03/03/2020
There are 3 parts to Wisdom...Knowledge, Understanding and then your own Experience
First, is the knowledge of wisdom acquired by hearing or reading the words of others. This will often set you in the right direction. With this received wisdom, you can then begin to intellectually understand and rationally examine what you’ve heard or read to see whether it is logical, practical or beneficial and if so, you can then accept it. However, it’s the next stage where you develop the wisdom for yourself at the experimental level with one’s own experience of trial and experimentation that one gains true wisdom.
Wisdom is good judgement. In the religious sense, it is often simply seen as understanding the difference between good and evil thus giving a link between wisdom and our spirit or soul. This is wisdom for purity, love and happiness, inner peace and community. In Indian religions wisdom is referred to in Pali as panna (insight into the true nature of reality) and starts with the practice of sila where you abstain from causing harm to yourself and others. The development of panna, wisdom which purifies the mind leads to nirvana, or full enlightenment.
The development of real panna is the understanding of reality as it is, not as it appears to be.
An example of the three types of wisdom: a doctor gives a prescription when you are sick. You go home and out of great faith for the knowledge that the doctor has acquired at university, you recite the prescription every day but it does not work and you return to the doctor to receive an explanation or understanding of why it is necessary and how it will work. Now you understand, and it is only when you take the medicine or follow the advice in practice (it may be advice to change your eating habits) that you benefit and gain the real wisdom of the doctor’s knowledge. With success, in the future, you may then become an ‘evangelist’ for your solution and share your knowledge with someone else but they will also need to go through the same three steps using your knowledge to then develop their understanding and experience to finally gain their own wisdom. Learnt wisdom.
You need to understand the truth within yourself at the experiential level and only you can do this. No one else can change you. You choose. Everything then comes full circle as you embrace the wisdom for yourself as it is.
Wisdom Way
1. Be open to seek new knowledge in your area of need
2. Rationally examine what you’ve hear or read to see whether it is logical, practical or beneficial
3. Seek support and/or experience of others in your journey
4. Try it and experience it yourself
5. If successful, become an evangelist and share your knowledge for the benefit of others.
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