Parami · Pāli: pāramī; Skt: pāramitā

The pāramī (Sanskrit pāramitā) are qualities of character brought to perfection on the way to awakening. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu’s study guide gives the two traditional glosses of the word: “They carry one across to the further shore (paraṃ); and they are of foremost (parama) importance in formulating the purpose of one’s life.” Both senses are worth holding. A perfection is a crossing, and it is also the thing a life gets organised around; the same guide adds that “the perfections also provide one of the few reliable ways of measuring the accomplishments of one’s life”.

The Theravada list has ten: generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, good will and equanimity. As the study guide notes, “the Theravadins, for instance, specified ten perfections, and organized their Jataka collection so that it culminated in ten tales, each illustrating one of the perfections”.

Mahayana counts six, and the shorter list is not simply the longer one trimmed. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives them as generosity (dāna), moral discipline (śīla), patient endurance (kṣānti), perseverance (vīrya), meditative stability (dhyāna) and wisdom (prajñā). Meditative stability is not among the Theravada ten, and renunciation, truth, determination, good will and equanimity are not among the six, so it is always worth asking which list a teacher means. Our guide to the six perfections sets them side by side.

One thing worth saying plainly: the perfections are not a Mahayana monopoly. The study guide observes that “many Theravadins have vowed to become bodhisattvas and have undertaken the practice of the ten perfections as set forth in the Theravadin Jatakas”.