Prajna

I took this photo this morning in bed. I was on a perception safari with my camera and a couple of lenses. I will post a photo essay later today...

and so dear readers, we arrive at the final ferry to the far shore - prajna. Prajna, as The Sakyong Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche tells us, is the binding factor of all the paramitas. It is 'best knowledge' or the wisdom of seeing how things are. And how are things? There is suffering, impermanence and selflessness. Our prajna, like a sharp sword, cuts through our ideas of how we would like things to be - all cozy and sleepy and warm and maybe a bit fuzzy. Our prajna sees that things are not like that and it does so when married to compassion. This allows us to see that our conceptions are not really truly kind to us - being allowed to sleep in day after day is not a kindness but a mindless indulgence instead. When we see how things really are, compassion arises - both for our own predicament and for others' predicament. We are just dear humans trying to bumble along. This prajna, which we all have if sometimes a little rusty and dull, when shined up and sharpened, will allow us to apply the other parmitas - generosity, discipline, patience,exertion and meditation to our task of creating enlightened society.

If we practice the paramita of prajna in our writing we will create fictions that are nothing but true - we will have patience with our process, we will be generous with what we struggle with and what we obtain, we will have discipline and exertion that is joyous and vibrant. Our writing - whether an essay, a novel, a poem, or a letter to someone we love, will be transcendent and luminous. We will know it is so because as we write it, we will feel the joy and grace that comes from writing from that wise place. We will be able to see that everything we encounter, our dream world, is bursting with colour, shimmering with beauty, devastatingly full of longing and loneliness, at the same time as it is poignant with the connectivity of all living matter. Every moment will be an opportunity to use the paramitas and so row ourselves and others to the far shore.

If we don't fashion ourselves writers our prajna will do the same for our dealings with others, our actions at work, the way we play the piano or take photos or cook a meal. Even listening to a child tell us the plot of a long and somewhat tedious movie will be the only thing we wish to do in that moment. Prajna is an open and curious mind just looking for the dharma or truth in all phenomena.

I encourage any of you who are interested to pursue the paramitas - there are lots of good essays on the web. I am most thankful to my teacher, Sakyong Mipham for everything he does and in particular for his clear writing. Here is his site http://www.mipham.com/home.php.

Meditation

The fifth paramita is meditation. One way to think of meditation is that it is a sometimes slow but always sure way to befriend oneself. To sit quietly with our thoughts arising and our discipline bringing us back gently again and again to our breath is to start to realize that our notions of self are fairly insubstantial - that we are insubstantial - and that after we ride the fear of that we get the liberation of it. The gift of meditation for me is the ordinary magic of being all right with what is. If I can carry that into my writing I can be fearless. I can let go of the sometimes constant feelings of not doing enough, or not doing the right thing, or not being worthy of even trying anything. I can breathe and rest in what is and then my writing can reflect that basic sanity. This, for me, is the most difficult of paramitas to explain - it is beyond explanation. It has to be experienced. Giving you a recipe for bread does not nurture you - you must make the bread yourself. So if you have a meditation practice or any time that is a quiet self-reflective time - you will nourish your writing.

Exertion

here is my friend and my sweet patootie exerting themselves

with joy!

The fourth paramita is Exertion. Whenever it is spoken of in the texts it is connected to joy. It is not, therefore, the paramita of drudgery. When we are writing from an ego-bound place it is hard to feel the joy - we may feel pleasure and satisfaction and be filled with hope (and therefore fear which is always hope's companion) and somehow we forget that we have CHOSEN to write - no one has put a gun to our head. Though I have thought it would be great to hire someone to sit outside my writing room with a gun and a smile on their face "not coming out until you've finished" but I digress. When we start to put the practices together the exertion is natural and joyous. We wake up and say to ourselves that there aren't enough hours in the day for what we want to do.

To practice exertion, we must go beyond what we think we are capable of. When we do that with generosity, with discipline and with patience for our fits and starts - we will feel tremendous joy.

A cautionary note - please be advised that the paramitas don't come easy -they are practices and all of us will find some easier than others. Pay attention to those that are most difficult for you - that is fertile ground to plough. And don't disparage yourself as you practice. Just gently remind yourself of them from time to time. It is very helpful to write about them - have your characters struggle with them. We all do. And when you hit the zone or sweet spot with them, you will know because it is just like hitting the sweet spot on a ski hill or running a marathon or figuring out a math problem or putting a doll together and seeing it works - you will feel it in your body - grace!

Paramitas continued

Today's paramita is patience. Ah, yes, patience. The purpose of patience is that it overcomes anger for anger and agression is nothing but speed. Anger takes us over and makes everything solid. This morning I sat in meditation really wanting to do a special practice for those in peril in Haiti but my mind was frozen with anger over something to do with my step-son. My patience had run out as they say and when it does - or when I believe it does it leaves me nothing but this big frozen head. Hard to work with. If I'm angry when I'm writing well, I can't that's all. I can't write if I let anger freeze my head. Developing patience is the antidote - breath, give the situation more space - don't confine anger because it is like all of us confined or tamped down - really gets going then. No, give it space, do lots of breathing and counting to ten and remembering that this particular situation won't matter in ten years or even probably in ten days. And be patient with your patience! Be patient with your self as you try and slow everything down. Try and watch your mind as you get angry and see what it is like - notice the loudness and the speed. For those of us who write mysteries and heck for anyone who writes about emotion and people who have them - you have a treasure box to explore - your own mind. When we step beside ourselves even for a moment we can get some wriggle room for our anger to dissipate. Breathe and slow down and observe. Now I must get out the door and go to work! But not too fast.

The Six Paramitas in the writing life, part 2

added to this blog - as I wrote about generosity, catastrophe was unfolding in Haiti - please consider making an online donation now, if you haven't, to an agency like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders. I will make mine undirected as I always do - I'll let them decide where it must go for as we are well aware, even when disaster strikes in one part of the world there are still ungoing needs in other areas.

Here is Doctors Without Borders' URL - http://www.msf.ca/

and here is The Red Cross http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000005&tid=003

The six paramitas are sometimes called 'the perfections'. The word 'paramita' is a Sanskrit word that means "that which has reached the other shore". They are the means by which we move out of our sleepy self-absorbed state into one which sees the conectivity of all. From selfish to compassionate, from asleep to awake - the worthy boats we take from one shore to the other are these six ways of being. The six paramitas are Generosity, Discipline, Patience, Exertion, Meditation and Prajna or descriminating awareness wisdom.

Yesterday I talked about discipline, the second paramita. Today I will discuss generosity and how it affects our writing life (and the rest of our life which is, of course, not separate).

It is said that generosity is the virtue that produces peace. Pretty tall order but try it - it really does. Of course, there are several ways we can be generous - it is not really about 'goods' but more about 'services'. And dedicating what we do to create enlightened society. There are several ways we can do this as writers. One of the ways is by sharing our knowledge - teaching - this is very alive on the internet with a generous population of bloggers, folks with web sites, free services like Wikipedia and other wikis. It is in our communities with writing groups - those funded by government agencies and ones that have grown out of individual initiatives. And it is in ourselves. When we practice generosity we are cutting attachment and the magical belief that if we give away our time, our knowledge, our money or our goods that we will not have enough for ourselves. Our experience tells us differently - the more we give the more we have. I'm not talking about idiot compassion here - we'll get to that in number six - but the notion that we create abundance, we magnetize what we need, when we are willing to offer it all up. In Nova Scotia this might be invoked by the phrase "what goes around comes around".

When I am stuck in my writing it is usually because I am fixated on the outcome instead of the process. If I can apply generosity to myself and my work and also to those that have obtained what I may desire - it frees me up to attend to what I need and LOVE to do.

today and every other day...

my photos today are from the beautiful tea blossom that Sue gave me, made in Gwen's lovely glass teapot. It was a positive phantaglorium of blossom and tendril and jasmine scent. Ah!

Discipline is one of the six paramitas - called Siila (pronounced Shila). There is joy in discipline and I know it and there is resistance to discipline and I know that too. Discipline is like the fence surrounding a corner lot backyard in a busy corner of town. It allows the children in us to run free like hooligans while remaining contained and safe. The point being that we have more freedom with the habit of discipline than we do without it. Therefore more joy.

I am a flower child. I marched on the Parliament Buildings with signs that urged Peace. I sang we shall, we shall, we shall not be moved, just like the tree that stands beside the riiiiiiiiver, we shalllll not be moved. I brought my babies to L'Hibou to hear folk singers like Joni and Phil Ochs. I went to dances in the honey house at 'The Farm' and fought for universal daycare. What I never wanted was anyone telling me that I had to do something today and every other day (except for the pill - that made sense!), not even me! Now I know that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose and I embrace discipline and order and ritual and even, Buddha help me, organizing. Though, come to think of it - that was a pretty hip word too when it came to unions.

Today I did my meditation, I walked the dog and I did more than two hours on my book. And I felt free and good during most of it. Even though I 'had' to! I spent some fun time with my grandchildren, who are, bless their wily little hearts - true wondrous hooligans! And now I'm going to play. What you may ask? I'm going to look up knitted afghan patterns on the web and in my knitting books. I'm going to read a book on adolescent girls by therapist Martha B. Straus and I'm going to make my bed with clean sheets and go to bed early. Or maybe I'll watch a movie!