[music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. [music] So much, then, for the Virya Paramita, so much for the perfection of Vika, which represents, as we've seen, the masculine aspect of the spiritual life. So now we've completed our account of both Kshanti and Virya, both patience and Vika, better to say the third and the fourth Paramita's or perfections or transcendental virtues to be practiced by the Bodhisattva. We've seen the masculine and the feminine aspects of the spiritual life. Our account of them hasn't been exhaustive, but I hope at least sufficient to indicate the specific nature, the specific quality of each of these Paramita's. And also sufficient to make it clear why one is described as masculine and the other as feminine. Vika is, of course, clearly the more active, the more assertive, the more creative Paramita, and therefore it's said to be masculine. And patience is the more passive, the more receptive, the more creacent, and therefore it is said to be feminine. And this distinction represents a very important polarity in the spiritual life. We may even say that there are two radically different approaches to the spiritual life itself. One approach stresses self-help. Do it yourself. A self-exertion. The other approach stresses reliance upon dependence upon a power outside oneself. In some cases, in some systems, reliance on dependence upon divine grace. One approach, we may say, represents the attitude of getting up and doing things oneself. The other approach represents the attitude of just sitting back and letting things happen, letting them do themselves as it were. And in India, they've got two rather charming expressions for these two religious attitudes. One they say is the monkey attitude, and the other they say is the kitten attitude. Now what does this mean? They say that the baby monkey, when it's born, clings on to its mother's fur. It clings on tightly with a very tight grip. So this represents self-help, self-reliance. The mother admittedly is moving by and carrying the monkey, but the baby monkey has to hold on itself with its own strength, with its own energy. But the baby kitten is completely helpless. The kitten, as you know, has to be picked up by the scruff of its neck, by the mother, and carried everywhere. It completely helps it, can't do anything for a while. So this represents the approach of dependence on another power, reliance on divine grace, and so on. And in the Indian traditions, the first approach that of the little monkey, the monkey-type approach, is associated with nyana or wisdom. The wise man is the self-reliant man. He tries to find things out, understand things for himself. But the attitude of the kitten, this is associated with Bhakti, the path of devotion, which consists in a feeling of dependence upon some divine power or divine ideal, superior to oneself. No time to go into this, the father's Indian religion is concerned in general. But in Japanese Buddhism we find that these two different approaches, of reliance on oneself, reliance on some divine power outside oneself, these are represented respectively by zen Buddhism and shin Buddhism. Zen, as is well known, represents or stresses even, reliance on the self-power, as it's called jiriki in Japanese. Whereas shin, the jirishi, especially, represents reliance upon the other power, or tariiki, as it's called in Japanese. In other words, the part of Amitabha, the part of the Buddha, the spiritual part of the Buddha of infinite light and eternal life. And these two approaches, that are to say the approach of the baby monkey and the kitten, of the intellectual and the devotee, reliance upon self-power, jiriki, reliance upon other power, tariiki. These are generally held to be contradictory, generally held to be mutually exclusive. If you follow one path, you can't follow the other. Either you depend on your own efforts, or you depend upon another power to do it for you. In fact, Buddhism itself is usually held to be a religion of self-effort, of self-help, as opposed to being a religion of self-surrender. But this, we may say, is not strictly true. In the Buddhist text, in Buddhist literature, we have a number of references to the helpful spiritual inferences which emanate from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, if one is receptive to these, one fills them. And these are sometimes called grace waves, which come as you were wavering down, vibrating down, from the highest spiritual regions, from Buddhas, from Bodhisattvas, and can be felt by those who, as I say, are receptive to them. This isn't like the grace of God in Christianity, because in Buddhism, of course, there is no God, no Supreme Being. These spiritual forces, these grace waves, we may say, arise, essentially, within oneself. But again, not within oneself. In other words, they arise, or appear to arise, or appear to descend from heights, if you like to call it heights, or depths, if you like to call it depths, of which one is not usually aware, not usually conscious, but to which one's awareness can be extended, and which can, in a sense, be included within one's greatly enlarged self. Now, the Bodhisattva combines both approaches, combines both approaches. And for this reason, the Bodhisattva practices patience and vigor. He synthesizes the masculine and the feminine aspects of the spiritual life. In fact, we may say that both approaches are necessary. Sometimes, in the course of our spiritual life, as in the course of our worldly life, it's necessary to hang on. To hang on, if you like, for grim death. It's necessary to make an effort, it's necessary to do, it's necessary to strive, and to exert, and to struggle, and to resist. But sometimes also, it's necessary to let go, to let things look after themselves, to let them even drift, if you like. To let them just happen, without one's interference, without one's initiative. And there's no hard and fast rule. Sometimes you have to do, to exert. But on other occasions, if you have to just let things, I won't say slide, but let them look after themselves. Think, well, it isn't my responsibility, it isn't my duty. Let whatever is going to be done, be done. Sometimes we'll have to do one attitude, sometimes the other, according to circumstances, and there's no hard and fast rule. But broadly speaking, very broadly speaking, one may say it's safe to assume that a lot of self-help, a lot of self-effort, a reliance upon self-power is necessary at the beginning. And later on, perhaps, after a great initial effort has been made, one can begin to rely more upon the help, if you like, the power, the force, which comes apparently from somewhere outside oneself, at least outside one's present, conscious self. But one can't start relying upon that prematurely, or thinking that one is relying upon that prematurely, otherwise one will just drift in a purely negative sense. Again, there's an Indian illustration. In India, they say, well, when you leave the shore in a little boat, a little rowing boat, you have to roe yourself first, with a great deal of effort, with a great deal of straining of muscle, rowing perhaps against the current, against the stream. But when you get out into the middle, when you've got into the middle of the river, buy your own effort, then you can roist your sail. And then the breeze, then the wind will come along, it will fill the sail, and it will carry the boat along. In the same way, they say, a great deal of effort is necessary in the early stages of the spiritual life. But a time comes, a point comes, when you contact forces which, in a sense, are beyond yourself, in another sense, part of your greatest self, and these begin to bear you, to carry you along. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [Music] [Music]
