Although our tendency has been to regard imaginative mental capacities as secondary or less important in the overall operation of our minds, on close examination this turns out not to be true. When we are uncertain how to understand or explain something before us, we imagine how it might be, form plausible hypotheses, and then seek to confirm or falsify them. When faced with a problem, we imagine possible solutions and test them for their potential efficacy. When we need to know what to believe, we imagine plausible accounts of the issue and what might count as evidence in their favor or against them. Imagination functions in an astonishing range of human activities, from basic problem solving through the creative acts of art, music, and literature, to our own efforts to imagine ideals that are worthy of guiding our personal lives – the “thought of enlightenment.” By cultivating this central, meditative capacity, we open up dimensions of our lives we were previously unable to access. Those who do this skillfully position themselves in a more experimental relation to life, a posture less susceptible to dogmatic closure and open to a wider set of possibilities.

Courage was considered an essential component of the quest for self-transformation. As the bodhisattva develops the perfection of energy, he is said to find that “he is not afraid. He is impregnated with the strength that he has gained and that enables him to persist in his endeavors and to think: ‘It is not the case that I shall not be fully enlightened.’ “

For some traditional Buddhists there is no such thing as misfortune. All fortune – good, bad, and indifferent – is justifiably earned, they claim. We deserve whatever we get in life. Grounded in the view of cosmic justice inherent in the Buddhist teachings of karma and rebirth, this idea is not always easy to practice. But for those who are adept at practicing it, it does have powerful ramifications. Whoever accepts these teachings to the extent of being able to live in accord with them has no reason to resent what has happened. When misfortune befalls such people, their understanding of karma and rebirth ameliorates its sting. Whatever has happened to them – no matter how terrible or how wonderful – it was their own actions in life that have produced this new state of affairs. Adopting this view, you would have every reason to tolerate everything that happens to you and no reason to resent or bemoan the consequences that your own actions have earned.

In their effort to establish a more comprehensive understanding of Buddhist morality, Mahayana sources frequently classify morality into three increasingly significant categories. First is morality as restraint, which aligns with most concerns of early Buddhist moral precepts. Steadfast in renunciation of ordinary worldly desires, the bodhisattva observes the precepts with great care and exactitude and does this with no thought of reward. Second is morality as the cultivation of virtue. More comprehensive than following the Buddhist precepts, the second level of moral practice is grounded in meditation and its concern for mindfulness. Attentive to all of the ways in which enlightenment can be cultivated, the bodhisattva undertakes these regimes of training in order to prepare for the final stage. Third is morality as altruism. This dimension of morality shows the bodhisattva’s overarching concern for the welfare and enlightenment of others. Moral action at this stage, therefore, entails loving service to others, which includes everything from teaching to care for the poor and the sick. In the final analysis, moral action is not individual but collective, and the bodhisattva engages in morality for the betterment and enlightenment of all.

The first of [the] two kinds of generosity is “worldly giving.” Worldly giving encompasses a wide range of generous acts, from a grudging, stingy gift given for essentially selfish motives all the way to magnanimous gifts of enormous generosity. In fact, one may give everything away, including one’s life, and still be within the domain of worldly giving. So what constitutes its worldliness? The answer is: the conception that structures the act itself. Worldly generosity occurs when, having given, the bodhisattva thinks: “I give, that one receives, this is the gift.” Even if the bodhisattva also goes so far as to think: “I renounce all that I have without any niggardliness; I act as the Buddha commands. I practice the perfection of giving. I, having made this gift into the common property of all beings, dedicate it to supreme enlightenment, and that without basing myself on anything. By means of this gift and its fruit, may all beings in this very life be at their ease, and may they without any further clinging enter final Nirvana.”

Even that is still worldly giving, due to the character of the understanding out of which it arises. According to the Large Sutra, the problem with this way of being generous is: “The notion of self, the notion of others, the notion of a gift. To give a gift tied by these three ties, that is called worldly giving.” By contrast, the sutra describes the perfection of an act of generosity by way of a “threefold purity”: “Here a Bodhisattva gives a gift, and he does not apprehend a self, a recipient, or a gift; also no reward of his giving. He surrenders that gift to all beings, but does not apprehend those beings, or himself either. And, although he dedicates that gift to supreme enlightenment, he does not apprehend any enlightenment. This is called the supermundane perfection of giving.”

The ability to question, to see the effect of our language on our minds, is considered part of what Mahayana Buddhists called “skill-in-means” (upāya). Skill in handling the means through which awakening might occur is essential to the practice of the bodhisattva. This skill is closely linked to the perfection of wisdom. One sutra says: “But the skill in means of the bodhisattvas should be known as having come forth from the perfection of wisdom.” Another says: “The bodhisattva should train himself in the skill in means contained in this perfection of wisdom.” Skill comes forth from wisdom and skill is contained in wisdom; developing one is simultaneously cultivating the other. One cannot be skillful without a profound realization of the “emptiness” of all things, and one cannot realize the “emptiness” of all things without the development of “skill-in-means.” The link between them is so tight that the Vimalakirti Sūtra says: “Wisdom not integrated with skillful means is bondage, but wisdom integrated with skillful means is liberation. Skillful means not integrated with wisdom is bondage, but skillful means integrated with wisdom is liberation.”

There is a reflexive dimension that is engaged whenever Buddhists take meditations on the concept of “emptiness” far enough to encompass the subjectivity of the thinker. This has long been important in the history of Buddhism, but now constitutes a significant contribution to the history of human consciousness. Here is a summary of how the “emptiness” of all things encompasses the “self” in such a way that we can get a glimpse of “the one who is right now reading this.” Recall that “emptiness” can be handily defined in terms of three basic Buddhist principles – impermanence, dependent arising, and no-self. Things are “empty” of their “own being” insofar as they are always subject to change and insofar as the change they undergo is caused and conditioned by change in other things upon which they depend. All things lack a “self,” therefore – a permanent, self-caused identity that always makes them exactly what they are.

Meditation on this universal predicate – that all things are empty – eventually attains a reflexive dimension when it returns to encompass the one who predicates “emptiness” – you or me as subjects. What would it mean to understand through prolonged meditation that “I” am “empty?”

We know from the history of religions – as well as the history of Buddhism – that varieties of spirituality range from the passionate to the dispassionate. The most common caricature of Buddhism emphasizes the dispassionate side – the image of reclusive monks in meditative, nonviolent serenity. But there are many exceptions to that pattern, from Tantric passion to the emotional ecstasies of devotional of Pure Land Buddhism to Vietnamese, Tibetan, or Burmese monks in political rebellion. There is no good reason to narrow this range of salutary emotions by recommending that a contemporary account of the six perfections would best entail one specific form of emotional life. It is not difficult to imagine enlightened bodhisattvas at both extremes of the range of emotions as well as in the middle. But it is clear enough that, however conceived, emotions are an important part of life and that the attempt to delete them altogether is as mistaken as any effort to get out of the life you have been given. Both insight and active striving are integrally connected to human passion.

Once we realize this point, there is no reason to conceive of enlightening practice as devoid of enjoyment – the experience of joy in the midst of daily activities. There is no point in maintaining a traditionally dour caricature of enlightenment. Can we imagine an enlightened life in which the practitioner does not enjoy the practices in which he or she is engaged? A practice in which he or she forever struggles against the grain of emotional inclinations? Can we imagine an ideal life that is devoid of joy and ecstatic release? It is unlikely that we can or will. Recognizing that desire and emotion are essential components of life, it will become obvious that striving for their perfection rather than their eradication is the wiser and more comprehensive image of enlightenment.

As the art of putting things into perspective, wisdom also teaches us how to contextualize problems, how to understand what worries us in a light that is liberating rather than debilitating. Recall that Buddhist wisdom is associated with the realizations that all things are impermanent and contingent. Cultivating the ability to tolerate the problems and difficulties that are almost always on our minds, awareness of their impermanence and contingency is essential. Keeping impermanence in mind, we realize that this problem, like all others, is transient. Although it weighs heavily on my mind right now, I can attain a perspective that predicts its transformation and eventual disappearance. That slight distance from the problem enables us to avoid being crushed by the perceived weight of problems.

In addition to seeing the transience of the problem, wisdom points to its contingency. All things just depend. They come into our lives due to particular conditions, and when those conditions change so will the problems. This formula – the Buddhist teaching of “dependent arising” – assists in understanding the status of difficulties. They are contingent and can be altered by changing the conditions upon which they currently depend. Understanding this empowers action and helps reduce the extent to which we waste time and energy bemoaning what has happened as though that state is permanent and unavoidable. Getting wise perspective encourages us to see the reality before us for what it is without lamentation or resentment. Accepting the problem as a problem does not undermine effective work to solve it. Indeed, it is exactly what makes skillful response possible by bringing pointless struggle to an end.

Since morality is a necessary dimension of practice, a dimension of perfection that enlightenment will require, bodhisattvas vow to help others initiate the practice. But in order to do that effectively, they must have attained a profound enough moral standing themselves that they will not be hypocritical in their moral instructions to others. Therefore Ārya-Śūra’s chapter on the perfection of morality begins with the sentence: “The one in whom has arisen the strong concern to grace people with the ornament of a complete Buddha’s morality should first of all purify his own morality.” It is not possible to teach what you are unable to practice yourself, and the outcome of this resolution is that Mahayana bodhisattvas are expected to focus first on their own moral wisdom, carrying it through extensively before they will be in a position to instruct others.