The Six Perfections

Abstract

In classical Mahayana Buddhism, the “six perfections—pāramitā—define the meaning of human enlightenment. Buddhist enlightenment is understood to be a particular way of being in the world, a way of being in which six distinct dimensions of human character have been cultivated to the level of excellence—generosity, morality, tolerance, energy, meditation, and wisdom. In this book, Dale Wright explores each of these six dimensions of character and the kinds of self‐cultivation that Buddhists correlate with them in order to assess the “six perfections” as ethical ideals suitable for contemporary global culture. Each chapter takes up one of the six perfections and is divided into two sections. The first section describes how each of the six perfections was understood in classical Mahayana Buddhist sutras and philosophical works. The second section takes that traditional Buddhist account of ethics up into current consideration, asking: what would each of these “perfections” need to look like today in order to be considered an ideal dimension of human character? What role would generosity, morality, tolerance, energy, meditation, or wisdom play in the lives of people who we would most admire in our own contemporary setting? The aim of the book is to develop a philosophy of self‐cultivation using these Buddhist resources as its point of departure.

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