Countdown to Bodhi Day

Despite the fact that I've more or less been a Buddhist for the last 3 years, I've never really done anything to observe Rohatsu, or Bodhi Day. Bodhi Day is the supposed anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment under that fateful ficus. Of course, we have no way of knowing the exact date; much like Easter and Christmas, we simply take this arbitrary day to celebrate and reflect on this historical event. But since I live in a place where I could theoretically live my whole life without crossing paths with another Buddhist - and because I try not to take an "in your face" approach to my belief system - I usually just let holidays like this pass without ceremony or comment. 

But being without a temple also gives me an opportunity to be creative about how I practice, and that's what led me to try something new this year. I'm dedicating each of the 10 days before Bodhi Day to one of the 10 Paramis, or Perfections of the Heart. This is a series of attributes the Buddha listed as being requisites for enlightenment - that is to say, he believed no one could become enlightened without first developing these traits. They are as follows:

Dana = Generosity
Sila = Virtue
Nekkhamma = Renunciation
Panna = Wisdom
Viriya = Energy/Persistence
Khanti = Patience/Forgiveness
Sacca = Truthfulness
Adhitthana = Determination
Metta = Loving-kindness
Upekkha = Equanimity

Now, I've started rather late with blogging about this, since it's technically Wisdom day, but in the interest of energy and persistence, here is a brief summary of my efforts so far:

Dana, Generosity
   I cleaned out my room the night before and scrounged up all the old clothes and books I could find to donate to Goodwill. I didn't feel particularly generous in doing this, though. I came to realize that maybe generosity isn't so much about giving people a lot of stuff; true generosity is just giving without keeping score. Whether you're giving money to the poor or loaning those shoes to your sister for the umpteenth time, generosity means a lack of attachment to your "belongings" combined with compassion for someone else's needs. 

Sila, Virtue
   This was the day I learned that the harder you try to pay attention to your sila, or moral behavior, the worse your opinion of yourself tends to be. All day long I counted flaw after flaw in my behavior. I was unfocused, I was lazy, I gossiped at work...I noticed that tallying up my actions as if they belonged in "good" and "bad" columns was a good way to convince myself to give up altogether. The only comforting thought I ended up with was a paraphrase from a talk by Malcolm Huxter. The [event/emotion/action] is not your self. It is not you. Let it go, move on, and make better choices next time.

Nekkhamma, Renunciation
   I thought for a while about something to "renounce" for this day, but in the end nothing seemed big enough to be meaningful or small enough to be feasible. What I did come up with was this: renunciation doesn't always mean giving up something you have. All it really means is acknowledging that you don't need something. A lot of us could stand to renounce things we've never had - fame, riches, or that fancy car. The flip side of renunciation is to be grateful for and content with the necessities we do have. 

Panna, Wisdom
   Today I'll be re-reading one of my favorite Buddhist texts that aren't technically Buddhist - the Tao Teh King. But I'm also doing a little bit of my wisdom exercise right now, as I look back over what I've done so far and try to find some meaning in my experiences. People often tend to think of "Wisdom" (with a capital W, of course) as coming only from old books and dead guys with beards, but we've all had learning experiences in our lives. The "perfection" here is the ability to gather wisdom from those experiences and apply it in the future.

*whew* Long, boring, and vaguely pedantic now that I look at it. From now on, I'll be covering one Perfection a day, so hopefully it'll be less garbled when I have only one topic to discuss.