Tag Archives: Six Paramitas

The dominate understanding today of Buddha-nature is that it’s innate and automatically operative in its human host. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the early signs that this reverent seed of the Buddhas is taking root is that the host exhibits some lasting traits of civility, as enfleshed through the Six Paramitas; they are not something that is merely intellectually recognized and later disregarded and even discarded, but rather put into regular and consistent practice: by their fruits ye shall know them. Another naïve assumption is that the worldly notion of Buddha-nature is free-standing, somehow existent independent of any traits that something “other” may exist in close proximity to its development. These assumptions are dead-wrong. There is another. There is a Bad Seed; an evil-twin that, at a moment’s notice, can make its vile presence known. This Bad Seed makes a mockery out of the Six Paramitas and irreverently inverts them into an agent of Mara: Charity and love into selfishness and hate; discipline into a chaotic mind; alertness into careless stupidity; meditative and Recollective Resolve into ignorant sloth; patience into agitation and intolerance; wisdom into pure ignorance (avidya). None of us is automatically immune to the evil influence of this Bad Seed; if the Bodhi-seed is not nourished and fed daily with Recollective Resourcefulness (like through sutra-reading) and disciplined dhyana, then one will fall prey to the evil whims of the Bad Seed. There are many “triggers” extant in the cultural milieu that can jump-start the sharp decline into ethical and moral depravity; the most dominate trigger presently is the Radical-Islamic uprising. read more