Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Plamo opens this weekend course on the Six Perfections—the foundational Buddhist path of generosity, ethical conduct, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom—by reframing how Western lay practitioners approach spiritual life. Rather than treating daily responsibilities as obstacles to practice, Plamo argues these are the practice itself when undertaken with awareness. She begins with generosity, exploring how open-hearted giving—whether material gifts, teachings, or fearlessness—loosens the grasping mind and creates conditions for abundance; she illustrates this through stories of a Sufi child discovering joy in sharing and a Hindu teacher who holds nothing. She then turns to ethical conduct, grounding the five precepts not in commandment but in the principle of harmlessness, establishing the precept against taking life as fundamental, and examining how respect for all beings’ inherent worth transforms our relation to the world.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 The Six Perfections.mp3
UUID: 8a7efa9f-bafd-4d94-961c-6005a362ec82
Teacher: Plamo
Collection: The Six Perfections (Plamo)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~4,466
Good morning, everyone. It is a good morning. No? Very lovely. Yeah.
So the subject of this weekend course is what in Buddhist parlance is called the six paramita. And the six paramita means literally something which goes beyond. Para means beyond, and mita means to go, to go beyond. So there isn’t actually any English equivalent, they got usually, it’s translated as the six perfections. Anyway, what they are is giving or generosity, ethical conduct, patience and tolerance, enthusiasm and effort and perseverance, meditation and wisdom.
Now Now these six paramitas which were laid down as the path of a bodhisattva, of someone who is aspiring to attain enlightenment in order to benefit not just themselves, but to benefit others. And I think this is a very a very complete path in many ways because it it incorporates qualities which are are needed for a very well balanced spiritual life, a spiritual life which is not just directed inwardly, meditation, wisdom, so on, but is also an outward expression, the generosity and living a life of harmlessness and developing patience and so on. One of the main differences in the way traditionally Buddhism has been presented is that traditionally the main practitioners in a Buddhist country would be, so to speak, the professionals, the monks and the nuns. And in any Dharma discourse, in any discourse on Buddhism, the majority of the audience would be made up of these people who had more or less devoted their whole life to the practice of the spiritual path. So they had lots of time.
Even if you’re living in a monastery where there are many things to do, I mean, that, you know, you have to run the monastery, so there are always jobs. Still, there is far less distractions than in the household life because you don’t have energy given to very close relationships and then you don’t have really a social life, you don’t have television, you don’t have to run off to the pub to be with your friends. You’re very centered. The monastic life is centered around either study program or the ritual program of that monastery. But nowadays in the West, this situation is completely reversed.
For example, there are no sangha members here. You are all laypeople. That means that you presumably have relationships or you’re you’re married, you have children, you have your family, your parents to whom you’re responsible, You have your work, your careers. You have your social life. So how much time do you have left over for meditation and for prayer.
And this is the difference. This is a very, very profound difference. Because if we present Buddhism as a path of meditation and formal practice, meaning the times when we go to the temple or the Dharma center, the times when we’re actually sitting in meditation or doing our rituals or whatever, that’s practice. And the rest of the day is so much sort of waste of time, a hindrance to the practice, then there’s no hope. There’s no hope because the amount of time which you are able to give to actually formal sitting is too small to effect a really radical change.
If the rest of the day your mind is totally distracted, it’s not much use that you spend half an hour, an hour a day getting your mind, trying to get your mind together. That wouldn’t be enough. So the traditional way of approaching is at this time not really adequate, and we have to relook the whole situation. Now so if we look I mean, this is this is true. I mean, one very wonderful lama, old lama of the the old traditional school who’s died a couple of years ago.
But I I read in the book, so it must be true, that I I mean, it was a book which he he was from his talks, his writings. And and somebody said to him, a Westerner said to him, look, Rinpoche, you know, I have a family, I have a career, and I have my social responsibilities, so I I don’t really have much time left over to practice Dharma. Dharma means Buddhism, basically, for those of you who don’t know what Dharma is. So I have no time for practicing Dharma. And the lama said, oh, well, never mind.
When your children have grown up, you can take early retirement, and then you can start to practice. I I truly, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe you’d actually said that. I won’t tell you which longer it was. But that’s because we’re confusing here terms.
We’re confusing the idea of Dharma practice with the idea of of formal sitting and retreats and and that sort of thing. But in order to really to really actuate an inner transformation, an inner change, then we have to realize that everything which we do, every encounter which we have, every breath which we take, if done with genuine awareness and understanding, is the Dharma practice. So understand that far from being an obstacle to our practice, our our daily life and our relationships and our career are the practice. And so this weekend, what we’re dealing with is merging, integrating daily life and the spiritual path, and realizing that the two are one if done with sufficient awareness and appreciation. Okay?
So in order to explain this, I use these six paramitas as a kind of basic structure because they do include all levels of practice. Okay? So today we will deal, I hope this morning with giving the the idea of generosity and ethics. This afternoon, we will deal with patience and tolerance and enthusiastic effort and perseverance. And tomorrow we’ll do with meditation and wisdom.
Okay? I think the Buddha put Dharma. Dharma means giving. He put giving or generosity at the very beginning because it’s something which we can all do. However deluded we may be, however angry we may be, however jealous or greedy, we can still give.
It’s it’s a very basic quality. We don’t need any spiritual heights to learn how to give. And giving means to open up the heart. Right? It it’s a very beautiful way to respond to others.
In Asia, people understand very well this whole quality of open hearted giving and generosity. It’s based on the understanding that if we want to be prosperous and successful, not only now but in our future lives, then we have to plant seeds. We’re not going to get a harvest if we don’t plant seeds. So the seeds for prosperity are generosity and giving. And therefore, if one wants to have, you know, success and things to go well and the way one wants them to do, one has to create the causes for that.
It’s considered that if we have a hard time getting money, if we’re always ending up very, very poor and so on and so, it’s because we haven’t created enough causes for giving and and open heartedness and generosity in the past. The Buddha one time said that if people understood the benefits of giving, the true future benefits of giving, then even one meal, they would never keep to themselves, but they would try to share with others. But because we don’t see future results, our minds are thinking, if I give something away, then what will I have? What will there be for me? Then that kind of mind not only cuts off our generous impulses, but also creates the causes for for, in fact, being able later to be prosperous.
It’s this whole idea of sharing. When I was in London one time, I became friendly with a group of Sufis. They were Western Sufis who had a sheikh, our master, in Morocco. And one of the couples in this group had a son who was about three years old. And so they gave him, at one point I was there, they gave him this box of sweets.
And then they said to him, you you should offer one to Anila. And he said the little boy said, you know, they’re mine. And his father said, yes, of course, they’re yours. That’s why you can share them with others. My little boy thought about that one.
He was only three. And then his whole demeanor just relaxed, and he had this big smile, and he offered up the box. And he went around the room offering it his sweets to everybody with such joy. We have. That’s why we can share with others.
Isn’t that wonderful? That’s what we’re talking about with this this quality of giving. It’s a joy to give. It benefits not only the recipient, but ourselves. It benefits us more than it benefits the recipient.
Because it’s this close mindedness, this this is me, this is mine, and I’m not giving it to anyone else, which causes us so much inner pain. And causes us, even if we have so much, not to really appreciate it, because we’re afraid to really open heartedly share it with others. We’re only afraid that people will try to take things from us. You see, isn’t the things which we own, which are the problem? It’s it’s our clinging, our grasping which is the problem.
It’s that grasping mind. That’s the problem. There is a story from ancient India about a king and his guru. And this king was a very devout king, and he had a guru who was a Brahmin. And this Brahmin was an ascetic, so all he possessed was a gourd, an alms bowl, and he had nothing else.
He just wore a very simple little piece of cloth, a dhoti. And the king had a palace and gold and silver and jewels and lots of wives and and many possessions. And one time they were sitting in the royal gardens under a tree, and the Brahmin was teaching the king. And a servant came running up and said, Maharaj, your majesty, come quickly, come quickly. The whole palace is ablaze.
The whole palace is burning. Please come immediately. And the king said, don’t bother me. I’m with my guru, learning dharma. You go and deal with the fire.
And then the brahmin jumped up and said, what do you mean? I left my gourd in the palace. So the thing is, do things own us or do we own them? And are we able to hold things lightly so that when we see someone, you know, in need or just out of appreciation, we can give. In India, I have a friend who is Hindu Swami, and he has a very, very simple ashram not so far from where we live.
And he was actually direct disciple of a very great Indian sage called Ramana Maharshi, and so he’s from South India. And he has many many disciples all over the place, I mean, in Kashmir, in Punjab, and and from the, you know, Indians who live abroad. But he lives very, very simply. And one of the things which when I first knew him and even to today, that I think when I think of him, people are always bringing him things, you know, and bringing him things from abroad, which are very appreciated in India where they don’t have those sort of things. And when anybody gives him anything, it doesn’t matter what it is, his first thought is, who would be a good person for me to give this to?
Nothing sticks. Nothing sticks to his fingers. They slide off into somebody else’s life, whatever he’s holding. And so he’s very happy. Right?
He’s very happy because his whole life is just receiving and handing over, receiving and giving the whole time, not accumulating, not having to carry this heavy burden on his back of all his possessions and his fears of losing his possessions. So I’m not saying that you go home and you, you know, know, clear out all your homes or anything. That’s not the that’s not the point. The point is this question of opening the heart, of really being able to rejoice in giving to others, not just material things. I mean, material things are good things to start with, but other things like our time, our sympathy, being there when others need us.
Giving fearlessness, I’ve just thought of that. In Buddhist parlance, you give the gift there are three kinds of giving that come into my mind. First is the giving of material gifts. Second is the gift of the Dharma. That means of, you know, this being with others, listening to them, trying to help them, give them advice, just, you know, trying to help people to clarify their lives a little bit.
But there is also the gift of fearlessness, of being a protection, of helping people also to discover their own inner courage. To give that to someone is considered a very priceless gift. So we can start in simple ways. We can start by just, you know it’s a way of of really developing this quality of of being conscious of others and of others’ needs and of giving joy and pleasure to others. So we give in with the intention to give delight and to give help if necessary, not just giving on Christmas and birthdays or when we’re visiting or whatever, but spontaneously.
We see something we like and we get it and we give it to somebody. Maybe it’s somebody even whom we don’t like. I mean, it’s nice to give to people that we like, but it’s also nice to give to people that we don’t like. Because it’s a very beautiful way to relate to others. And it’s it’s a perfection.
It’s it’s the first step on the spiritual path. It’s very important. The Buddha put it right at the front. This quality of joy in giving to others, not always thinking, what can I get from this? Now traditionally, there are three different cycles of circles of giving which were recommended.
First, to give to those who one regards as being in some way worthy of gifts. So that means well, in Buddhist parlance, means the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It means the monastic Sangha. It means one’s spiritual teachers or any teachers who one regards as being an inspiration and and spiritually superior. We give out of honor and respect.
Then the second group are those to whom we give because of our gratitude. And that means particularly our parents, our teachers, and anyone who has helped us in any way. We are grateful. You know, these qualities of honor and respect and gratitude are so denigrated in our present world. And that’s one of the reasons why our society is really disintegrating, because we don’t have we don’t inculcate in our children these qualities of heart, to honor and respect those who are superior to us, to have genuine gratitude and appreciation to all those who have helped us.
So children, you know, they abuse and bad mouth their parents. Without their parents, they wouldn’t be here. They might not have asked to be here, but their survival depends on their parents. Without their parents, nothing. And if when they were born, their parents looked at them and said, yuck.
What a horrible pink worm, and stuck them outside, then that’s it. You know, their parents, they cleaned them, they changed their nappies, they fed them, they they soothed you when you cried. They were always there for you when you were small. Without your parents, forget it. You wouldn’t be alive today.
And it doesn’t matter how hopeless you might think your parents were or not. They’re just human beings like everyone else. They have their good points and they have their failings. Who does not? But without them and without their care and attention, especially in our very early years, we would not be here.
So we owe them an intense debt of gratitude. They fed and cleaned and sheltered us. It’s not like we were so fascinated. I mean, our conversation left something to be desired. And and children, as we all know, can be very difficult and demanding, but, you know, our parents were there, and they loved.
And then our teachers, we wouldn’t be able to read and write or know anything if it were not for these people who taught us, who taught us how to read, how to write, how to think, how to learn. We should be so grateful. We should really appreciate and thank them from our hearts, for what they gave us. Why are we so critical? Society is very difficult, especially with the young nowadays.
It’s very heavy, judgmental, critical, selfish attitude. It’s not gratitude. And then the third level or cycle of people worthy, particularly of gifts and help, are those on account of their need. And that means the poor and the sick or anyone who is especially needy. And it’s nice to give your coat to, you know, your best friend, but it’s more meaningful to give it to someone who doesn’t have a coat and is cold.
Your coat your friend probably has a dozen coats already. You understand? And this is very basic, to give to those who really are in need, what is appropriate for them, what they do need. And sometimes what people need is just you. What they need is someone to listen to them, to hear their pain, not just dismiss it.
This is all very basic stuff, but it comes at the beginning, and it’s important in our lives. You know? The quality of our lives. Whether we are close hearted or whether we are open hearted, it depends on us. And and the first the first gesture of an open heart is the sense of generosity, of giving.
The second paramita is Śīla. Śīla means ethics. It means moral conduct. So someone starts yelling, oh god, moral conduct. In the Buddhadharma, moral conduct is basically it’s based on the whole principle of harmlessness.
It’s based on the principle of not doing any hurt to oneself or to others. Seeing in that way, the precepts laid down by the Buddha are very logical. These are not, so to speak, commandments. He didn’t say, Thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do that. The actual wording says, for example, using the first precept, I undertake the rule of training to abstain from the taking of life.
Right? It’s a rule of training. Now it’s based on the spontaneous natural conduct of an enlightened being. Right? An arhat.
A liberated arhat would naturally be basically incapable, would be incapable of intentionally taking life, and so on. And so therefore we are trying to model our conduct on the spontaneous conduct of a liberated being. Because if we want to build a house, if we want to build our spiritual temple, it’s no good just concentrating on the gold roof, on the frescoed walls. We have to start by digging very deep, strong foundations. Any building with weak foundations is going to very soon crack and fall, and it doesn’t matter how splendid that gold roof may be.
Do you understand? If you want to build a good house, you have to deal with the foundations and the plumbing and all those very unromantic essentials. And if you have very good, strong foundations, then the house will quite quickly get itself built. And the foundations are this quality of our basic ethical conduct, which means our way of living in this world. Whether we live harming ourselves and others or not.
So these precepts precepts were laid down two thousand five hundred years ago, but they’re eternal. They’re not something which was relevant two millennium ago in northern India, but is no longer relevant in Melbourne. They’re relevant anytime, anyplace, for any race. It’s not something for the east, but not for the west, for everybody. These precepts are the precept not to take life, the precept not to take that which is not given, the precept not to lie, the precept not to engage in sexual misconduct, and this is the one that gets all the pauses.
The precept not to indulge in alcohol or any drugs which intoxicate the mind. Okay. We’ll go through these. So the first one, and the most fundamental one for living in this world harmlessly, is the precept not to take life. Now that means all life, not just human life.
It means the life of animals, including those in the air, on the ground, under the ground, and in the oceans and rivers, and insects. Why? Because for all beings, to each being their own life is most precious. No being wants to be killed. Just as we would not like something from outer space to come and say, smoosh, just because we happen to be running across their path, Nobody wants that.
Nobody wants that. If there was a little ant on this table or some little insect, and I went like that with my finger, it would rear up and then run-in the other direction. Why? Because in its own way, it’s thinking there is danger. Something can harm me.
I must go away from that. So when we take the vow not to harm others, all others, we are saying to the world and to all the beings in the world, you have nothing to fear from me. In my presence, you are safe. And it’s that fundamental appreciation of the life of all other beings on this planet, which is so, so fundamental to living a life which, you know, even if we don’t benefit anyone else, at least we don’t harm them. Of course, we try to benefit also, but here we’re dealing with this question of non harming, not hurting anything.
So all beings are safe with us. Imagine, I mean, you know, we we are so I don’t know. human beings are really a problem for this planet. And, you know, for other beings, we are so selfish and unthinking and, know, something comes by and we don’t like it, and we just squish it. I mean, to no thought that this being has his own life and his own joys and sorrows.
You don’t know what kind of world it is existing into itself. What might have we? Anyway, this is a very fundamental precept. In this imperfect world, we cannot always keep it perfectly. As the Buddha himself said, this world is covered with much dust, and this is true.
It’s a very dusty world. Since dust is falling continually. There are always compromises people have to make, but we should be careful with our compromises and not just justify them easily. As much as we possibly can, we should really try to have integrity in our conduct, to become whole. And most of the time, we can do that.
If we, you know, if we make efforts, we can really, you know, not always thinking of our own convenience, thinking a little bit beyond ourselves. The idea of our being obsessed with being humans — what’s the word for that?
That that we we we really have this idea that we we yeah. But it’s more than that. It’s it’s that we put ourselves right at the center. Anthropocentric. Anthropocentric.
Yes. Anthropocentric, probably. But that we we really only see anything from our point of view. We don’t think that these other creatures also have a point of view. They also have rights.
I mean, I’m not going to go into a whole spiel about animal rights, but animals do have rights. Insects have rights. We all have rights, and we should think about that and think about trying to live in this world so as not to, you know, keep putting our big feet on everything all the time. You know? Tread a little more gently in in the in the, you know, the metaphorical sense.
So this first precept is a very important one. When I first was with my lama, he said, I want you to take just one precept and then consider you have all the others, but take one first. And and so then I chose this first one. And he said, yes. That was the right thing to do.
You should take he said, which one do you want? And I said, I’ll take the one and it’s taking life. And he said, yes. That’s the right one. Because it’s fundamental to all the others in a way.
The second precept is this one about not taking that which is not given. It’s a little bit more specific than not stealing, which is what it means, of course. And in the Sangha, in the monastic Sangha, they take it very seriously about not being given. For example, one time there was a Catholic nun who bought me from Delhi several tins of processed cheese. This was in the mid sixties, and in those days, processed cheese was very rare in India.
You could only get it in Delhi, so it was a a really nice gift. And so I decided to offer it to Khamtrul Rinpoche, And he didn’t happen to be there, so I put it on his desk right in front of where he sat so he’d see that was for him. And he came back, and the days went by. And this cheese was still sitting there looking like, you know, stacked up like a tall tower. And, eventually, I said to him, well, Rinpoche, why don’t you take that cheese?
Don’t you like it? And he said, well, I thought it was for me because it’s sitting there, but you haven’t offered it yet. And so then I sort of picked them up and sort of handed them to him formally. But that’s the question. You have to to have that integrity not to take that which is not given.
Because again, it’s dealing with this question of harmlessness, that people know that their property is safe with you, that you’re not going to filch anything, that you’re not going to harm their property even. I think it goes beyond merely not taking to a sense of respecting other people’s property. For example, when people lend us things, then we should take more care of their property than if it were our own in order to return it in as good a state as we got it, if not better. That sense of integrity and respect.