My friend Adam just dropped by the studio with a coin from the Rotary Club in his pocket. On one side are the Club’s Four Truths, which I was just trying to remember for this talk:
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
I have no idea how much actual cross-pollination may have occurred between Rotarians and Buddhists, but there is a definite resonance in the idea of four guiding truths, and in the exhortation to examine our impulses of body, speech, and mind. The practice of Right Intention, the second of the eight interrelated parts of the Eightfold Path, asks us to cultivate and develop this sense until it becomes a firm foundation for all we think, say, and do.
In his chapter on Right Intention, Bhikku Bodhi lays out the alternatives in dire & urgent terms:
When wrong views prevail, the outcome is wrong intention giving rise to unwholesome actions. Thus one who denies the moral efficacy of action and measures achievement in terms of gain and status will aspire to nothing but gain and status, using whatever means he can to acquire them. When such pursuits become widespread, the result is suffering, the tremendous suffering of individuals, social groups, and nations to gain wealth, position, and power without regard to consequences. The cause for the endless competition, conflict, injustice and oppression does not lie outside the mind. These are all just manifestations of intentions, outcroppings of thoughts driven by greed, by hatred, by delusion.
We have previously mentioned the Dvedhāvitakka Sutta, the Discourse on Two Kinds of Thought (MN19). Here, the Buddha-to-Be sets about sorting his thoughts into two categories:
1) those that lead to my own affliction or to the affliction of others or to the affliction of both. [those that] obstruct discernment, promote vexation, & do not lead to Unbinding.”
2) those that lead neither to my own affliction, nor to the affliction of others, nor to the affliction of both. [those that] foster discernment, promote lack of vexation, & lead to Unbinding.
Into the first category, he places thoughts stemming from the intention of sense-desire, thoughts stemming from the intention of ill-will, and thoughts stemming from the intention of cruelty. Into the second category, he places thoughts stemming from the intention of renunciation, thoughts stemming from the intention of non-ill-will, or kindness; and thoughts stemming from the intention of non-cruelty, or compassion.
Renunciation is not a very popular concept in our culture, and there are some unpleasant images that may arise in response to the word. Remember the beady-eyed self-flagellating monk in The DaVinci Code, with his hair-shirt and flesh-spiking garter? He & his unpleasant fellow-Puritans embody a profound misunderstanding of renunciation. The Buddha placed practices of self-mortification clearly outside the Eightfold Path. In the Buddha’s dispensation, renunciation means not clinging to pleasure, not pushing it away, not scheming towards it, and not inflicting its opposite. In other words:
Renunciation is realizing that nostalgia for samsara is full of shit.
That’s how Trungpa Rimpoche put it. It’s coarse, but effective. The opposite of renunciation is attempting to take refuge in objects that are neither worthy of our trust, nor able to deliver the happiness we seek. The more we practice, the more we know this is true. We’re still a little bit flattered when praise comes our way, but we aren’t obsessed with building up our reputation in the world. It’s still unpleasant when we’re denounced as An Enemy of the People, but we aren’t crushed by it. We give up on longing for perfect companionship, the ideal job, good hair days forever, and weather that suits our needs in every way. We give up on being liked all the time, and on liking ourselves all the time. We give up on the project of creating a perfect self, because we realize there is no self to perfect. The renunciation practice of Right Intention leads us to see that even intention is not self.
The first stages of renunciation often feel like something special. Since our family and friends are often not signing up for the Path in the same way we are, trying to change our habits also involves facing resistance and painful reflections from those around us. We can become self-conscious and defensive. I remember visiting my mother’s side of the family in France when I was a nun, and definitely engaged in a Special Projects phase of renunciation. There was a kind of freedom growing, but at the same time I was carrying around a lot of rules and practices that were not at all the way my family was used to doing things. No alcohol, no meat, no food after noon, no hair, no eyebrows, no money, and no boyfriend. As far they were concerned, that was a whole lot of No, with little Yes to show for it. There was something lonely and absurd about those non-meals, as I sat nibbling a bit of camembert while wine, food & conversation swirled around me. When we leave behind the known to enter the unknown, there’s a sense of alienation and loneliness.
These feelings are exacerbated by awareness of the pain we can cause others through our aspiration to move towards greater kindness, clarity, and compassion. We can imagine the pain of Siddhartha Gotama’s wife, Yasodhara; and son, Rahula, on discovering that their husband & father had left in the night, renouncing his palace life as a prince to become a spiritual wanderer. As students of the Buddha more than 2500 years after that day, we know that Gotama’s renunciation bore immeasurably beneficial fruit, but that morning in the palace, it must have felt like a terrible abandonment for those he’d left behind. Some echo of this loss happens each time we turn away from situations we have outgrown, and head for the open road. Goodbye, Mom and Dad. Goodbye, students and colleagues. Goodbye, marriage. Goodbye, old house. Goodbye, daughter. It’s unrealistic to expect applause from those who see us turn and go. They have roles and expectations for us to fill, and still, we go. We have roles and expectations for them to fill, and still, they go.
We try to be clear: how much of our intention is grounded in taking refuge in the good, the true & the beautiful? How much is grounded in dislike and frustration? How much is grounded in craving for what we perceive to be a better life, elsewhere? If we are honest, we probably see a mixture of all of these. Traditional versions of the Buddha’s leaving-home story include him noticing how icky the dancing girls look, asleep and drooling. That sounds like aversion, doesn’t it? The fact is that our intentions are mixed and beyond our control, just like our bodies, feelings, and everything else. In renouncing, we have to let go of irreproachability. We don’t get to take refuge in being right.
Here is a beautiful renunciation song based on a saying from the great Hasidic mystic Nachman of Breslov. I learned it from a friend who had just left Wat Pananachat, Ajahn Chah’s monastery for westerners in Thailand. This friend was feeling the pain of leaving his monastic life, and so he taught it from a very tender place:
And all of the world is just one narrow bridge, just one narrow bridge,
and above all is not to fear.
כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, והעיקר - לא לפחד כלל.
v'ha'ikar lo lefahed klal.
And all of the world is just one narrow bridge, just one narrow bridge,
and above all is not to fear.
The image of not giving into paralysis on a scary crossing really resonates, doesn’t it? There’s no place to rest, just the ongoing effort of shifting our balance from one foot to the other, neither resisting nor hastening the flow of the passage.
If we look in more detail at the Dvedhāvitakka Sutta, we find the Buddha says something surprising about wholesome thoughts related to renunciation:
"And as I remained thus heedful, ardent, & resolute, thinking imbued with renunciation arose in me. I discerned that 'Thinking imbued with renunciation has arisen in me; and that leads neither to my own affliction, nor to the affliction of others, nor to the affliction of both. It fosters discernment, promotes lack of vexation, & leads to Unbinding. If I were to think & ponder in line with that even for a night... even for a day... even for a day & night, I do not envision any danger that would come from it, except that thinking & pondering a long time would tire the body. When the body is tired, the mind is disturbed; and a disturbed mind is far from concentration.' So I steadied my mind right within, settled, unified, & concentrated it. Why is that? So that my mind would not be disturbed.
The very act of clinging to wholesome thoughts transforms them into burdens for the body & mind. Willingness to accept this fact from hard-won experience allows us to keep our intentions responsive and fluid – to keep our feet moving, in other words, without hardening into fixed views.
The other two components of Sammā Sankappo – besides renunciation – come right back into the realm of the Brahmaviharas, the four Divine Abidings, which are lovingkindness (mettā), compassion (karunā), joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā). The alternative to thoughts, deeds, or words stemming from the intention of ill-will is thoughts, deeds, or words stemming from the intention of kindness (mettā); and the alternative to thoughts, deeds, or words stemming from the intention of cruelty is thoughts, deeds, or words stemming from the intention of compassion (karunā).
Many of you have probably practiced mettā meditation in the past, and Peg led us in a guided compassion meditation a couple of weeks ago. These are ongoing, essential cultivations for our practice. Tonight I’d like to introduce the Paramitas to those of you who are not familiar with them, and close by chanting the Paramitas together.
The paramitas, or perfections, are qualities of our Buddha nature that can be consciously cultivated, as the Buddha himself is said to have done over countless lifetimes. Different qualities are included in different traditions, but the list I learned is
Practicing with the Paramitas can be a beautiful way of honing our practice of Right Intention. Any of the Paramitas can be considered from the perspectives of the three forms of right intention. Pick up generosity and you will see that renunciation is present in letting go of clinging to possessions. From the perspective of kindness you see the intention of benefiting beings by giving tools for happiness. And from the perspective of compassion, you see generosity in giving resources with the intention to help end suffering.
You can reflect this way about saccā, truthfulness, as well. Truth-telling can carry the intention of renunciation when it is personally dangerous, or when it costs us the approval or liking of those around us. It can carry the intention of kindness when it means overcoming reticence to express our love. And it can carry the intention of compassion when we speak the truth about our own suffering as a way of connecting deeply with others.
I encourage you to reflect wisely in this way, expanding your sense of Right Intention through contemplating and cultivating the Paramitas in your lives. I also encourage you to commit the Paramitas chant to heart. When you are waiting for a plane in a snowstorm, or sitting by someone’s hospital bed, it’s a pretty good place to turn your mind.
Each verse of the chant we’ll do goes through three levels of each Paramita, corresponding to different degrees of letting go of self-view. So the first level might be, for example, determination affected by desire to acquire personal merit. The second level might be determination affected by some level of attachment to the good feelings generated by strong practice. And the final level would just be determination as a wholehearted spontaneous response, untainted by any sense of self.
This version of the chant includes tatha, or suchness, as a reminder that the ultimate fruit of practice is the ability to be with things exactly as they are. Each verse ends with a litany of the Brahmaviharas, and then the whole chant closes with taking the three refuges.
The Buddha achieved the perfection of [this paramita]
…the big-time perfection of [this paramita]
…the ultimate perfection of [this paramita]
…the perfections of lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity
Itipi so bhagava dana parami sampanno
dana paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava sila parami sampanno
sila paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava nekkhama parami sampanno
nekkhama upaparami sampanno
nekkhama paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
[nekkhama = renunciation]
Itipi so bhagava pañña parami sampanno
pañña paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava viriya parami sampanno
viriya upaparami sampanno
viriya paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava khanti parami sampanno
khanti upaparami sampanno
khanti paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava sacca parami sampanno
sacca paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava aditthana parami sampanno
aditthana upaparami sampanno
aditthana paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
[aditthana = determination or perseverance]
Itipi so bhagava metta parami sampanno
metta paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava upekkha parami sampanno
upekkha upaparami sampanno
upekkha paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Itipi so bhagava tatha parami sampanno
tatha paramatthaparami sampanno
metta karuna mudita upekkha parami sampanno
Buddham saranam gacchami [I take refuge in the Buddha]
Dhammam saranam gacchami [I take refuge in the Dhamma]
Sangham saranam gacchami [I take refuge in the Sangha]
Dutthiyampi Buddham saranam gacchami [For the second time, I take refuge in the Buddha]
Dutthiyampi Dhammam saranam gacchami [For the second time, I take refuge in the Dhamma]
Dutthiyampi Sangham saranam gacchami [For the second time, [I take refuge in the Sangha]
Tathiyampi Buddham saranam gacchami [For the third time, I take refuge in the Buddha]
Tathiyampi Dhammam saranam gacchami [For the third time, I take refuge in the Dhamma]
Tathiyampi Sangham saranam gacchami [For the third time, I take refuge in the Sangha]
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