Milarepa, in his "Song of the Six Perfections," said of ksanti paramita,
Beyond being without fear of what is ultimately true,
There is no other patience.
This week I've been focusing on ksanti paramita, one of the Six Perfections of Mahayana. The word ksanti is translated umpteen different ways -- patience, tolerance, forbearance, endurance -- but it seems to me none of these words is exactly right. The English words carry a connotation of passivity, while ksanti seems to be anything but passive.
Many commentaries say that fearless acceptance of truth is one of the major aspects of ksanti paramita. This acceptance begins with the truth of dukkha and leads to the truth of the essential nonexistence of the self. It occurs to me, though, that along the way we may need to practice ksanti with our doubts.
Some of us, I think, are impatient with not knowing. As often as a teacher might say, Buddhism is not a belief system but a means of exploration; or, the truth cannot be found in conceptual knowledge alone, but must be realized to be understood; it seems this is inevitably followed by a "yes, but ... please explain such and such, because I've read the commentaries and I still don't understand it."
And, once again, the explanations only take you part of the way. Reading books and learning doctrines will only take you part of the way. What you can understand intellectually will only take you part of the way. In fact, if your intellectual understanding "makes sense," you are missing something.
Learning about the doctrines is very helpful, but you still have to walk the path to fully appreciate the doctrines. Asking questions is good, but please understand that very often no one can give you the answer. Sometimes all anyone can do is point to the answer. You still have to find the answer yourself.
This is what Buddhism is. It's not just a bunch of beliefs to memorize and adopt. It's a path.
So if you have doubts and confusion, that's very good. Don't think of doubt -- in the sense of� fuzzy spots in your understanding -- as something bad that has to be eliminated as soon as possible. Without doubt, you don't learn. Don't know is the path. To be beyond fear of what is ultimately true requires being patient with not knowing.
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