Virtue Paramita
Photo by Philip Brown
In the second talk in this series of ten talks on the paramitas or perfections, Zuisei speaks on the importance of cultivating virtue as a quality that brings us to regard all beings fully.
So instead of thinking of virtue as purity, we can think of it as a careful, loving, seeing of all things and all beings. This kind of seeing involves a letting go, an emptying of ourselves so we can meet another fully.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Virtue Paramita
Seeing is, of course, very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply will not see it. It is, as Ruskin says, not merely unnoticed, but in the full, clear sense of the word, unseen. If Tinker Mountain erupted, I would be likely to notice. But if I want to notice the lesser cataclysms of valley life, I have to maintain in my head a running description of the present.
It is not that I am observant; it is just that I talk too much. Otherwise, especially in a strange place, I will never know what is happening. Like a blind man at the ball game, I need a radio. When I see this way, I analyze and pry. I hurl over logs and roll away stones. I study the bank a square foot at a time, probing and tilting my head.
Some days, when a mist covers the mountains, when the muskrats will not show and the microscope's mirror shatters, I want to climb up the blank blue dome as someone would storm the inside of a circus tent. Wildly, dangling, and with a steel knife, I peep, and if I must, fall.
This is from Pilgrim, Tinker's Creek, by Annie Dillard. I have been rereading this book, and I was thinking about the pleasure of rereading, the pleasure of rediscovering something. Sometimes, the first time you are too preoccupied or too dazzled by the language or the newness to take it all in. When you are rereading and revisiting the same landscape, you are reflected back to yourself, and you can see whether you have grown or not, and see what you could not see before.
I chose this passage, which is part of a larger, longer chapter on seeing, because I thought it would work well with this long weekend's retreat, Beginner's Eye, on photography. This made it very poignant for all of you participating in it: the question of what is seeing, and who is the one who is seeing.
Learning to See One Another
I have been reading Annie Dillard, among other things, and studying the ten Paramitas, as laid out in Theravada Buddhism and the Pali Canon, whose anchor, I think, is clear seeing: wisdom, prajna, paramita, which is seeing, deeply realizing the true nature of things.
I would like to suggest that virtue, or sila paramita, which traditionally is understood as the cultivation of moral conduct through the practice of the precepts, is also predicated on a total, wholehearted, perfect kind of seeing—a seeing of the whole being. Whether it is a person, an object, or a landscape—and for the sake of closeness, let us call them all beings—virtue is having full regard and full respect for a being. This applies to this being or other beings because they are not different, in fact.
I have always thought that fundamentally, all of us want to be seen, to be fully seen and regarded, and therefore respected in our basic humanity. Much of the process of seeing and being seen is what makes us whole, because we are relational beings. Maybe if there is a true recluse, they do not care, but most of us do.
I think it is true of a teacher who said that the opposite of love is not hate, but disregard. I recently told the story of my first interview, my first face-to-face teaching, which was not with Dairo Roshi, but with Shugun Sensei, who at the time was not yet Sensei.
I have a very clear mental image of that interview. It happened in the Buddha Hall, and he was wearing his black robes. I remember going in, and I had not even met Daido at the time. I mumbled something about being really drawn to this life, maybe about being a monk or something. I have no recollection whatsoever of what he said, but it is irrelevant, because all I saw were his eyes on me. That gaze that he has. I had never felt so completely seen in my entire life. Twenty years later, I still feel that from him. I still remember very clearly that first time.
And the opposite. What a visceral terror. I do not exaggerate when I say that. There is a terror in those times when I did not feel seen. Those times in my life when it seemed like it did not matter what I did. It was as if I were not there, as if I did not exist. Even as I say it, I feel that in my body. It is a kind of annihilation, an extinction.
How different is that experience from emptiness, from those moments when I see that I am not who or what I think I am, what I have thought for so long I am. And the overwhelming relief of that, the lightness of that. I do not have to keep making myself. This, on the other hand, is disregard, a negation of being, and therefore almost violent. I have done it. I have done it myself to somebody else, and in that moment, it was violent. It not only disregards the person, but it disregards their inherent awakened nature, their Buddha nature. That moment of complete self-regard, of self-preoccupation, of not seeing the other, is a negation of their being.
I find it a compelling paradox that we need to be completely regarded, which is so fundamental to our existence, at the same time that we must see that the self is empty. I like the language of Tibetan Buddhism because empty is, they say, the nature of all things, of self-nature, of independent existence, but it is luminous, bright, and all-pervading. It is not vacant. There is no lack, nothing missing. It is impossible for anything to be missing.
Given that the self is empty and luminous in nature, who practices the paramitas? Who observes the precepts? Who practices virtue? Who is the one seeing? In the Bloodstream Sermon, Bodhidharma says that Buddhas do not keep precepts, do not break precepts, do not do good, and do not do evil. But he can say that because he knows exactly what he means, which is not what most of us mean when we say it. Even after years of practice, we have to be careful about what we mean. Is there even a trace in our minds of the understanding that the self is empty?
We go about our lives doing exactly what we have always done. On the cushion, at a certain point, it is not hard. At a certain point, it is not that difficult to see that the self is empty, and it feels good. That bright, luminous nature feels good. But what about when you get off the cushion and are asked to do a job you do not want to do? Where is selflessness then? We want selflessness, but not yet. Not like that. Like St. Augustine's prayer: “Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
Seeing Truly Takes Time
These paramitas are anchored by wisdom. If they are anchored in selflessness, they cannot be tailored to my wishes. This is not Buddhism Zuisei style. But how do we know? If we see only what we see, how do we know what we are basing our actions on? I have always thought that we do know. If we are paying attention, if we are watching and listening, and if we are honest with ourselves, we know who is really benefiting. Neuroactions are always based on what we see and understand. If most of all I see and understand is myself, that will be borne out in my interactions with everything and everyone. If I do not see or understand, that too will become evident.
There is no fudging it. We may tell ourselves otherwise, but there is no fudging it. We cannot really cut corners in practice, or if we do, it shows. Sooner or later, it shows. I always think of that when I walk out of the Sangha house and see the path and the little corner closer to the main building. It is a patch of bare dirt. There is no grass growing on it. The other side is full, green, and vibrant. But on that one side, there is a bare patch because we take the shortest route to this building. We cut a corner. That little bit of disregard for that patch of grass, that little universe of grass, is quite a big deal.
Is there anything really dispensable, anything unimportant? What we see is what we do. Virtue is not doing or being good—not when it is Virtue Paramita, when it is Sila Paramita. It is really seeing that things are empty of self-nature. Because of this, it is natural to affirm life, to speak truthfully, to give generously. It is having full regard for another because they are not another. That little bit of grass is my hand, it is my heart.
In the quote I started with, Annie Dillard speaks of an analytical kind of seeing, where most of us live. That need to talk to ourselves in order to know that things are happening. Like a blind man sitting in the bleachers, listening to the game on the radio. Even though she speaks this way, I do not get a feeling that she is distant, standing outside, or objective. Because of the way she writes, I feel she is fully in it, and she knows, she senses that there is more. As you read on, you realize she knows, she has experienced that there is more. That is why she wants to climb up the blank blue dome and storm the circus tent to see what is inside. That is the mystic whispering: do not stay here, do not be satisfied with so little. Do not be sated with crumbs.
She also describes another way of seeing that involves letting go. When I see this way, I sway, transfixed and emptied. It is the difference between walking with and without a camera. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens and the moment’s light prints on my own silver gut. When I see the second way, I am, above all, an unscrupulous observer—unscrupulous in the sense of having no moral principles, no virtue. But she is too careful a writer to use her words casually. I read this in the context of her whole piece. It is no holds barred. She is not cautious or calculating. There is no filter between her and the experience.
That gaze that he has. I had never felt so completely seen in my entire life.
This kind of seeing does not happen automatically, and not even spontaneously, necessarily, even though we all have glimpses, especially as children. For most of us, it is long, hard work. Cultivation is needed before you can get to that place of no practice, no cultivation. But if we are learning to see the world, or to see it again for the first time, what is the rush? She speaks of a book she found, about a man giving accounts of people blind from birth who, after cataract operations, regained sight. How disorienting it is for most of them. Some refused, plain refused, to use their newfound sight. One woman kept her eyes shut whenever she wanted to get around her house, because sight got in the way of seeing. One young man became preoccupied with how he looked, ashamed of his old habits, which the text does not specify. Shame appeared with sight, not before, as if his blindness shielded him from others’ eyes, like a toddler hiding behind their own hands, thinking they are safe and invisible.
Is this not what we do? We shield our eyes and tell ourselves nobody else can see us. One is so distressed that he threatens to claw out his eyes. He says, “Take me back to the sanatorium, and I will claw my eyes out if this is not corrected.” It can be overwhelming to be so exposed. We should be thankful that practice is gradual and takes so long, because we never see more than we can take in at any given moment. Some feel envy for the first time. Some begin stealing, committing fraud, losing virtue as they regain their sight. But not all is harrowing. One woman kept her eyes shut for two weeks because it was dazzling. When she finally opened them, she could not really see objects, only patches of color and light. Yet she walked around saying, “My God, it is so beautiful. It is so beautiful seeing the world for the first time,” literally in her case.
Blind to See, Present to Care
I am often drawn to stories of blindness, perhaps because sight can get in the way of seeing. I ask participants on my running retreat to run blindly, with one person blindfolded and the other guiding. They run on a safe patch of road, trusting their partner. At first, people are tentative, but eventually they run with abandon, like children who have not run in a long time. They feel acceleration, everything known is what they can feel and sense with their body, and they exude joyfulness. What a gift it is to experience the world in such safe, familiar ways that limit us.
Thank you. Dada Roshi often quoted Thoreau: “I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight.” Dillard takes this further, describing seeing at the edge of sight, seeing by not seeing. Sitting by a pond, she observes sun glinting off the sides of fish, flashes of light, petals floating under her dangling legs. She closes her eyes, lets them go out of focus, and focuses on the brim of her hat. Then she begins to see the universe that opens under her: petals, fine dust on the water. Time slows, something breaks, something opens. She says, “I filled up like a new wine skin. I breathed an air like light. I saw a light like water. I was the lip of a fountain, the creek filled forever. I was ether, the leaf in the sephir. I was flesh, flake, feather, bone. When I see this way, I see truly.”
As Thoreau says, she returns to her senses. She is the person watching the baseball game in silence, in an empty stadium. She sees the game purely, abstracted and dazed. When it is over and the players leave, she leaps to her feet, cheering. She can know exactly where muskrats are nesting and when dogwood blooms, yet in the afternoon she might not even know her own name. Ground-level terms: seeing translates into action. A dirty dish is washed. Something that needs to be put away is put away. A person in front of you is seen as they are, not as you wish them to be. The world is seen, not a movie of it.
Withholding time, energy, or care is like throwing oneself into a closet and complaining about being cut off. If we did this, we would feel concretely what our mind is creating. What gets in the way? It is not obvious how washing dishes benefits you, but at a certain point it is obvious, as Zazen benefits you. Even when challenging, we do it. Sometimes we have no choice. Even when it does not feel good, something is happening and we trust it. We do not need to translate it into benefits. Walking past a broken lamp, an unwashed dish, or a person asking for attention constricts the heart. We walk around wounded. Our shell is thick because feeling the need for all these beings’ care would be overwhelming.
As our seeing opens gradually, we realize giving our time and care, our effort, is not taking from us. It replenishes us. I was reading about a surgeon specializing in breast cancer who sings to patients as they go under anesthesia. She learns songs to comfort them, despite no need to do so. The fear of surgery is eased by this simple gesture, which gives so much without taking from her. The article also highlights her conservative approach to intervention: she waits and observes rather than rushing. When a patient was tested and free of cancer, the surgeon expected the oncologist to recommend radiation, but the oncologist refused, saying, “You happened to me.” The power of someone who acts in this way, who exudes virtue—decency, loving kindness, humility, regard—is remarkable.
I was rereading the biography of St. Francis, whom I have always loved. A cardinal, later Pope Gregory IX, admired St. Francis’ way of life. He once took in a leper and occasionally cared for him. The leper complained that he never saw the cardinal, but every so often “an incompetent old man” would care for him. Let us be wild and incompetent in our care, but not disinterested, not foolishly distant. Virtuous, but not uninvolved.
The secret of seeing is then the pearl of great price. If I thought it could be taught to be found and kept forever, I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But the pearl may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all. Although it comes to those who wait, it is always a gift and a total surprise, even to the most practiced and adept. I cannot cause light. The most I can do is put myself in the path of its beam.
I have always loved images of light. Perhaps that is why blindness and seeing, and the necessity of going blind to see, deaf to hear, resonate so strongly. We hear this in Zen and in the Koans, but what does it truly mean? What is the experience of not seeing and not hearing in order to see and hear completely? This kind of seeing can be found, but it cannot be sought. It is a gift and a surprise. We practice long and hard, putting ourselves in the path of its beam, yet we cannot seek it. The moment we turn toward it, we can no longer see.
Although it comes to those who wait, we cannot merely wait. Artists sometimes speak of inspiration as if it arrives while we sit and wait. But anyone accomplished in a discipline knows this is not true. We work. We return time and time again to put ourselves in its path. It is even closer than that: at some point, we realize we are not in its path; we are that beam of light. It shines everywhere. Because it is light, and it is us, we have enormous power.
So when we see that, what do we do? In the moment of seeing that light, there is always the next moment: the dirty dishes, broken lamps, patches of bare dirt where grass no longer grows. There is work to be done, life to live. The question is: in a world that is not always light, what will we do? What will each of us do?
Virtue Paramita, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast and transcript available.
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01 : Ten Paramitas by Thanissaro Bikkhu
02 : Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
03: Breast cancer surgeon who sings to patients , New York Times