Category: Paramita Project

Under this category we share Paramita Project articles with you.

jnana is connection

Jnana Is About Connection

Jnana is about connection. I’ll admit, this final paramita has been difficult to practice. It’s more like preparation for jnana, rather than jnana itself. Because you can’t really do anything to make awakened awareness come to you. You have to wait for it. But what I’ve…

words freight

Words With Freight

Are we using words with freight? Robert Aitken spent his entire chapter on jnana describing how language has lost its power. He writes, “All words and phrases were intimate with experience but many have lost their intimacy, which is to say they have lost their meaning.…

healing knowledge

Healing Knowledge

Jnana is healing knowledge. While learning about this tenth and final paramita, the word knowledge is regularly used to translate it. The reason so many Western writers use other translations (like awakened awareness) is because for us, knowledge is so riddled with complications. Knowledge can be…

spiritual power trust

The Spiritual Power of Trust

This month, I’m practicing the ninth paramita bala, or spiritual power. Buddhist tradition names five powers, the panchabala, that provide us strength over whatever hindrances we may face. The first of these is faith, or more specifically, trust. Often, when we hear the word faith, we…

bala spiritual power

Introducing Bala, Spiritual Power

New month, new paramita! And this May, I’ll be practicing the ninth paramita, bala. Bala is spiritual power. More specifically, in Buddhist tradition it is the cultivation of five powers, called the panchabala. These five powers are faith, zeal, recollection, absorption, and wisdom. I’ll be talking…