Guided Meditation: Honest Noting; Dharmette: Pāramīs (4 of 5) The Perfections of Truth and Resolve

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Honest Noting; Pāramīs (4 of 5) The Perfections of Truth and Resolve. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Kodo Conlin at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on May 18, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Honest Noting

Welcome. A discussion and practice on the theme of the ten perfections, the pāramīs^[1]. It is so nice to see you.

Again, sorry to be just a couple of minutes late. I will try opening the room a little earlier tomorrow. That way, if there are any technical bobbles, we don't lose any time together.

Yesterday we talked about the perfections of energy and patience, and I'm wondering if, before we get into the meditation itself for the day, there's anyone who reflected on these two during the day, or looked for how they showed up. If you want to put any comments in the chat, I offer that invitation.

So yesterday we had a look at some of the ways particularly that energy and patience work together. Today we're turning our attention to truthfulness and resolve, or determination.

Let's move into the meditation. This is a guided meditation on the theme of our noting practice. And I want to call this "honest noting."

Let's first settle ourselves here.

Just finding our way back into intimacy with the body. All of our efforts and activities, and this body, this breathing body, is right here.

And we have an ally in the silence. Between the sounds, between the thoughts, leading us in the direction of stillness.

The simplicity of here.

And I would suggest using a small note, a light whisper in the mind, to identify, to recognize what's being noticed now.

Often we begin with the breathing. Putting an "in" on the inhale, "out" on the exhale.

The note is not meant to lead the attention, but confirms what's been recognized. With the intention to clearly know the particulars of this experience. Seeing it honestly.

Breathing in, a little label, a little note in the mind. An inner naming, aligning with our experience.

Tuning our energy so that the attention stays clear. This is what's happening now. This, now, this.

And in this last minute, to continue with the noting practice, sensing the way in which this simple naming of experience turns the mind into honesty, truthfulness.

Dharmette: Pāramīs (4 of 5) The Perfections of Truth and Resolve

Hello again.

To summarize a bit of our last session, we talked about how the pāramīs of energy and patience work together and how they support each other. We looked at this skill of tuning our energy such that it's appropriate for both the situation and the activity that we're engaged in. And we looked at how the wisdom that we're involved in this complex set of processes we call life supports our patience.

Then Dhammapala^[2] picks up the thread here, and he says it's entirely through the spiritual power of energy that the practice of all of the qualities of enlightenment succeed. It's a long list. And then he includes in that list of what's achieved through energy: the determination upon truth.

So this is where we'll continue our exploration of the perfections with truthfulness and determination, or resolve. Let's get specific about what we mean in this context.

For the perfection of truthfulness, we're talking about non-deceptiveness. Non-deceptiveness in speech accompanied, as all the perfections are, by compassion and skillful means. We're honest with an eye toward the skillfulness of the moment and an eye toward the effect on each other with our open heart. So this is the perfection of truthfulness: non-deceptiveness.

And then the perfection of determination, or resolve, is the unshakable determination to undertake all of the good qualities for the good of others, accompanied by compassion and skillful means. To move in just a layer closer, we break these down into practices of truthfulness, practices of restraint (things that maybe get in the way of truthfulness), and then how compassion and skillful means play a role.

The obvious thing to avoid when practicing truthfulness is deceptiveness in our speech. The volition is to speak what's true, what's skillful, and what's beneficial. And for determination, of course, we undertake all of this beneficial activity and we refrain from straying off and putting our effort somewhere else.

Let's look a bit more closely at truthfulness. We'll look at some of the encouraged practices before we talk about refinements.

Truthfulness is said to make patience long-lasting. Staying in alignment with truth makes our patience long-lasting, and this manifests as something we call devotion to truth. Buoyed by this patient endurance that we've been cultivating—when someone hurts us, when someone maybe does wrong—our resolve to truthfulness is meant to not waver.

And this is a practice. Suzuki Roshi^[3] is known to have said (I can't quite find where the story happened), "You don't know how hard it is to love some people." And this is a person who is devoted to caring for others. But despite it being hard, I trust he remained honest.

In the suttas, the Buddha speaks of safeguarding the truth. Maybe you've seen this in Majjhima Nikaya 95^[4]. We do this by being explicit and clear about what the bases are for our views: "I have such and such opinion based on this, according to this," without the accompanying demand that "only this is true, anything else is wrong." The attitude of "I've got the one right view, and everything else is false or invalid" leaves no receptivity, no openness, and no connection. By avoiding this, we safeguard the truth, and in turn, the truth safeguards us.

As the Buddha taught his own son^[5], when one is willing to tell a deliberate lie, there is no wrong one would not do. And the word "wrong" here is related to soil that is now infertile. To look at it from the other direction, to grow the wholesome qualities, truthfulness is like a fertile soil.

The sorts of practices we refrain from when cultivating truthfulness involve speaking deceptively internally and externally. We practiced this a little bit in the guided meditation—speaking simple, honest truth about our experience. Some of us have heard Gil^[6] use this expression that honesty, truthfulness, is like mindfulness out loud. It's also mindfulness inside; we're sub-vocalizing.

Another thing to take care of and watch for in our practice is this clinging to views. As we mentioned before: "Only this is true, everything else is wrong." This is discussed poetically and nicely in the Aṭṭhakavagga^[7], a subsection of the Sutta Nipāta. In something called the Pasūra Sutta^[8], the Buddha is having a discussion with someone who's really involved in the debate culture of ancient India. Anyone could come challenge an ascetic to a debate, and the loss of that debate meant you lost your following, which meant you lost your livelihood, and you were disgraced. Debate was high stakes, and there was this powerful way of speaking that included, "Only what I say is true, anything else is false."

The Buddha has a specific instruction and encouragement. He says if, grasping to a view and disputing, someone says, "This alone is true," you can just tell them, "In this dispute, you have no opponent here."

I love this. You're not getting entangled, you're not staking out your claim. Your happiness and unhappiness are not dependent on having the right opinion or reasoning your way to have them admit that you're right and they are wrong. There's another way to be together and another way to express the truth. "In this dispute, you have no opponent here." I relate this to the skill of knowing when you need to have some honest communication with someone, but realizing the other person at this moment, in their current state, is not receptive. It's not the time. We're not going into dispute; we're trying to have honest communication. I'm reminded of one of the standards of Right Speech: timeliness.

This relates to truthfulness as it's accompanied by compassion and skillful means. We're not using the truth to harm someone. You might think of a well-meaning commitment to share something, but doing so without an analysis of whether that harms another person. "Oh well, it's true, so I have to tell them," becomes an imperative. But there's a sensitivity here to what's skillful, what's the right time, and what's beneficial.

In my own practice some years ago as I was starting out, I had a real tendency to not say truths that were a little edgy in my life. If I thought it was going to cause a wave in the relationship at all, I wouldn't say anything. So I kind of went really far in the other direction, not sharing everything I ever thought with everyone. But in a safe space with my mentors, teachers, and people I could be really safe with, I developed a willingness to speak truths that felt scary to me. Once that matured a bit, then I could bring these two into alignment, where there was discretion about speech—both a willingness to speak and wise reflection.

So living in truthfulness, I think, can give us confidence in the path and can be a sort of lodestar, a direction for us.

Then we turn to determination. Determination is an unshakable commitment. If wise truthfulness orients our ship, then we can say determination sets out upon the course. Truthfulness orients, determination sets out. Truth identifies the path, whereas determination resolves to follow it. In short, we might say that determination is to set our sights on something.

You might start to see a theme if you're listening through the series. Dhammapala teaches: without this pāramī, none of the others are possible; and with this pāramī, all of them are possible, and all of them mature, all of them are perfected and purified. We're starting to hear this a lot, and I think that points to the fact that the pāramīs work as a group. I was reflecting on it yesterday and sharing that I'm starting to see these ten perfections as an ecosystem of beautiful qualities that support each other.

We might reflect that in the absence of determination, we might hear about something like the pāramīs, or hear about practices that sound good or interesting to us, but without determination, we don't undertake them. They remain words.

I was reflecting on adhiṭṭhāna^[9] (determination, resolve), and I'm reminded of some of the practitioners I practiced with, myself included, in my early Vipassana training. We would do these sittings of strong determination. One of us—I won't say who—said, "I don't care if I'm going to die during this sitting, I will not move." This kind of reflects the Buddha's determination before his awakening. There was a way that generated a lot of energy and commitment to stay with the practice.

And then there's this complementary quality: we'll see that determination is followed upon by loving-kindness. A determination to follow the path, sometimes even with great effort, is greatly supported by the tenderness of loving-kindness. To be honest with what's possible for us.

I think it's important to talk about this when we consider the practice in the long term. What happens when we set our sights, we set our determination, and then we fall short or vacillate? We're human, so we're shakeable. We determine not to move, and we move. This is a case, I think, where we can orient toward our ideals, but we live in our actual life. This requires both compassion and skillful means. When we're walking a long path, we need a wise and compassionate way to relate to our humanity, our fallibility, and our foibles.

I think a little bit of humor may be necessary. I'm reminded of Suzuki Roshi again, who I consider someone who took his practice very seriously without taking himself too seriously. He was very committed to the well-being of all beings. In the first few years of Tassajara^[10], there's a story told by Blanche Hartman^[11]. There was a wedding at Tassajara, and this big celebration with a band. One of the priests is playing a keyboard, another student is playing the guitar and singing, and someone else is on the drums. And our very serious, determined Zen teacher, Suzuki Roshi, is sitting on the corner of the stage playing a kazoo^[12]! [Laughter]

He takes his practice seriously, but doesn't take himself too seriously. It's a long path.

So we take care. Our foibles, our fallibility, our shakeableness—it's neither an indication that there's an error in the system, nor is it a reason that we shouldn't orient toward our ideals. But how do we do this wisely? To make it personal for ourselves: how do we encourage our faith? How do we encourage ourselves? How do we foster confidence, especially when we're shaken? Do we have a trust that we cultivate in awareness regardless of the content of experience, even when patience is out?

When we step off the path, how do we step back on? It's a great help to have Dharma friends.

So, truthfulness and determination. To set the course, and then determine to proceed with compassion and skillful means. As I'm fond of quoting Bhikkhu Bodhi^[13], who said, "You only need two things in Buddhist practice: one is to start, the second is to continue."

For today, as we've been doing, I'd encourage you to look for truthfulness in your daily life, and then your impulses to the opposite. Then look for your determination, resolve, and impulses to the opposite. Tomorrow we'll pick up with the last two of the ten perfections. Tomorrow I'll try to have a shorter talk and we can have some time for questions, so please bring them. You can type them into the chat and I'll try to address them as best I can for a few minutes tomorrow.

Thank you so much. Best wishes for your practice. May all beings benefit.