In my previous post I talked about the paradox of the heap. If you continually remove one grain of sand from a heap of sand, eventually you no longer will have a heap. But at what point?
A variation of this is the bald man paradox. A man with a full head of hair loses one hair a day. At what point will he be considered bald? Surely not when he’s lost every single hair. So there must be a point somewhere between bald and not bald where there is some hair left.
I think this is the way it is with Buddhist practice. The point of practice to get rid of all the qualities that bind a person to samsara, the perpetual wandering through cycles of death and rebirth. The end is Nibbanna (Nirvana). These qualities are many and are listed as defilements (kilesa), taints (asava), hindrances (nivarana), fetters (samyojana), and so on.
With practice, though, you can pluck these one at a time until eventually you will be more “awakened” than not – even though there may be lots more work to be done. Skills develop over time and wisdom comes in stages. My skills may not be perfect nor my wisdom complete, but I gladly accept today’s skillfulness and wisdom over yesterday’s. The same will be true tomorrow. Just as I will have less hair tomorrow as I do today.
