(back
to Still Water Dharma Topics)
Dear Still Water Friends,
This Thursday evening, after our meditation period, we will explore together Prajña, the sixth of the Six Paramitas. In The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching Thich Nhat Hanh writes that prajña paramita, the perfection of understanding is:
the highest kind of
understanding, free from all knowledge, concepts, ideas, and views.
Prajña is the substance of Buddhahood in us. It is the kind of
understanding that has the power to carry us to the other shore of
freedom, emancipation, and peace. In Mahayana Buddhism, prajña
paramita is described as the Mother of All Buddhas. Everything that is
good, beautiful, and true is born from our mother, prajña
paramita.
The understanding Prajña points to is an intuitive knowing. It
can only be pointed to indirectly through metaphor
and paradox. Prajña asks us to hold at the same time
the concrete individuality of the particular and the
interconnectedness, the interbeing, of all reality. Again from the Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching:
Let us look at a wave on the
surface of the ocean. A wave is a wave. It has a beginning and an end.
It might be high or low, more or less beautiful than other waves. But a
wave is, at the same time, water. Water is the ground of being of the
wave. It is important that a wave knows that she is water, and not just
a wave. We, too, live our life as an individual. We believe that we
have a beginning and an end, that we are separate from other living
beings. That is why the Buddha advised us to look more deeply in order
to touch the ground of our being, which is nirvana. Everything bears
deeply the nature of nirvana. Everything has been "nirvanized." That is
the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. We look deeply, and we touch the
suchness of reality. Looking deeply into a pebble, flower, or our own
joy, peace, sorrow, or tear, we touch the ultimate dimension of our
being, and that dimension will reveal to us that the ground of our
being has the nature of no-birth and no-death.
In the tradition of mindfulness, Prajna, is not a “piece of
knowledge” about ultimate reality separate from our daily
lives, but a very concrete way of being with our feelings, our
emotions, our loved ones, and the people and circumstances which
challenge us. When we can simultaneously hold both the particular and
the universal, the tradition tells us, we can live our days with a calm
mind and a joyful heart.
Please join us this Thursday evening for our meditation and our
exploration of Prajña. Our discussion will begin with the
question: When we say we want to be understood by others, is the
understanding we seek “Prajna,” or something else?
Warm Wishes,
Mitchell Ratner
Senior Teacher