Tag Archives: six paramitas

PST 2026 six paramitas challenge #2: ethical conduct

The second paramita in Tibetan is tsultrim, usually translated as discipline, morality, or ethical conduct. Other terms that have been used to describe it include skillful conduct, right conduct, self-discipline, and integrity. In Sanskrit it is known as sila, which according to my research comes from the word for rock or stone. I’ve also seen it translated as coolness. For me, both definitions bring to mind Shantideva’s advice to “remain like a piece of wood” whenever we find ourselves on the verge of committing a counterproductive action of body, speech, or mind. It also resonates with the contemporary “gray rock” concept in psychology, i.e., responding minimally and without affect in an interaction that threatens to trigger an emotional reaction.

There’s more to the paramita of ethical conduct, but its overall intent is that we cultivate vigilance in order to 1) inhibit reflexive habits and reactions that feed the cycle of samsaric confusion and suffering, and 2) gradually replace them with new habits that are in accord with the dharma and with our bodhisattva aspiration to fully wake ourselves up from the illusion or dream of samsara so that we can help others free themselves. Ringu Tulku Rinpoche has said that this paramita comes down to practicing mindfulness. What do we need to be mindful about? This is expressed succinctly in Shakyamuni Buddha’s summary of the entire path, which also happens to reflect the three-fold practice of ethical conduct:

Refrain from actions that cause harm,
Engage in virtue all you can.
Tame your own mind utterly:
This is the Buddha’s great teaching.

~ Shakyamuni Buddha
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37 practices: the six paramitas (verses 25-30)

The six paramitas, aka perfections, aka transcending actions, consist of five activities or methods that actually propel the boat of our precious human existence to the other shore of fully realized wisdom and compassion, aka buddhahood, when imbued with the power of the sixth paramita: the wisdom of realizing the emptiness of each of the preceding five methods. By training in the sixth paramita, we come to realize that, without negating the relative reality of all our actions, at the level of ultimate reality there is no fixed and lasting self performing the action or receiving it, nor any truly existing action taking place.

Relative and ultimate reality exist together as a seamless whole, so we need to continue to act mindfully according to the Buddhist principles of the first turning of the wheel of dharma, such as the law of karma, the eightfold path, and the first five paramitas, while also understanding them from the perspective of the second turning of the wheel, in which the Buddha taught the co-existing emptiness of all relative phenomena, that nothing we perceive can be pinned down in any permanent or fully identifiable way. Try it and see! (In the previous post on impermanence, scroll down to the heading “Contemplation” for a simple exercise.)

The five method paramitas are generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful perseverance, and meditation. If we engage in them, even without the transcending wisdom of realizing their ultimate emptiness, we will earn merit, dwell in the higher realms of samsara, and benefit others, and they will provide momentum toward awakening. But we won’t fully awaken until we also accomplish the sixth paramita of wisdom, recognizing that all our actions are empty of any solid, lasting reality.

More on each of the six transcending actions may be found in the drop-down menu for the 37 practices of a bodhisattva, above.

Next: the first paramita of generosity, verse 25

37 practices: verse 26

26. To guard ethical conduct

If, through a lack of ethical conduct, / I can’t accomplish my own benefit,

Then any aspiration to achieve / the benefit of others is a joke.

To keep and guard my ethical conduct / completely free from worldly in-flu-ence:

This is the way a bodhisattva trains.

Verse 26 audio above.

The paramita or transcending action of ethical conduct is variously referred to as discipline, morality, or ethics, or any combination of these terms. The widely respected translator Lotsawa Tony Duff, in his fabulous online Tibetan-English dictionary The Illuminator, provides a very helpful explanation of what the Tibetan word tsul.trim really means and why “unfortunately, there is no single word that captures this particular flavor in English.” He feels “discipline” is the most accurate option, though still imperfect. I first used “moral discipline” because that’s what Ken Holmes calls it in his translation of Ornament of Precious Liberation, and because it was easy to fit into the verse meter. I later updated it to “ethical conduct” because it’s the term used in Mingyur Rinpoche’s online course on the six paramitas, and I felt it was a bit clearer in meaning. It fits the explanation of this paramita well, and it still fits the meter, though the stresses are a tad less perfect.

So … now that we’ve decided what to call it, at least in this class, what exactly do we mean by ethical conduct, moral discipline, or just discipline?

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37 practices: verse 25

25. To practice generosity

If, wishing to attain awakening, / I need to give even my body up,

Then doesn’t it go also without saying / that this applies to mere external stuff?

Without hope for reward or benefit / to generously give away a gift:

This is the way a bodhisattva trains.

verse 25 audio above

Note: The whole translation to date (verses 1-26) is now posted as a pdf file under “The 37 practices translation” at the top of this page.

Entering the home stretch: With verse 25, Tokme Zangpo introduces the six paramitas, the heart of action bodhicitta. These are the transcending actions we engage in that propel our boat, the precious human existence, to the shore of full awakening. The first five of these actions–generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, and meditation — are also ordinary virtues through which we benefit ourselves and others.

When we apply the sixth transcending action, the wisdom that realizes emptiness, to the first five paramitas, that is what makes these virtues transcending actions that also directly help us awaken. This wisdom is the same as ultimate bodhicitta, the nature of mind, which we have already studied in 23-24.

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