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Basic Principles of Buddhism

Introduction

When the Buddha first started teaching he spoke about unhappiness and suffering. This was not to make people morbid and depressed, but to know what is there so we can transcend it.

The Buddha set an example for transcending suffering. He did it, so we can do it.

• He was an ordinary person, not a god.
• He experienced both great luxury and great austerity and found that neither made him happy.
• He discovered the middle way between these extremes.
• This middle way is the heart of Buddhism and is expressed in three main practices: not harming any living being; doing positive things that help other beings; training our mind through meditation.

Although there is a lot of suffering and pain in ourselves and in the world, this is not our true nature. They are like veils that cover our true nature, in the same way that clouds obscure the sun. All of Buddhist practice is directed towards removing these veils so that our true nature, which is radiant and happy and fulfilled, can shine through.

Three Levels of Buddhist Practice

• Theravada This is the first stream of teachings given by the Buddha. It concerns the Four Noble Truths and the teaching of "No Self". It is an individual path of liberation that involves renouncing suffering and its causes and treading the noble eightfold path that leads to peace and freedom.
• Mahayana This is the second stream of teachings given by the Buddha. It is the path of the Bodhisattva and concerns the development of Bodhicitta, which is the wisdom of seeing the emptiness of all phenomena and the compassionate aspiration to free all living beings from suffering and bring them to complete enlightenment.
• Vajrayana This is the third steam of teachings given by the Buddha. It starts with the recognition that every living being has Buddha Nature, the potential to become enlightened, and it involves doing special meditation practices using visualisation and mantra to accelerate the path to enlightenment.

Theravada Path: Four Noble Truths

This was the first teaching that the Buddha gave after he became enlightened. When he looked at life he saw a lot of unhappiness and suffering, so he investigated this deeply and posed the following questions:

• How does suffering manifest?
• Why do we experience it?
• Is lasting happiness and freedom possible?
• If so, how do we find this happiness and freedom?

The answers that emerged from his enlightened understanding became known as the Four Noble Truths.

(1) First Noble Truth: Suffering Exists.

When the Buddha examined suffering he saw that it occurred on three levels:

1. The actual experience of suffering. Example: one feels sick and in pain due to food poisoning.
2. Suffering of impermanence and change. Example: one enjoys eating a tasty meal, but does not realise that it is poisoned. This relates to the underlying anxiety of not being able to hold onto what we like or keep away what we do not like because things change all the time.
3. Suffering is 'built-in' to being alive and embodied. Example: one has a body that gets sick, ages and dies. One's body is the basis for experiencing the suffering of food poisoning.

When we study the actual experience of suffering we look at the suffering of the Six Realms of Existence. According to Buddhism they are both psychological states of mind and actual realms of existence into which we can be born. These six realms are part of samsara, which is the cycle of conditioned existence that resembles a wheel because we go around and around the wheel of life, sometimes born in one realm, other times in another realm depending on the karma we have created. The six realms are the following:

• Hell. Beings in this realm suffer intensely from heat or cold, from being burnt or frozen. The cause for birth into hell is anger and hatred.
• Craving Spirits. Beings in this realm suffer from hunger and thirst and can never be satisfied. The cause for birth into this realm is greed and stinginess.
• Animals. Beings in this realm suffer from being eaten by other animals and are locked into instinctive patterns that do not allow for reflection and change. The cause for birth into this realm is mental dullness.
• Humans. We suffer from constant desire and excessive busyness. The cause for birth in this realm is desire.
• Jealous Gods. Beings in this realm suffer from intense competitiveness, but they can never reach the top. The cause for birth into this realm is jealousy.
• Gods. Beings in this realm enjoy great bliss and splendour, but at some point suffer a fall into a lower realm when their good karma has run out. The cause for birth into this realm is pride and arrogance.

Practice Instruction: We start treading the Buddhist path by looking at what is going on in our own minds and in our lives. We resolve to look directly at our own experience of pain and unhappiness, face it and accept it. Acceptance means taking responsibility for our experience and working with it in a positive and creative way - instead of denying it, blaming it on other people or taking drugs or alcohol to suppress it.

(2) Second Noble Truth: Suffering has a Cause.

When the Buddha looked into the cause of suffering he saw it had three main aspects, namely karma, mind poisons and attachment to "me".

Karma

• Karma means cause and result. When we act there is a result. For example when we throw a stone in a pool is causes ripples.
• Generally there is a delay between causes and results. Conditions are necessary before the result appears. For example, when we plant a seed this is the cause, the rain and sunshine are the conditions and the flowering bud is the result.
• The Buddha observed that happiness results from thinking and acting in wholesome ways and unhappiness results from acting in unskilful ways.
• So he realised that the key to happiness or unhappiness is how we think and act. Most of the time we think and act out of habit. It is like we are on autopilot and we unconsciously act out ways of thinking and behaving that come from past experience.
• The Buddha then discovered that there is a space between ourselves and our thoughts, but that most of the time we latch onto and run with whatever thoughts pop up in our mind. We don't notice this space. Meditation practice is about recognising and developing this space.
• With this understanding, he then realised that we have a choice as to what thoughts we think. We don't have to dwell on negative thoughts. We can instead cultivate positive ones. A lot of the time we dwell on negative thoughts and feed our life energy into them.
• The Buddha looked deeper and saw that the mind is very powerful and it creates our entire experience. If we cultivate wholesome thoughts and feelings we attract wholesome experiences into our life and feel happy. If we dwell on negative thoughts and feelings, we attract negative experiences and feel unhappy. Everything in life is interconnected, so how we think and act determines what we experience.
• According to the law of karma everything that we now experience is the result of how we thought and acted in the past - we are the author of our own story, or put differently, our life is like a painting and we are the painter.
• In the same way our future depends on how we act now. So we have the power to shape our lives in the way we want and this power lies in the present moment.

Practice Instruction: When we realise that we have the power to shape our own experience by how we think and act and that this power lies in the present moment, we then resolve right now to cultivate positive thought patterns and not to dwell on negative ones. In this way we sew the seeds for happiness.

Mind Poisons

• The Buddha then examined what driving forces are behind how we think and act.
• He discovered that grasping and aversion are the main driving forces that taint our actions and lead to the experience of suffering.
• We tend to grasp at what we like, push away what we do not like and ignore the rest. The third mind poison called ignorance relates to grasping onto a sense of 'me' and feeling separate from everything that is not me.
• He called them "mind poisons" because they poison our minds and are the root of unhappiness. They cause of minds to contract and close down.
• When our actions are driven by them they cause us to act in unskilful ways and these actions then lead to suffering. For example, when we speak to people while in the grip of anger we upset them and they then retaliate against us.
• In the Mahayana tradition we speak of six mind poisons. They originate from the main three ones and are the cause for birth into the six realms of existence. They are: anger, greed, stupidity, desire, jealousy and pride.

Practice Instruction: Through the practice of meditation we become aware of our particular patterns of grasping and aversion. We notice how our minds close down and contract when we grasp some things and push away other things. We look at these patterns directly and try not to feed into them since they cause us pain and suffering.

Grasping at a Sense of "Me" & Doctrine of No Self

• The Buddha then enquired into where the mind poisons come from.
• His saw clearly that they come from our sense of self.
• We have an instinctive sense of "me" being fixed, separate and lasting. We think that there is an "inner me" that experiences our life, the thinker behind our thoughts. We think that "I" am a singular entity - one person - who is separate from other people and who is lasting.
• So we try to protect our sense of self: we try to get what we want and push away what we do not want, this is where grasping and aversion come from.
• However, this sense of "me" is constantly jumping around like a crazy monkey, one moment identifying with one thing, the next moment identifying with another thing: my body, my feelings, my thoughts, my wife, my house.
• When we examine our experience closely we see that whatever we identify with as "me" is constantly changing and is made up of many components. For example, my body is made up of many parts that are changing moment by moment. I have arms, legs, internal organs etc, and these are made up of cells that are decaying and being renewed all the time.
• Therefore, how we see our self and how we then behave is at odds with the way things are. We make an assumption of permanence, but nothing is permanent. We think that things are solid and fixed, but everything breaks down into smaller parts. We think we are separate, but everything is interconnected. This mistaken perception is called ignorance in Buddhism and it is the root cause of suffering.

Practice Instruction: We look at how we see ourselves. Often we don't like ourselves and give ourselves a hard time. We have a story running in our head about who we are and what we've done and all the mistakes we've made.

When we practice meditation we challenge this story by seeing that it is not the full picture. It is often one sided and untrue. Our story about ourselves is at odds with the way things really are. In reality our life is much more rich and varied, but our concepts and judgements block us from seeing this.

Through meditation practice we step back from our habitual patterns of grasping and aversion and we see that whatever happens is not personal. Our experiences are caused by different causes and conditions (karma), they are impermanent and they are not "me". "Me" is a label that we add on to our experience. We learn to step out of the prison we have created for ourselves. This prison is the concept of "me" and the grasping and aversion accompanying it.

Aggregates of Experience (Five Skandhas)

When the Buddha examined his experience carefully he saw that it was comprised of five "heaps" or skandhas. He realised that he was not a singular and unchanging personality separate from other people and things, he was in fact five 'heaps of things' and these heaps were changing moment by moment.

What are the Five Skandhas?

1. Form. This is everything that can be perceived by the five senses and the senses themselves. For example, our eyes and an object of sight. The other four senses are hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.
   Form is the physical experience of existing - we have a body and feel solid, real and separate from other things. Form is associated with element of earth. But, just like earth, our body is impermanent and destructible. Also, no self can be found here because every aspect of form can be broken down into smaller and smaller elements which are constantly changing. Modern physics has shown that solid matter is really a dance of energy vibrating at a particular frequency in space. Consequently, there is no solidity or permanence to be found anywhere in the realm of form.
2. Feeling. The other four skandhas are all mental. Feeling or sensation is our immediate response to the contact between a sense faculty and its object. There are three basic feelings: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. For example, if we listen to a bird singing, the element of form is the faculty of hearing and the sound of the bird singing, while the skandha of feeling is the pleasant sensation it brings. The skandha of feeling strengthens our sense of separate identity. We feel something and this proves to us that we exist. However feelings, which are associated with the water element, are flowing and changeable and no self can be found here either. Our instinctive sense of separate, unchanging 'me' cannot be located in our feelings just like no essence can be found in a rapidly flowing stream.
3. Perception. This is the faculty of recognition. In the example of the bird singing, we realise "Aha, it's a robin". This intensifies our sense of being a separate entity because it appears that there is a centralised point of reference from which we are observing the world. Perception is associated with the fire element, and just like fire perceptions are intangible and dissolve into thin air as soon as they have arisen. No self can be found in our perceptions, just rapidly changing images and thoughts.
4. Mental Formations. These are our mental tendencies and habits. They are the basis of karma, which is intentional action that leads to a result. In the example of the robin, we now think I would like to catch that bird and put it in a cage so every morning I can hear it singing while I drink my coffee!
   All activity arises from this skandha. The image that is often used to portray mental formations is that of an onion. Just as an onion has many layers, so too we have a host of sub-personalities each driven by its own particular habits and conditioning. As we peel away one layer of the onion there is another layer and so on, but when we get to the core there is nothing there! Mental formations are associated with the element of air. Just like air, all our intentions and impulses are like wind blowing - there is nothing substantial, nothing fixed, nothing permanent or enduring - there is no self to be found here. In fact, the sense of self is located in this skandha, but it is just a belief - like a dot in an infinite circle of space. But this dot is just a thought, nothing more, and being a thought it is empty of substance and intangible. Yet because the mind is so powerful, if we act on the basis of this belief, we create karma, thereby forging the embodied sense of self that we now experience.
5. Consciousness. It is that which knows and experiences. The other skandhas depend on consciousness and consciousness depends on them. It brings form to life and enables the other skandhas to operate. In the example of the bird singing, consciousness is the linking factor which enables us to be conscious of the bird singing. There is a consciousness associated with each sense faculty, such as visual consciousness, auditory consciousness and so on. There is also a sixth consciousness connected to the mind. These are our thoughts and our awareness of them.
   Some might say 'Aha this is who we really are - consciousness'. But if we examine closely we see that consciousness is constantly shifting. One moment we hear a bird singing, the next moment we feel a stomach upset, the next moment we see a friend in the distance and then a troublesome thought pops up in our head. There is nothing fixed or permanent here, nothing to support the sense of a fixed and permanent self we feel is inside us. Consciousness is associated with the element of space. It appears to be something real but it is in fact like a magic show of fleeting experiences shifting and changing moment by moment.

In conclusion, the Buddha discovered that there is no fixed, permanent and separate self to be found anywhere within our experience. Instead, we are a stream of moments of consciousness - a combination of mental and physical processes (skandhas) that are interconnected and working together, comprising many elements that are changing all the time. There is no thinker behind our thoughts - there are just thoughts rolling on like a river flowing. This is the deeper meaning of no-self.

(3) Third Noble Truth: Suffering can end

1. Nirvana was described by Sariputra, one of the Buddha's main disciples, as a "the extinction of desire, the extinction of hatred and the extinction of illusion."
2. It is a state of profound peace in which the mind poisons have been uprooted and there is no attachment to a fixed sense of self. We have dropped the illusion of "me" being fixed, separate and lasting. And we have abandoned the grasping and aversion that hold this illusion in place.
3. We realise that there is a lot of space around our experience; it is not as solid as we think and it is constantly changing.
4. We live more fully in the present moment and realise that we have the power to determine whether we are happy or unhappy through how we act.
5. This is the liberation and freedom that the Buddha experienced.

(4) Fourth Noble Truth: The Noble Eightfold Path leading to the end of suffering

Noble Eightfold Path

It is the essence of the Middle Way, the path between the extremes of self indulgence and denial. It contains eight interrelated aspects that make up the "skilful living" which the Buddha taught is necessary to uproot suffering and its causes and to sever the cycle of conditioned existence called samsara.

The Noble Eightfold Path comprises the three essentials of Buddhist training: wisdom (panna), ethical conduct (sila) and mental discipline (samadhi). 'Right' means that which produces a beneficial result.

Wisdom

Right View Before we start Buddhist practice we need to know where our practice is headed, just like an archer needs to know where the target is before he takes aim and releases the arrow. Right View is the true understanding of the Four Noble Truths. When we understand that life is subject to suffering and see that there is a way out, we can set about treading the path to freedom. In particular, Right View involves understanding the three marks of existence:
a) All existence is subject to suffering or dukkha.
b) All things are impermanent (anicca).
c) There is no permanent soul of self in any being (anatta).

Right Intention Once we have the right view we need to apply it. Right Intention can be described as the commitment to mental and ethical self-improvement. The Buddha distinguished three types of right intentions: (1) the intention of renunciation, which is resisting the pull of desire (2) the intention of good will, which is resisting feelings of anger and aversion (3) the intention of harmlessness, which is not thinking or acting cruelly or aggressively, but instead developing compassion for others.

Ethical Conduct

Right Speech Ethical conduct is the foundation for our spiritual practice. Without it our practice will be unstable. A clear mind, without defilements such as anger and craving, is like the container that holds our practice and enables us to practice meditation and development of wisdom.
Right Speech involves abstaining from lies and deceitful speech, abstaining from slanderous and malicious speech, abstaining from harsh words that offend or hurt others and abstaining from idle talk that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, right speech means to tell the truth, use words that are friendly and kind, pleasant and gentle, meaningful and useful, and to talk only when necessary.

Right Action This refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. The underlying principle is that unwholesome actions lead to negative states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to positive states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence. It means to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally; to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, fraud, deceitfulness and dishonesty; and to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively phrased, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others and to have sexual relationships that do not harm others.

Right Livelihood It means that one should earn one's living in an honourable way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentioned four specific activities that harm other beings and that should be avoided: (1) dealing in weapons (2) dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution) (3) working in meat production and butchery (4) selling intoxicants such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.

Mental Discipline

Right Effort Without right effort, which is an act of will, nothing can be achieved. It means to apply mental energy to carry through one?s commitment to positive action. Whereas right intention is the commitment to positive action, right effort is actually carrying through on the intention and putting it into practice. It is described as four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: (1) to prevent the arising of unwholesome states that have not yet arisen (2) to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen (3) to cultivate wholesome states that have not yet arisen (4) and to maintain and perfect wholesome states that have already arisen.

Right Mindfulness This is the heart of Buddhist meditation and it means to be aware of all our activities, feelings, thoughts and emotions. A little reflection will make us realise that most things we do are done without being fully aware of the actions we carry out. For example, we may be drinking a cup or tea, while in our mind we may be trying to solve an office problem. Mindfulness means to be present with what is happening while it is happening without dwelling on the past or future. It should be practised in everyday tasks and not limited to the period of meditation.
The Buddha taught four foundations of mindfulness: mindfulness of the body (such as mindfulness of breathing), mindfulness of sensations (pleasant, unpleasant and neutral), mindfulness of different states of mind (such as anger and desire) and mindfulness of the nature of phenomena (such as reflecting on the Four Noble Truths or the Five Skandhas).

Right Concentration develops 'one-pointedness' of the mind. This is achieved by keeping the mind focused on a single object during meditation. There are different levels to the development of concentration, but in essence it means to direct our awareness to an object, stabilise our attention on it and maintain this awareness without distraction. For example, when practice mindfulness of the breath we stabilise our attention on the flow of the breath and whenever we are carried away by thoughts we notice this and return our attention to the breath. Through doing this practice it becomes natural to apply increasing levels concentration to everyday life situations.

Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels

We begin travelling the Buddhist path by Taking Refuge. It is the way in which we formally become a Buddhist and it lays the foundation for all that follows on the path. The notion of 'refuge' is one of seeking guidance and inspiration as we travel the path to enlightenment. It is a support for us as we purify our mind of its limiting patterns and cultivate wholesome qualities. We take refuge in three things: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. They are often referred to as the 'Three Jewels' because they are seen as rare and precious gifts.

Refuge in the Buddha. The first thing we take refuge in is the historical Buddha himself. Since he achieved enlightenment, he showed us that it can be achieved by ordinary people. So we look to him as a role model and inspiration to help us along our own path towards liberation from the cycle of birth and death and suffering. The reason why we are able to become enlightened is because each one of us has Buddha Nature, which is the seed of enlightenment. The difference between ourselves and the Buddha is that he has fully awakened this potential and we have not.

Refuge in the Dharma. The second thing we take refuge in is the Dharma, which is the Buddha's vast and profound body of teachings. Initially these teachings and methods are simply learnt and applied to our lives as best we can, but as we practice them and integrate them into our daily experience, the Dharma becomes a vivid inner process of awakening. It becomes part of us ? something that grows and develops within us.

Refuge in the Sangha. The third thing we take refuge is the Sangha, which is the community of experienced and committed Buddhists who have helped preserve the Buddha's teachings throughout the ages right down to the present day. We seek refuge in them to provide support and guidance as we practice the Dharma. Of particular value to us are those dharma teachers, known as 'realised beings', who have attained unshakeable insight into the true nature of mind.

Mahayana Path: Wisdom and Compassion

The Way of the Bodhisattva

The Mahayana path is called the Great Vehicle. It embodies big vision and big heart. It is about transcending suffering not just for ourselves, but for all living beings. It is the path of wisdom and compassion. Someone who follows the great vehicle is called a bodhissattva. He practices bodhicitta, which means to aspire to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings and then to actually go about putting this into practice. There are two types of bodhicitta: ultimate and relative bodhicitta.

Ultimate Bodhicitta - Development of Wisdom

We develop wisdom by seeing the emptiness of all phenomena. We do this in the following way:

• When we looked at the Five Skandhas we saw that self is an illusion because there is nothing fixed or permanent to be found within our experience of body or mind. Self is a simply label we add on to our experience. Whatever we experience occurs due to causes and conditions (karma), is impermanent and is not a self.
• Having established that there is not self, we now look at reality itself. We look at the experiences of our body and mind and external reality and ask the question: Is there anything which is solid and real?
• If we take the example of a table, we might all agree that it is one thing, separate from other things and it is same table from day to day. This is the conventional understanding, which is called relative truth in Buddhism.
• But what happens to the table is we take an axe and chop it into pieces? The table ceases to exist and what is now there are pieces of wood.
• By doing this we make an important discovery which is that 'table' is just a concept that we apply to things which are assembled in particular way. It is not an inherent characteristic. Consequently, a Mahayana practitioner would say that the brown wooden structure in front of us is empty of being a table because if it is broken down into its constituent parts 'table' vanishes. 'Table' is just an idea in our head, not something existing out there in the brown wooden structure in front of us.
• According to Mahayana philosophy, all of reality is like that. Therefore we live in a world of concepts which give us the impression that things are solid, permanent and separate from other things - but in reality things break down into smaller parts, they change moment by moment and they are all part of the interconnected web of life.
• We might then ask what really is there if it is not a table? If we examine the table we see that it came from pieces of wood, which came from a tree; the tree grew in the soil and depended on the rain and sunshine to grow tall; then someone chopped down the tree; then a carpenter fashioned the pieces of wood into a table, which he sold to a tradesman and so on?
• Therefore, the table is an expression of the whole universe. It carries within it the sunshine and the rain and the carpenter's skill. It is a part of the interconnected web of life. So, while the table is empty of being a 'table' (that is empty of separate, independent existence), it is full of the whole universe. This is the ultimate truth, the truth of sunyata or emptiness.
• In conclusion, things are not solid or real in themselves. We attribute solidity and reality by the way we think and by the way we then grasp onto our thoughts.
• Reality is a mystery that is vast and inconceivable and cannot be grasped by the mind.

Practice Instruction: We realise that everything that arises in our mind ? all of our thoughts and emotions - are not solid and real in any way. We make things solid and heavy and serious by the way we view them and grasp onto them. When we do not grasp onto our experience too tightly and when we train to see things in a way that is not bound by concepts, then our experience becomes much more spacious, fluid and open.

Relative Bodhicitta - Development of Compassion.

• Having seen the emptiness and non-reality of all experience, great love and compassion spontaneously springs forth from the heart of the bodhisattva towards all living beings who live in a prison of their own making.
• Sentient beings create this internal prison by taking things to be solid and real when they are not, thinking that they are separate individuals when they are not and performing actions based on the perception of being a separate self in a solid and real world.
• These actions then further entrench the experience of solidity and separation and result in isolation and suffering.
• Seeing this, the bodhisattva aspires to wake all beings up from their dream state so that they realise the truth.

Practice Instruction: Since it is not easy to gain insight into the emptiness of all phenomena, the Mahayana practitioner initially cultivates love and compassion towards others first focusing on people we know and like, then people we feel neutral towards, then people we do not like, continually expanding our circle of love and compassion until it embraces the whole world.

Relative and Ultimate Truth

• Relative truth is the truth of how things appear in everyday life and is governed by the law of karma. When we perform actions results flow from our actions.
• Ultimate truth is the way things really are: nothing exists on its own; everything exists in relationship to other things. Things are empty of the concepts we project onto them, as in the case of the table above.
• Both truths work together and do not contradict one another. Things appear and function according to laws of cause and effect, but everything that appears is nonetheless empty of true existence.
• Consequently, when we live our lives we are mindful of how we act since consequences flow from our actions (relative truth), but at the same time we maintain the awareness that whatever is happening and whatever we are experiencing is not solid and real, but is open and spacious like a dream (ultimate truth).

The Six Paramitas: the Practice of a Bodhisattva

Having understood the emptiness of all phenomena and having aspired to free all sentient beings from suffering, the bodhisattva puts his aspiration into practice by applying himself to the Six Paramitas or perfections. They are the Mahayana version of the Noble Eightfold Path and comprise the following:

1. Generosity. Its essential meaning is to give with an unattached mind that which has value. There are three types: giving material things, giving support and protection, and teaching the Dharma.
2. Right Conduct. It is the foundation of every spiritual quality. Its essential meaning is to take as one?s personal code of conduct the path of the Dharma. There are three main aspects: observing vows and commitments, generating virtuous qualities and working for the benefit of others.
3. Patience and Forbearance. Its essential meaning is to face up to difficulties in life and not to be thrown off balance by them. It is the antidote to anger.
4. Diligence. Its essential meaning is not to waste time and to apply oneself to the spiritual path with a sense of joyful enthusiasm.
5. Meditation. Its essential meaning is to rest the mind in a state of calm abiding and peace. The practice of meditation protects the mind from distraction and uproots the mental defilements of grasping, aversion and ignorance.
6. Wisdom. The essential meaning of wisdom is insight into the empty nature of all phenomena. When practising the paramitas it is important to combine ultimate and relative truth. The bodhisattva practices generosity, for example, while maintaining the awareness that the giver, the receiver and the gift are empty of true nature. In so doing he accumulates merit and wisdom, both of which are necessary to become enlightened. Accumulating merit (the first five paramitas) is like preparing a fireplace, gathering wood and arranging the kindling. Wisdom is like the fire that burns the wood once the spark of insight has lit the kindling.