Six perfections
Generosity, ethics, patience, effort, meditation and wisdom on the bodhisattva path.
Rongtön Sheja Künrig’s The Six Pāramitās presents six perfections as the bodhisattva path toward the grounds of realization and Buddhahood. Geshe Sonam Rinchen explains that they become perfections through the intention to attain awakening for all beings.
- 1 · Generosity · dāna
- Rongtön connects generosity with relieving poverty, helping beings and developing resources for the path.
- 2 · Ethical conduct · śīla
- He describes discipline as guarding body, speech and mind and supporting freedom from suffering.
- 3 · Patience · kṣānti
- Patience counters hatred. Geshe Sonam Rinchen explains that restraint from retaliation supports ethical conduct and prevents conflict from escalating.
- 4 · Diligence · vīrya
- Rongtön describes diligence as increasing virtue and building the accumulations of merit and wisdom.
- 5 · Meditative concentration · dhyāna
- Concentration stills agitation. Geshe Sonam Rinchen connects a stable mind with the development of insight.
- 6 · Wisdom · prajñā
- Rongtön associates wisdom with realizing emptiness, removing obscurations and fully developing insight.
Means and wisdom
Rongtön groups the first five perfections as means and the sixth as wisdom. He includes ethical conduct, concentration and wisdom—the three trainings—within the six perfections, together with the accumulations of merit and wisdom.
Geshe Sonam Rinchen explains their practical relationship: generosity establishes a helpful connection with others; discipline prevents harm; patience sustains that restraint under provocation; effort carries beneficial actions through; concentration steadies the mind; and wisdom discerns what should be cultivated or abandoned. He places this training within the bodhisattva’s commitment to the welfare of others.
Related reading & listening
Recordings
Sources & notes
Summaries of the two named teachers’ explanations. The linked works give their full accounts.