12. Pāramī – Perfections
According to the Cariyā Pitaka Commentary, Pāramī are those virtues which are cultivated with compassion, guided by reason, uninfluenced by selfish motives, and unsullied by misbelieve and all feelings of self-conceit. There are ten transcendental virtues, which, in Pāli, are termed Pāramī that every one practices in order to gain their noble gold.
Pāramī; means work for the welfare of others and work of the noble people. According to the Theravada point of view, in fulfilling Pāramitas for the liberation or knowing, there are three kinds of Buddha: 1.Sammāsanbuddha, 2. Paccekabuddha and 3. Sāvakabuddha
Sammāsambuddha means a person who has well known the four noble truths himself and also uses to preach the Dhamma for all living beings to get their liberation.
He has to fulfill Pāramitas for four incalculable periods and one hundred thousand kappas for Paññādhika Bodhisatta, eight incalculable periods and one hundred thousand kappas for Saddhādhika Bodhisatta, sixteen incalculable periods and one hundred thousand Kappas for Vīriyādhika Bodhisatta.
The second one who has to fulfill Pāramitas for two incalculable periods and one hundred thousand Kappas, indicates a person that has well known the four noble truths himself. But he does not use to preach the Dhamma to liberate for living beings.
The last one can be divided into three categories of: Aggasāvaka, Mahāsāvaka and Pakatisāvaka. Aggasāvakabuddha, the eminent chief disciple has to fulfill Pāramitas for one incalculable period and one hundred thousand Kappas.
Those who have to fulfill Pāramitas for one hundred thousand kappas are called Mahāsāvakabuddhas. Pakatisāvakabuddha means the ordinary Ariyā disciples who attain on gaining spiritual maturity but they have not fixed duration to achieve their goal. Sāvaka also has to fulfill the perfection to achieve knowledge of Arahanta or all knowledge; therefore we can call him Sāvakabodhisatta as well as Sāvakabuddhahood. In this realization, we have used the word “Sāvakabuddha”.
According to the commentary of Samyutta Nikāya, there are four kinds of Buddha, namely Sammāsaµbuddha, Paccekabuddha, Catusaccabuddha (Sāvakabuddha) and Sutabuddha:-
“Cattāro hi Buddhā Sabaññubuddho, paccekabuddho, catusaccabuddho Sutabuddhato’ti. Tattha samatimsapāramiyo puretvā sammāsambodhim patto sabaññuddho nama, kappasatasahassādhikāni dve asankhyeyāni pāramiyo puretvā sayambutam patto paccekabuddho nama, avasesa khīnāsavā catusacca buddhæ næma, bahussuto sutabuddho nama.”
Actually, Catusacca Buddha means Arahanta. So, if the Arahanta also can be termed as Buddha, and if someone has aspiration to become an Arahanta, he has to fulfill perfections to be an Arahanta. Till he fulfills these perfections, he is Sāvakabodhisatta.
If there is Sammāsambuddha Boddhisatta, there can be Sammāsambuddha as well. Therefore we can say that fulfillment of the Pāramitas to become an Arahanta can be considered as gaining the Sammāsambuddha Boddhisattahood.
‘Danam silañca nekkhammam, pañña viriyena pañcamam;
Khanti saccaa adhitthænam, mettupekkhati te dasa’ti”.
They are Generosity (Dāna), Morality (Sīla), Renunciation (Nekkhamma), Wisdom (Paññā), Energy (Viriya), Patience (Khanti), Truthfulness (Sacca), Determination (Adhitthāna) and Equanimity (Upekkhā).
1. Dāna
Dāna or Generosity is the first Pārami. It confers upon the giver the double blessing of inhibiting immoral thoughts of selfishness, while developing pure thoughts of selflessness.
“It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
2. Sīla
Combined with this supernormal generosity of a Bodhisatta is his virtuous conduct (Sīla). The meaning of the Pāli term is discipline. It consists of duties that one should perform (Cāritta) and abstinences which one should practise (Vāritta).
These duties towards parents, children, husband, wife, teachers, pupils, friends, monks, subordinates, etc., are described in detail in the Sigālovāda Sutta.
The duties of a layman are described in a series of relationships, each for mnemonic reasons of five items!
3. Nekkhamma
Still keener is the enthusiasm a Bodhisatta exhibits towards Nekkhamma (Renunciation), for by nature he is a lover of solitude. Nekkhamma implies both renunciation of worldly pleasures by adopting the ascetic life and the temporary inhibition of Hindrances (Nivarana) by Jhānas (Ecstasies).
4. Pannā
Nekkhamma is followed by Paññā (Wisdom or Knowledge). It is the right understanding of the nature of the world in the light of transiency (anicca), sorrowfulness (dukkha) and soullessness (anatta).
5. Viriya
Closely allied with Paññā (wisdom) is Viriya (Energy or Perseverance). Here Viriya does not mean physical strength though this is an asset, but mental vigour or strength of character, which is far superior. It is defined as the persistent effort to work for the welfare of others both in thought and deed.
6. Khanti
As important as Viriya is Khanti. It is the patient endurance of suffering inflicted upon oneself by others, and the forbearance of others’ wrongs.
7. Sacca
Truthfulness or Sacca is the seventh Perfection. By Sacca is here meant the fulfillment of one’s promise. This is one of the salient characteristics of a Bodhisatta, for he is no breaker of his word. He acts as he speaks; he speaks as he acts (yathāvādītath akārī yathākāri tathāvādi) .
8. Adhitthāna
Truthfulness is followed by Adhitthāna which may be translated as resolute determination. Without this firm determination the other perfections cannot be fulfilled. It is compared to the foundation of a building. This will-power forces all obstructions out of the Bodhisatta’s path, and no matter what may come to him, sickness, grief, or disaster – he never turns his eyes away from his goal.
9. Mettā
The most important of all Pāramis is Mettā (Samskrit Maitri). There is no graceful English equivalent for Mettā. It may be rendered as benevolence, goodwill, friendliness, or loving-kindness, and is defined as the wish for the happiness of all beings without exception.
10. Upekkhā
The tenth Pāramī is Upekkhā or equanimity. The Pāli term Upekkhā is composed of upa, which means justly, impartially or rightly (yuttito) and ikkha, to see, discern or view. The etymological meaning of the term is discerning rightly, viewing justly, or looking impartially, that is, without attachment or aversion, without favour or disfavour.
Here the term is not used in the sense of indifference or neutral feeling.
The most difficult and the most essential of all perfections is this equanimity, especially for a layman who has to live in an ill-balanced world with fluctuating fortunes.
Slights and insults are the common lot of humanity. So are praise and blame, loss and gain, pain and happiness.
က်မ္းကုိး …
သဂါထာ၀ဂၢအ႒ကထာ။ ၁။ေဒ၀တာသံယုတ္၊ ၇။အပၸဋိ၀ိဒိတသုတ္၊ ႏွာ-၁-၂၄
ဧကနိပါတ္အ႒ကထာ။ ၁၃။ ဧကပုဂၢလ။ ပုိဒ္ေရ-၁၇၄။ ႏွာ-၁-၉၀
အပါဒါနအ႒ကထာ။ ၁။ဗုဒၶ၀ဂ္။ ႏွာ-၁-၁၅၈
သုတၱနိပါတအ႒ကထာ။ ၁။ ဥရဂ၀ဂ္။ ႏွာ-၁-၄၆
စူဠနိေဒၵသအ႒ကထာ။ ပါရာယန၀ဂၢ။ ႏွာ-၂၆
စရိယပိဋကအ႒ကထာ။ ၃။ ယုဓဉၨယ၀ဂၢ။ ႏွာ-၃၀၁-၂-၃-၄/ ၃၀၆
သုတ္မဟာ၀ဂၢပါဠိ။ ၆။ မဟာေဂါ၀ိႏၵသုတ္။ ႏွာ-၂-၁၈၀/
၎အ႒ကထာ ႏွာ-၂-၂၄၄/ ႏွာ-၂-၂၆
ပါထိက၀ဂၢပါဠိ။ ၆။ ပါသာဒိကသုတ္၊ ႏွာ-၃-၁၁၁
စတုကၠနိပါတပါဠိ။ ၃။ ဥရုေ၀လ၀ဂၢ။ ႏွာ-၁-၃၃၂
ဣတိ၀ုတၱကပါဠိ။ ၄။ စတုကၠနိပါတ။ ႏွာ-၂၇၆
ဗုဒၶ၀ံသပါဠိ။ ၁။ ရတနစကၤမနက႑။ ႏွာ-၂-၃၀၆
According to the Cariyā Pitaka Commentary, Pāramī are those virtues which are cultivated with compassion, guided by reason, uninfluenced by selfish motives, and unsullied by misbelieve and all feelings of self-conceit. There are ten transcendental virtues, which, in Pāli, are termed Pāramī that every one practices in order to gain their noble gold.
Pāramī; means work for the welfare of others and work of the noble people. According to the Theravada point of view, in fulfilling Pāramitas for the liberation or knowing, there are three kinds of Buddha: 1.Sammāsanbuddha, 2. Paccekabuddha and 3. Sāvakabuddha
Sammāsambuddha means a person who has well known the four noble truths himself and also uses to preach the Dhamma for all living beings to get their liberation.
He has to fulfill Pāramitas for four incalculable periods and one hundred thousand kappas for Paññādhika Bodhisatta, eight incalculable periods and one hundred thousand kappas for Saddhādhika Bodhisatta, sixteen incalculable periods and one hundred thousand Kappas for Vīriyādhika Bodhisatta.
The second one who has to fulfill Pāramitas for two incalculable periods and one hundred thousand Kappas, indicates a person that has well known the four noble truths himself. But he does not use to preach the Dhamma to liberate for living beings.
The last one can be divided into three categories of: Aggasāvaka, Mahāsāvaka and Pakatisāvaka. Aggasāvakabuddha, the eminent chief disciple has to fulfill Pāramitas for one incalculable period and one hundred thousand Kappas.
Those who have to fulfill Pāramitas for one hundred thousand kappas are called Mahāsāvakabuddhas. Pakatisāvakabuddha means the ordinary Ariyā disciples who attain on gaining spiritual maturity but they have not fixed duration to achieve their goal. Sāvaka also has to fulfill the perfection to achieve knowledge of Arahanta or all knowledge; therefore we can call him Sāvakabodhisatta as well as Sāvakabuddhahood. In this realization, we have used the word “Sāvakabuddha”.
According to the commentary of Samyutta Nikāya, there are four kinds of Buddha, namely Sammāsaµbuddha, Paccekabuddha, Catusaccabuddha (Sāvakabuddha) and Sutabuddha:-
“Cattāro hi Buddhā Sabaññubuddho, paccekabuddho, catusaccabuddho Sutabuddhato’ti. Tattha samatimsapāramiyo puretvā sammāsambodhim patto sabaññuddho nama, kappasatasahassādhikāni dve asankhyeyāni pāramiyo puretvā sayambutam patto paccekabuddho nama, avasesa khīnāsavā catusacca buddhæ næma, bahussuto sutabuddho nama.”
Actually, Catusacca Buddha means Arahanta. So, if the Arahanta also can be termed as Buddha, and if someone has aspiration to become an Arahanta, he has to fulfill perfections to be an Arahanta. Till he fulfills these perfections, he is Sāvakabodhisatta.
If there is Sammāsambuddha Boddhisatta, there can be Sammāsambuddha as well. Therefore we can say that fulfillment of the Pāramitas to become an Arahanta can be considered as gaining the Sammāsambuddha Boddhisattahood.
‘Danam silañca nekkhammam, pañña viriyena pañcamam;
Khanti saccaa adhitthænam, mettupekkhati te dasa’ti”.
They are Generosity (Dāna), Morality (Sīla), Renunciation (Nekkhamma), Wisdom (Paññā), Energy (Viriya), Patience (Khanti), Truthfulness (Sacca), Determination (Adhitthāna) and Equanimity (Upekkhā).
1. Dāna
Dāna or Generosity is the first Pārami. It confers upon the giver the double blessing of inhibiting immoral thoughts of selfishness, while developing pure thoughts of selflessness.
“It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
2. Sīla
Combined with this supernormal generosity of a Bodhisatta is his virtuous conduct (Sīla). The meaning of the Pāli term is discipline. It consists of duties that one should perform (Cāritta) and abstinences which one should practise (Vāritta).
These duties towards parents, children, husband, wife, teachers, pupils, friends, monks, subordinates, etc., are described in detail in the Sigālovāda Sutta.
The duties of a layman are described in a series of relationships, each for mnemonic reasons of five items!
3. Nekkhamma
Still keener is the enthusiasm a Bodhisatta exhibits towards Nekkhamma (Renunciation), for by nature he is a lover of solitude. Nekkhamma implies both renunciation of worldly pleasures by adopting the ascetic life and the temporary inhibition of Hindrances (Nivarana) by Jhānas (Ecstasies).
4. Pannā
Nekkhamma is followed by Paññā (Wisdom or Knowledge). It is the right understanding of the nature of the world in the light of transiency (anicca), sorrowfulness (dukkha) and soullessness (anatta).
5. Viriya
Closely allied with Paññā (wisdom) is Viriya (Energy or Perseverance). Here Viriya does not mean physical strength though this is an asset, but mental vigour or strength of character, which is far superior. It is defined as the persistent effort to work for the welfare of others both in thought and deed.
6. Khanti
As important as Viriya is Khanti. It is the patient endurance of suffering inflicted upon oneself by others, and the forbearance of others’ wrongs.
7. Sacca
Truthfulness or Sacca is the seventh Perfection. By Sacca is here meant the fulfillment of one’s promise. This is one of the salient characteristics of a Bodhisatta, for he is no breaker of his word. He acts as he speaks; he speaks as he acts (yathāvādītath akārī yathākāri tathāvādi) .
8. Adhitthāna
Truthfulness is followed by Adhitthāna which may be translated as resolute determination. Without this firm determination the other perfections cannot be fulfilled. It is compared to the foundation of a building. This will-power forces all obstructions out of the Bodhisatta’s path, and no matter what may come to him, sickness, grief, or disaster – he never turns his eyes away from his goal.
9. Mettā
The most important of all Pāramis is Mettā (Samskrit Maitri). There is no graceful English equivalent for Mettā. It may be rendered as benevolence, goodwill, friendliness, or loving-kindness, and is defined as the wish for the happiness of all beings without exception.
10. Upekkhā
The tenth Pāramī is Upekkhā or equanimity. The Pāli term Upekkhā is composed of upa, which means justly, impartially or rightly (yuttito) and ikkha, to see, discern or view. The etymological meaning of the term is discerning rightly, viewing justly, or looking impartially, that is, without attachment or aversion, without favour or disfavour.
Here the term is not used in the sense of indifference or neutral feeling.
The most difficult and the most essential of all perfections is this equanimity, especially for a layman who has to live in an ill-balanced world with fluctuating fortunes.
Slights and insults are the common lot of humanity. So are praise and blame, loss and gain, pain and happiness.
က်မ္းကုိး …
သဂါထာ၀ဂၢအ႒ကထာ။ ၁။ေဒ၀တာသံယုတ္၊ ၇။အပၸဋိ၀ိဒိတသုတ္၊ ႏွာ-၁-၂၄
ဧကနိပါတ္အ႒ကထာ။ ၁၃။ ဧကပုဂၢလ။ ပုိဒ္ေရ-၁၇၄။ ႏွာ-၁-၉၀
အပါဒါနအ႒ကထာ။ ၁။ဗုဒၶ၀ဂ္။ ႏွာ-၁-၁၅၈
သုတၱနိပါတအ႒ကထာ။ ၁။ ဥရဂ၀ဂ္။ ႏွာ-၁-၄၆
စူဠနိေဒၵသအ႒ကထာ။ ပါရာယန၀ဂၢ။ ႏွာ-၂၆
စရိယပိဋကအ႒ကထာ။ ၃။ ယုဓဉၨယ၀ဂၢ။ ႏွာ-၃၀၁-၂-၃-၄/ ၃၀၆
သုတ္မဟာ၀ဂၢပါဠိ။ ၆။ မဟာေဂါ၀ိႏၵသုတ္။ ႏွာ-၂-၁၈၀/
၎အ႒ကထာ ႏွာ-၂-၂၄၄/ ႏွာ-၂-၂၆
ပါထိက၀ဂၢပါဠိ။ ၆။ ပါသာဒိကသုတ္၊ ႏွာ-၃-၁၁၁
စတုကၠနိပါတပါဠိ။ ၃။ ဥရုေ၀လ၀ဂၢ။ ႏွာ-၁-၃၃၂
ဣတိ၀ုတၱကပါဠိ။ ၄။ စတုကၠနိပါတ။ ႏွာ-၂၇၆
ဗုဒၶ၀ံသပါဠိ။ ၁။ ရတနစကၤမနက႑။ ႏွာ-၂-၃၀၆
