Today I want to discuss the perfection of wisdom, prajnaparamita. Are you practicing it? One might ask how someone who practices in order to gain wisdom can already practice wisdom. It may sound like wordplay. Yet every practice undertaken toward Buddhahood proceeds together with the perfection of wisdom.
The Buddha’s giving differs from the giving of someone not yet a Buddha
Consider the perfection of giving. Suppose the Buddha is walking and sees someone starving. He too has only the single meal collected on alms round, but the other person appears more hungry. He will share, accepting his own hunger because he can eat tomorrow.
The Buddha would hardly think, “I am performing generosity.” He acts naturally because it is what should be done. The gift of Dharma is similar. If someone suffers through a foolish belief, he explains that the suffering is unnecessary. He gives without building an identity around giving.
We are not Buddhas. When asked to give our food away, we feel reluctant. We learned that generosity should be practiced, so we offer it despite the regret of going hungry. Does practice end because the food was handed over? If we merely congratulate ourselves on accumulating merit, the perfection of giving has not been practiced properly.
At the moment of giving, turn back and examine the mind
A suffering person stands before me and I give because I feel compassion. Sometimes I may give without understanding that person’s need, and someone rescued from drowning may even accuse the rescuer. What, then, does giving mean? Was the object I called mine truly mine? What would the Buddha have done and how would he have understood the situation?
The perfection of giving culminates in giving without the thought of giving. Giver, recipient, and gift are not hardened into separate possessions. Until that is embodied, examine the distance between one’s present mind and that freedom. Every one of the six perfections works this way.
Do not obey precepts mechanically; ask what they mean
Suppose the precept against killing is being observed, but one person appears ready to kill many others unless stopped. Should that person be killed or not? What does non-killing mean, what intention lives inside it, what would the Buddha do, and what should I do?
The six perfections are not mechanical answers but repeated self-examination. Diligence means watching all the other practices without losing a single moment. In the perfection of concentration, observe whether the mind is quietly collected; if it is not, see what disturbed it and return.
When giving, do I cling to “mine”? While speaking of ethics, do I covet another’s property? Can I turn the other cheek when struck, give an undergarment when asked for an outer garment, or walk ten miles with someone who requests five? Practice requires continuous examination of body, mind, and conduct.
Prajnaparamita is the continual effort to see things as they are
The perfection of wisdom sees every action as it is. As the Buddha sees self and world without tinted lenses, am I seeing this object as it is? What is happening in my body and mind? How do emotion and sensation move? What age is the world in, and what must I do now?
Someone who sees everything completely as it is is a Buddha. We are not yet Buddhas and therefore do not see perfectly. For that very reason, we continually attempt to see. Discovering a filter or tinted lens and looking again is prajnaparamita.
Is it right to block a mountain path with cultural-property fees?
Apply this standard to the Jogye Order. A person climbs a mountain and finds the entrance blocked by a demand for money. The order says its cultural property lies on the mountain and it manages the site, so even someone not entering the temple must pay to cross the designated zone. Is this right from every perspective? Does legal permission alone make it proper?
Imagine Gautama Siddhartha arriving in Korea today and walking toward Beopjusa Temple on Mount Songni. A Buddha practicing non-possession would have no money. If a cultural-property admission fee were demanded at the entrance, he could not pass. While Jogye monks block the path and collect money, they would fail to meet a living Buddha.
Dead statues and cultural artifacts are protected while a living Buddha is stopped. Someone wishing to hear his teaching and ask how to become a Buddha would lose the opportunity because the Buddha of non-possession carries no cash.
A barrier that pushes the Dharma farther from the poor
Mountains and temples should instead welcome people to enjoy cultural heritage and encounter the Buddha’s words. A sentence from a Dharma talk heard in passing may strike the heart and begin a life of learning. If money is demanded first, a person in difficult circumstances cannot enter.
The poor, vulnerable, and time-starved become least able to hear the Dharma. What meaning remains in reciting the Heart Sutra and invoking Avalokitesvara inside if the gate outside excludes people for lack of money?
Look again at the order’s collective actions through the eye of wisdom
Prajnaparamita continually asks what I am doing and what we have done together. How did the order’s conduct appear to the public? Were cultural-property fees, demands upon government, collective demonstrations, and political pressure right? Does attaching the language of legal entitlement justify every act?
Look as it is, then look again. Examine deeply what was wrong, whether collecting the money is right, and whether collective anger accords with Buddhism. A voice of self-reflection arising from within is the perfection of wisdom.
Blindly following another’s intention is not wisdom. One may have to walk alone like the rhinoceros horn and take the narrow gate rather than the broad and comfortable one. Even when everyone else speaks as one, if my own eye of wisdom says the conduct is wrong, I must express opposition.
Thousands speaking in unison does not make a claim true. Did the participants consider even once that their own behavior might be mistaken? One cannot claim prajnaparamita while viewing the world through layers of black and yellow filters. Through the self-examination of the six perfections, may they remove those lenses and move toward the Buddha’s wisdom.
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