is conduct. When we say "patience," everything is patience. That is one reason why each week with each paramita I said "this is the most important one."
It's wonderful to see how everything is connection in this way. And it's also humbling. How could anyone possibly "cover" a topic when there is nothing that is outside of that topic? So today I'll talk about Prajña Paramita for a little bit & maybe something from the talk will give you something to practise with. Or maybe not.
So, "prajña" is a Sanskrit word that comes from the pali word "prana." If we break the word down, we discover that "pra" means "before" and "jña" means "to know." To the early Buddhists, and to us also, this refers to what comes before knowledge. Before we recognize, name and form opinions, what is it that is there? Usually we translate "prajña" as "wisdom." Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. Later on, if there's time, we might want to talk about this a little.
In the Buddhist teaching there are said to be three levels of wisdom. First there is "mundane wisdom." Mundane wisdom views what is impermanent as permanent, what is impure as pure, and what has no self as having a self. This is the level where all of us live most of the time.
At the next level there is metaphysical wisdom. Metaphysical wisdom views what appears to be permanent as impermanent, what appears to be pure as impure, and what appears to have a self as having no self. This kind of wisdom sees through conventional appearances and is associated with insight and tranquility. It is also consistent with many of the early teachings of the Buddha. But there is still another level.
At the third level is "transcendent wisdom." Transcendent wisdom views all things, whether mundane or metaphysical, as neither permanent nor impermanent, neither pure nor impure, and neither endowed with a self nor selfless. Transcendent wisdom is the wisdom of emptiness. It is the wisdom that everything is inconceivable and inexpressible and so it is impossible to say permanent or impermanent, pure or impure, with or without self. This is wisdom beyond wisdom. This is Prajña Paramita.
But all three levels are examples of wisdom. And each of them includes the other two. To be truly wise in the mundane sense, we need to have an awareness and appreciation of both metaphysical and transcendent wisdom. Then we can act in the world as buddhas and bodhisattvas. And likewise, the full awareness of transcendent wisdom includes, for example, the awareness that compassionate activity frequently means acting "as if" things were permanent and essential.
Recalling these three levels of prajña can help us with many of the zen teachings. Many people have heard the old Zen master's statement,
"Before I came to practise zen, I saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. After gaining insight with the help of a good teacher I broke through appearances and saw that mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have come to rest in emptiness I realize that mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. "
There was a popular song in the 60's, "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."
Kaz Tanahashi a great contemporary Dogen translator, points out that these three steps frequently appear in Dogen's writing. First affirmation, then negation, then negation of negation, or you might say beyond affirmation and negation. Here are the first three sentences of Dogen's Genjokoan.
First affirmation: "As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practise, birth and death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings."
Then negation: "As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death."
And finally jumping beyond both affirmation and negation: "The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas."
This can also help us to understand the Heart Sutra. First there is form, second, form is emptiness, and third, emptiness is form. Prajña Paramita.
The full proper name for the Heart Sutra is "Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra" or "Heart of Prajña Paramita Sutra" In Mahayana Buddhism, there is a whole literature of Prajña Paramita. The Heart Sutra is probably the best known, but there are also the Diamond Sutra, the Prajña Paramita in 8000 lines, the Prajña Paramita in 25000 lines, and more. Some time in the future I'd like to go through the Heart Sutra line by line and talk about it more.
Prajña, or wisdom, is the opposite of ignorance. Ignorance means to ignore, and as its opposite, wisdom means to be aware. Instead of living our lives blind to the truth and believing untruth, wisdom presents us with the possibility of living in awareness of just this. The wisdom teachings tell us that "just this" is not the same as the label that we give something, like "glass of water."
If we look at a glass of water as closely as modern science allows, what we see are mostly the gaps between elementary particles. Not only that, but the elementary particles in what we call "a glass" are just like the particles that are in the things we call "water", or "air", or "Rick".
If we look at our glass of water from another perspective, we might see the ocean, or the rain, or the clouds. We might see the minerals that make glass, or the energy that molded it into this shape. We might see the jungle that was here for hundreds of years, or the man who drives his truck down this street everyday blowing a whistle and calling "agua." We might see the generations of people and other living beings from all over the planet who in some way participated in this event right now. The awareness of all this is included in wisdom.
All the other paramitas, along with everything else, are included in wisdom. Prajña Paramita is the great mother of all. There's a beautiful chant to Prajña Paramita, personified as a woman, that is a part of the Prajña Paramita literature. I'd like to read it to you now, and then for our service we can chant it together before we chant the Heart Sutra and the Metta Sutta.
It's called, Hymn to the Perfection of Wisdom
Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the lovely, the holy. The Perfection of Wisdom gives light. Unstained, the entire world cannot stain her. She is a source of light and from everyone in the triple world she removes darkness. Most excellent are her works. She brings light so that all fear and distress may be forsaken, and disperses the gloom and darkness of delusion. She herself is an organ of vision. She has a clear knowledge of the own-being of all dharmas, for she does not stray away from it. The Perfection of Wisdom of the buddhas sets in motion the wheel of dharma.
Thanks for listening.
© 2007, Burai Rick Spencer