No Pill Will Take This Pain Away

Growing up in an abusive family and culture I never really knew what morality and virtuous behavior was. My step- father abused me, my pain brought him pleasure. My government, many of our transnational banks and corporations, and our institutions profit from war, our ignorance, and suffering. I had to learn from scratch what the virtues are and how to use them correctly. In my early 30s, everything I thought I knew was wrong when it came to being a good person. I was basically like a blind person feeling my way through life.

Watercolor and gouache , all paintings are drawn or painted by Red Dust

The virtues act like a shield that protects ones mind. The virtues that I try and cultivate are kindness, generosity, right conduct, patience, sympathetic joy, and right effort. I have links posted at the bottom of this article that explains what right means, like in right conduct, right effort, right path. One of my first questions to Sunim was, "what does right mean?" The virtues when practiced with wisdom generate a peaceful space around oneself for others to see themselves clearly.

I learned through meditation everything I did was coupled with ignorance. Ignorance regarding my conditioning that colored all my actions. Even though I acted kind, I wasn't really being kind and many times my acts of kindness didn't turn out very well. Kinda like rescuing fish from slaughter and turning them loose in a river, only for the rescued fish to breed the native fish out of existence. My teachers call that foolish compassion.

In today's society I'm bombarded with hate, fear, greed, lust, and ignorance from everyside. Where can I hide? Even if I ran and hid in a cave far away from my troubled family and society, I've been conditioned by the environment I grew up in. I'd take all that negativity with me.

My first question to myself, "Why am I causing myself so much suffering?" The question lead me to my first Buddhist teacher Sunim and some awesome adventures that had nothing to do with traveling to exotic far away places. But I did travel to unknown places within my own mind.

Watercolor

The people that taught me the virtues were very humble, they did not flaunt or show these qualities off. My Buddhist teachers had years of practice so their use of the virtues were very subtle. I try every day to copy them, but I am still struggling. I have a really bad temper and I'm lazy! Good Buddhist teachers teach through their actions not with their words or writings.

I took the virtues up as my primary practice coupled with meditation because I read they are the primary practice of all Bodhisattvas. A bodhisattva is someone who aspires to become a Buddha. Buddhas teach people how to save themselves and I'm still trying to save myself! To tell you the truth, I never wanted to be a Buddha. But I want a Buddha like mind, calm centered and helpful to self and other.

A Bodhisattva vow is given early in Mahayana practice, my first teacher is a monk from the Korean Buddhist tradition. I took my Bodhisattva vow after six months of study and after my first vipassana retreat.

My drawing of Mudra and Mala

Shame On You

Then there is shame, shame has gotten a bad rap in Western society. Sexuality, gender, race, and class shame have nothing to do with the shame I study and practice. The shame I've seen used today is used to manipulate people, to hurt , profit and control others.

The shame I learned through practice and study is like a guard that tells me when my behavior will cause me and other suffering. I feel shame when my action hurts someone else because of my ill will, laziness, ignorance, and so on. Thervada studies, shame is called the guardian of the mind.

I learned these strategies from my Buddhist teachers and they truly work! No magic pill, it takes time and lots of practice establishing new behaviors. Much like establishing a garden on fallow ground.

Sila saved my Family

The rewards of virtue [Ananda:] "What, O Venerable One, is the reward and blessing of wholesome morality?"

[The Buddha:] "Freedom from remorse, Ananda."

"And of freedom from remorse?"

"Joy, Ananda"

"And of joy?"

"Rapture, Ananda"

"And of rapture?"

"Tranquillity, Ananda."

"And of tranquillity?"

"Happiness, Ananda."

"And of happiness?"

"Concentration, Ananda."

"And of concentration?"

"Vision and knowledge according to reality."

"And of the vision and knowledge according to reality?"

"Turning away and detachment, Ananda."

"And of turning away and detachment?"

"The vision and knowledge with regard to Deliverance, Ananda."

— AN 10.1 (Nyanatiloka, trans.; from Path to Deliverance, pp. 65-66)

Guardians Of The World by Bhikku Bodi The Buddha points to two mental qualities as the underlying safeguards of morality, thus as the protectors of both the individual and society as a whole. These two qualities are called in Pali hiri and ottappa. Hiri is an innate sense of shame over moral transgression; ottappa is moral dread, fear of the results of wrongdoing. The Buddha calls these two states the bright guardians of the world (sukka lokapala). He gives them this designation because as long as these two states prevail in people's hearts the moral standards of the world remain intact, while when their influence wanes the human world falls into unabashed promiscuity and violence, becoming almost indistinguishable from the animal realm (Itiv. 42).

Paramitas, Perfections, Virtues

The six paramitas or 'transcendent perfections' (Skt. ṣaṭpāramitā; Tib. ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་དྲུག་, parol tu chinpa druk; Wyl. pha rol tu phyin pa drug) comprise the training of a bodhisattva, which is bodhichitta in action.

Generosity (Skt. dāna; Tib. སྦྱིན་པ་, jinpa): to cultivate the attitude of generosity.

Discipline (Skt. śīla; Tib. ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་, tsultrim): refraining from harm.

Patience (Skt. kṣānti; Tib. བཟོད་པ་, zöpa): the ability not to be perturbed by anything.

Diligence (Skt. vīrya; Tib. བརྩོན་འགྲུས་, tsöndrü): to find joy in what is virtuous, positive or wholesome.

Meditative concentration (Skt. dhyāna; Tib. བསམ་གཏན་, samten): not to be distracted.

Wisdom (Skt. prajñā; Tib. ཤེས་རབ་, sherab): the perfect discrimination of phenomena, all knowable things.

What does right mean in "right" conduct?

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