The commentaries on virya paramita say that perfection of energy takes three stages. Roughly, the first is developing character and courage; the second is spiritual training; and the third is altruism.
Of course, in reality these stages blend together. The last post described fitting your practice into difficult circumstances, which is mostly first stage. But Aitken Roshi said that part of the second stage is to "take your practice in hand."� "In the reality of Buddhist practice," he said, "you have to keep building. It is not enough to come regularly to meetings and to sit there waiting for whatever-it-is to appear."
I read that as making a personal commitment to your spiritual development, but such a commitment surely is also part of the character building and courage phase.
The word virya comes from a pre-Sanskrit word vira, which means "hero." A lot of the older texts go overboard on "warrior" analogies and describe walking the path in terms of fighting a battle. The hero must refuse to accept defeat, or surrender to defeatism.
The "character and courage" phase requires paying attention to everything that affects practice. You may notice after awhile that "what affects practice" is pretty much your whole life. How you organize your space, or your time; your personal relationships; your job. Do you schedule practice to fit into your life, or do you manage your life to support your practice?
Obviously, this phase might require kicking bad habits. Eventually you may find yourself facing big changes, such as where you live (and with whom) or what you do for a living. And yes, this connects to a lot of other stuff, like Right Livelihood and the Precepts. The more time I spend with this, the more I am struck by how every teaching supports, and is supported by, other teachings. It's all interconnected.
Should you have to make big changes? Let your practice be your guide. Let it show you what to do.
In his book The Six Perfections, Dale Wright wrote,
"There are two basic ways in which it is possible for a person to fail ethically. The most obvious of these is to act unjustly, to commit crimes against society and oneself, to be a negative, destructive force. But another way is to fail in the positive, failing to live constructively on behalf of oneself and others. This second failure signals a deficiency of energy, a lack of constructive striving toward what is worthwhile."
This all says to me that the first step in building virya paramita is a wholehearted commitment to practice and dedication to striving toward what is worthwhile. Everything else follows from that.
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