The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audiodderma.org.

Good morning everyone and welcome. And today I'd like to talk as an introductory talk of sorts of something

it's called the Parramis in the ancient Pauly language.

And one of the meanings in it's often translated into English

is as the perfections, which is a dangerous word for some of us.

And but the word also means something which is kind of ultimate or fantastic.

And there are 10 of these, 10 Pyramis, so I'm going to go talk about these 10.

And some of you might be already disappointed because here we go, one more Buddhist list.

Buddhism has a lot of lists and there's actually books of lists, lists of lists.

And, but, And but I think it's reasonable to be somehow discouraged by all the lists that exists in Buddhism

until you understand their purpose.

And part of the purpose is that they're describing some aspect of the ecology of the heart mind.

The natural processes that operate as we practice the

darma that get awakened and move through us and develop over time. And the metaphors the Buddha uses for this growth

are all organic metaphors of the growth of a tree

or a plant that flow and develop.

In contrast to what is made synthetically, and develop

the darma, we don't build up the darma,

we don't build a practice like you build a house

or make synthetic products plastic or something, but it's more like a gardener that allows something to grow, to develop, and so you're supporting something to happen.

And so these 10 paramese, these 10 perfections, are natural qualities, capacities

...