The Stinginess of Crows: Practicing Imperfectly the Perfections
It might have been while sitting by the window, reading Ācariya Dhammapāla’s A Treatise on the Perfections under a San Francisco sunset’s purples and pinks, that I noticed a streak of black, then another. In those winter minutes when hundreds swept by to join their warm roost, I came to reflect on the stinginess of crows.
Unlike Buddhas, crows steal things. Hardly a model of generosity, a murder of crows is depicted in a story as distracting a river otter to make off with its caught fish. Crows are as clever as their raven cousins, who in Juneau in 1991 pilfered from a children’s Easter egg hunt. “Almost 1,200 hard-boiled eggs were distributed throughout the Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park. Unfortunately, the staff and volunteers had distributed the eggs hours before the event. By the time they were through registering the attending children, ravens had already crashed the event and were making off with colored eggs in all directions.”1
I can hardly fault corvids for not abiding by our social mores, despite their sophisticated communication and brilliant memories. I can’t fault them, but these stories reminded me of my own tight-fistedness, when those palpable impulses toward stinginess arise: a grimace on my lip during a stressful conversation, a tension in the ribs while driving, an open hand of generosity becoming a closed fist. These impulses pull back, push away, grasp or push aside, so often when notions of “me” and “mine” dominate the mind, even while I aspire to a perfected generosity.
The stinginess I share with crows echoes my understanding of Dhammapāla: that we practice the perfections imperfectly. In his language, the perfections (pāramī) are both “conduct” and “virtues.” I understand this to mean the ten perfections are both practices and results. They are practiced, even clumsily, and they issue profound results, even to the point of Buddhahood. That the pāramīs are both practices and results means that I might practice imperfectly, even tentatively, good-enough-for-now, while orienting toward a mature, consummated virtue. Perhaps crows need not be perfect either.
In A Treatise on the Perfections, Dhammapāla offers an insightful analysis and clear approach to practicing the perfections (pāramī), those ten qualities that are understood to flower in Awakening, their full maturity a necessary condition for Buddhahood. The ten practices: giving, ethical conduct, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, goodwill, and equanimity. For each perfection, Dhammapāla includes concrete, here-and-now instructions.
Dhammapāla’s writings represent a fascinating period in the development of Theravāda Buddhism. In India during the 5th–6th century CE, Dhammapāla composed a number of commentaries on the ancient Canon, showing a sensitivity to other Buddhist traditions and providing a thoughtful, thorough consideration of ancient Buddhist practices. And while the aspirations he describes are second to none, the pragmatism of Dhammapāla’s approach includes that we practice imperfectly, which can inspire a sense of experimentation, even play.
Crows rarely glide, opting for a steady flight of rhythmic strokes. At the cliffs of Fort Funston at San Francisco’s southwest limit, what I see is unexpected. Here, the winds are strong, continuous updrafts, fit for the humans in helmets and jumpers carrying their hang gliders to a cliffside launch pad. Surprisingly, the crows seem to have picked up on this form of play. Just beyond an arm’s length from the cliff edge, a crow is suspended, seemingly stationary, wings wide, bones steady as a figure model, a swift updraft flickering the covert and flight feathers. This crow, suspended above sea spray by forces from across the Pacific, has me in exquisite wonder. With precision, she dives and somersaults below the cliff edge and back, disappearing and reappearing, still yet aloft. Diving and rising, this crow is not motivated now by food, shelter, prey, or tools, but by what? To my eyes, there is nothing this crow is trying to get, nothing it expects to gain. Could this be enjoyment? Fun? Play?
This crow’s playful gliding, with no hint of stinginess, inspired me to consider the perfections as practices fit for experimentation and play rather than the pursuit of gain. Such a view undermines the burdens we might carry in relation to admonitions toward perfection. After all, they are called the perfections. How often do our own standards of perfection make actual practice seem insufficient? Instead, to play brings levity. Experimenting brings curiosity. Without devoting ourselves strictly to gain, but with the precision of this gliding crow, how might we play with the pāramīs? With this in mind, we can turn to some of Dhammapāla’s instructions, those on dāna pāramī, the perfection of giving.
A precursor to playing with the pāramīs is suspending our self-judgment, to include rather than eschew our imperfections. Right from the start of his discussion of the first perfection, dāna (giving), Dhammapāla includes our imperfection, our stinginess, in what he calls the “method of reviewing.” In short, in regard to each pāramī, this is “reviewing the danger in [the pāramī’s] opposites and the benefit in their practice.” For example, in the case of the perfection of giving, to review “the danger in non-relinquishing and the benefit in relinquishing. This is the method of reviewing.”
Here, one of our tasks is to consider, “What is the danger or drawback of this stinginess?” For Dhammapāla, possessiveness does us harm: our coveted possessions are unreliable, subject to loss. How we wince when our heirloom teacup shatters. Not only subject to loss, Dhammapāla writes that our possessions are wanted by many, even sparking conflict and creating enemies. How many children and parents must have been frustrated at the ravens in Juneau, flying off with “my” Easter eggs?
In contrast, to give, to practice the perfection of dāna, has the benefit of ridding us of those worries associated with possession, the stresses of teacups and Easter eggs. Accordingly, the person we give to is to be regarded as a helper, a cause for joy, a “best friend” because they make it possible for us to give away, and to be freed of, possessions. As Dhammapāla says, a recipient of our gifts is “a companion helping me to remove my belongings from this world, which is blazing.”
To play with the method of reviewing, we pause any demands of self-judgment and instead experiment with the instructions: “What makes giving workable? Who might I give to? How do I do it well and wisely?”
Dhammapāla gives further instruction: ideally, we are not to practice dāna when we expect something in return. He suggests that with compassion and appropriate skill, we might give whatever is needed to whomever needs it. One exception: we are not to give things that issue in affliction. After all, non-harming is a guiding principle here.
Instead of supporting affliction, one way we might benefit both ourselves and others is to give as a corrective, when greed for an object has become excessive. In such cases, Dhammapāla’s practice is to recognize the arising of stinginess, to ameliorate it, to seek out a proper recipient, and then to give.
The encouragement here is to give, but not only to give, but to practice giving. Give along with a precise reflection; give observing the effect. As you give, observe how possessiveness untangles and kinship coalesces. To sustain the practice as playful experimentation, it is incumbent upon us to observe and to refine our practice. We might carefully observe ourselves and others during the entire process of giving, from the time we first notice impulses toward stinginess or generosity, to when we assess what harm or benefit might arise, to when we decide to give, then the preparation of the gift, then during the giving, and after. Does joy arise? Clinging? Appreciation? Gratitude? Distraction? We might notice, for example, our inner states during this process to ensure, in Dhammapāla’s words, that our giving “does not become either conceited or obsequious in relation to the recipients.” Or along with our mindfulness, we might employ the contemplation of impermanence, ensuring wisdom guards against clinging. Swiftly changing and without a constant core, our states can soar, dip, and fly.
How is it that we might glide in the practice, sense and catch the updrafts, playfully commit to a dive, turn upward, and sense our path? How do we play our way with the pāramīs? Our experimentation isn’t random. We have teachings such as Dhammapāla’s with which to turn and glide. His instructions do not encourage an abstract, unmoored dāna, but rather, to put this perfection into practice and to observe what happens, adjusting the practice and trying again, observing and refining further. This can be a precise yet playful experimentation. We reflect: what drawbacks arise in this way of giving? What subtle opposites of dāna cause me to lose the supportive updraft of generosity, falling toward the rocky shore? What benefits arise in this dāna practice? What subtle supports are arising—the warm updrafts that carry the practice along at a dynamic glide? How can I mature this perfectly imperfect play with the perfections?
This reflective, playful, experimental approach to dāna applies to the other pāramīs too. For example, how might a playful renunciation look? How can wisdom be matured through experimentation? Such an approach is not harsh or rigid, but supports the qualities that Dhammapāla says are the basis of all of the pāramīs: compassion and skillful means.
It felt like skillful means and generosity when a crow engaged me, and I chose to play. Perched atop a wooden pole on Lily Alley, her head aligned with the height of my own as I sat at a window on the second story, she cawed. Perhaps inspired by the isolation of stay-at-home orders, I called back, mimicking. The crow turned toward me and responded, “Caw!” We continued in this way, call and response, until another surprise: she changed to another call (they have over twenty). I did my best to mimic, clumsily at first, but well enough that we stayed engaged.
Was she teaching me? Maybe, maybe not, but regardless, a patient crow permitted me to practice imperfectly. Though likely without the volition to teach me, this crow taught me calls. I did them imperfectly. I presented and the crow assessed. As I grew in skill with one call, my tutor moved on to the next. I felt the arising of a bond, companionship, relationship, and compassion. They say crows have demonstrated a memory for faces for up to 17 years. I hope she remembers me.
1. Bernd Heinrich, and Hainer Kober. The Mind of the Raven : Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds. New York, Harper Perennial, 2009.
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