In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual
practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel
us forward into freedom. The Pali word parami refers to ten wholesome
qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us:
generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness,
resolve, lovingkindness, and equanimity. . . . Parami does not come from
some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually
accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power
would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernatural being. It is,
rather, a reliance on those forces of purity in ourselves that are outside
our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace
in our lives.
–Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation