On May 5, 2021, I was honored to be one of six speakers and 49 Buddhist clergy from many different lineages and sects in a 49th day memorial service for the victims of the March 16, 2021 Atlanta shootings and other victims of anti-Asian violence. You can watch the event in its entirety above, or watch my dharma talk on the paramita of virya on YouTube at 1:12:45.

TRANSCRIPT

It's a great honor that I get to speak today—amongst this community of Asian American spiritual leaders—about the paramita of virya. 

There is a lot we want to accomplish today, in terms of remembrance and community-building, so my dharma talk will be brief. But since virya figures very prominently at Daihonzan Chozen-ji, the Rinzai Zen temple and Dojo in Hawaii where I live, I think I can share some understanding quickly and succinctly.

In the original Sanskrit, the paramita of virya means vigor, effort, and diligence. For today's purposes, let's think of it as spiritual strength. 

Out of the six paramitas, many consider virya or spiritual strength to be foundational.

Without it, the other paramitas of generosity, patience, ethics, wisdom, or concentration fall flat. Without strength, our patience fizzles, our concentration is dull, and our ability to act ethically withers in the face of hardship or severe consequences. 

Our entire struggle to realize our True Selves and our Buddha nature relies on our foundation of spiritual strength. 

We clearly need strength, in moments like these, to help us forge a path ahead through racism, patriarchy, and other oppressions and inequities.

But we also need it to meet the suffering caused by injustice or just the vicissitudes of life with compassion.

Compassion. Nobody would dispute that what the world needs today is more compassion.

But consider what compassion really means. The Latin roots of the word compassion are "com" and "passion". Com means with. Passion—as in, the Passion of the Christ—means to suffer.

So, "com-passion" means "to suffer with". To suffer with others, perhaps even in the hardest moments of their lives, requires tremendous spiritual strength.

After an exhausting year, many are probably wondering, where can we find such spiritual strength? 

Well, we can start here, in temples and Dojos like this. Here, we can forge our strength through the methods passed down to us, teacher to student, over two thousand years. 

We can learn how to take the hard experiences in our lives and turn them into opportunities for growth. We can train ourselves to transcend the dualism and separation that leads to suffering.

In a Buddhist temple like this, we can look to Kannon and Fudo Myo, with their many eyes, arms, and weapons—transcendent Buddhist archetypes of spiritual strength.

But more importantly, we need only look around, finding examples of spiritual strength in our families and ancestors who risked everything to build a brighter future. Examples like Tan Xiaojie, Feng Daoyou, Hyun Jung Grant, Park Soon Chung, Kim Suncha, and Yue Yong Ae. The strength they had to make America their home, working multiple jobs and navigating a new world for the sake of their families was tremendous.

Let us commit to matching their spiritual strength, their virya, today and every day to come as we remember and honor them.