True barami is not the person with power, but the person defilement is afraid of
Summary
Many people take “a person of great barami” to mean someone powerful and well-connected, someone others defer to, someone who lifts a finger and things move. In dharma it does not mean being feared. Real barami is the inner strength that leaves the defilements unable to move.
Greed, anger, delusion, the urge to win, the wish to look good, the fear of losing an advantage — these are the actual ground on which barami is built.
The talk works through the ten perfections from the standpoint of someone who works for a living. Not a monastic subject: a subject for ordinary people who get up early, do the work, meet difficult problems and difficult people, sit under pressure, and still try to keep their minds from losing to their defilements.
A lifetime of merit-making may still not amount to barami — if the merit never worked against a defilement, if it was not done out of loving-kindness, if it was done for appearances, for reputation, or to feed the sense of self. Which makes today’s difficulty at work not only a problem, but raw material.
Key points
Barami is not making people afraid of you
Power and connections are measured in the people around you. Barami is measured in how much your own defilements can still move.
The training ground is the workplace, not the temple
The wish to look good, the fear of losing an advantage, the difficult people you meet daily — that is the real material.
Merit that works against no defilement is not yet barami
Done for appearances, for reputation, or to feed the self, what grows is the self.
The ten perfections are fully a layperson’s subject
Generosity, virtue, patience, energy, resolve and the rest are all tested on an ordinary working day. Nothing has to be postponed to a retreat.
Today’s difficulty is the raw material
With nothing to work against, there is nothing to refine. The problem is the condition for the work, not an obstacle to it.