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Wisdom 101: An Ongoing Project

First Topic: The Wisdom Which Has Gone Beyond, And Come Back To Tell Us What The Other Shore Is All About

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I'm citing these examples to show not just how important it is that we begin to think in terms of whether some action or decision is "wise" but just how simple or complex doing the wise thing can be. The examples of lifeboats and losers are situations reaily resolved by simple applications of wisdom, but some decisions that have been made for all of us on earth, like adding lead to gasoline, involve complexities that could not have been forseen by the people too focused on profit to consider waiting until some knowledge is gained, through testing or other emperical means.

Due to this lack of interest in the common good that afflicts the economic concepts of modern times, we live in a world that is nothing like the world our bodies/minds were designed in and for. Apparently, many people and schools of thought have the arrogance to believe that the world is here to adapt to us, rather than our living in harmony with it. This thinking is the primary host for the pandemic disorder that I call 'Wisdom Deficency'. The first symptom is a distaste for common sense, and sometimes, any new information whatsoever. Eventually the decision-making process is ruined, and familiar desires to serve the common good are all but wiped out, being replaced with a new concept of common good that prefers one sort of common over another. It is almost unstoppable because of the ubiquitous presence of the many host activities, and it is not long before the victim comes to believe that being wisdom-deficient is normal, and being wise is, at best, unfortunate.

A bit of the Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra

The title of the first section alludes to the Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra, better known as the Heart Sutra. The few lines of the Heart Sutra that I wanted to check in with is how "the Bodhisattvas, through the practice of the Wisdom Which Has Gone Beyond, have no hindrance of mind - no hindrance, hence no fear". What this is about is freeing the mind from attachment to phenomena, being voidness, for a moment, and letting all dualities fall into the abyss.

That thing we know as our "self" is really a feature film that we're constantly running over and over again, made up of various actors, directors, caterers, key grips and so on. Eventually anyone practicing anything remotely resembling a wisdom teaching runs across the concept that this 'self' is not single, but composite. This is a true cause of joy to the wisdom seeker, because in Buddhist teaching, the Tathagata clearly states that "all combinations are subject to separation" - and this is a major key to enlightenment realization or consciousness of the true self.

Diamantine or defrosted?

At the realization of this composite nature of the self, the idea of the "fortress-I", the self that must be protected and defended, begins to dissolve. A chef would understand this, in that tasting a spoon of a delicious stew for flavor adjustment, the chef might be tasting fennel, saffron, the texture of the fats, the butter in the roux, and so on. When you start from the ground up with food, you understand that the pot pie is not a single thing that comes out of a box, but a combination of many things, that has the appearance of a single thing for both convenience and the aggrandizement of the ego of the inventor of the dish. In the case of the mystic or aspirant to the mysteries, they realize that they were, before attuning to original mind, like the person inventing or opening the pie, and after experiencing the original mind they become like the chef who has no problem with undestanding the composite from the ground up, and no attachment to adjusting one component of the composition with another in order to give the customer the experience of the essence of his creation. In this way, what we do and what we are in relationship to the world around us is an expression of our essence, and once the other shore is reached, that expression changes both radically and permanently.

A long history of mystical experience teaches us that the dissolution of the "fortress-I" is the most difficult experience that a human being can have. It is also the most empowering, beautiful and joyous, but the beginning stages are tough. All the energy invested in believing and following the self-dream is restored to the clear body/mind, or reclaimed by the body, speech and mind, to use classical terms. In the meantime, the false ego, believing in itself, tries to protect itself. This is the root of all fear, according to Buddhist & other teachings. Once that self is let go, the fear disappears, but letting go is not easy.

What did you learn in school today?

Letting go is the wrong way of dealing with the world from what we are taught by our parents, peers and media. After all, "You are what you buy;" "he who dies and has the most toys wins". It's actually hard to prove those propaganda sound-bytes wrong, because, from the standpoint of modern culture, they're right. You are what you buy. You wear your collection of remote controls on your thighs, and your body, speech and mind are more of an expression of corporate marketing than self-interest if you live in the industrialized world. It can't be avoided: the food that is eaten daily by by millions of people has been modified to conform to the cycles of business, rather than the cycles of nature. The chemistry that goes on inside the body is regulated by the business community on such a scale that there have been incidents of depression and even suicide following changes in the television season. I just read the other day that a man killed himself when he accidentally found out which character 'died' in the latest Harry Potter book. And if you die with the most toys, you won. You no longer have to pay them off or keep ahead of the Joneses. People will remember you as the guy with all that cool stuff. You no longer have to suffer the fear of being one of the have-nots.