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Pāramīs (4 of 10) Wisdom

Welcome to our fourth day of discussing the ten Pāramīs^[1], often called the ten perfections. I don't know if that's quite the meaning of the Pali Pāramī. It might mean more these things^[2] which are ultimate, or these things that lead to what is ultimate, what is of ultimate value. It means to hold these ten qualities of high value even as forms of wealth, and see them as the greatest wealth. They reside within us; they can be invested in, developed, and grown within us, and they can become stable within us. They're portable; we carry this wealth with us wherever we go.

The fourth of these Pāramīs is wisdom, paññā^[3]. It's translated into English in many different ways. The most common is "wisdom," which is a rich word in English. I think it has wonderful connotations and associations. Another way it's sometimes translated is as "insight." I sometimes like the word insight as a translation for paññā because the deepest paññā of the tradition comes out of a direct perception of present-moment experience. It arises in the seeing, in the experience, as opposed to being portable in the sense of knowledge that you've acquired, where you just have the knowledge and apply it. It's a rediscovery, an ability to rediscover what is true moment by moment. So, I think of it as insight.

Another translation that has a similar connotation is "discernment." Discernment is something that only exists in the process of discerning, of seeing, understanding, distinguishing, and being wise about what's going on. Whether it's wisdom, insight, or discernment, the dictionary has other translations like knowledge, clear understanding, and all kinds of words like that. But to understand it as being something immediate, it's not like reading a book and now you have Buddhist wisdom because you've memorized the Four Noble Truths. It's certainly valuable to do that, but the goal is to develop ourselves to see for ourselves, in direct experience, what is beneficial and what is not.

I like the adjective "wise" almost more than the noun "wisdom." The Buddha defines a wise person as someone who is concerned with the welfare of self, the welfare of others, the welfare of self and others, and the welfare of the whole world. It's all about welfare. He also says a wise person does not consider or concern themselves with the harm of self, the harm of others, the harm of self or others, or the harm of the whole world. So this idea of what makes a person wise is not a lot of learning, and not a lot of sophisticated knowledge or understanding of this cosmos, this world that we live in. It's not sophistication; it's something pretty basic that maybe takes a while to understand and is constantly discovered: What is beneficial? What brings welfare? And what is harm, what is harmful? Someone who really understands that is considered a wise person.

One of the great Buddhist questions we can ask ourselves as practitioners is, "Is it wise?" Is what I'm doing wise? What I'm saying, what I'm going to do with my body, my activity, or even what I think about—is it wise to be engaged in this?

So what's the basis of that kind of wisdom, knowing what's beneficial? This is where it's good to appreciate that wisdom arises fourth in this journey through the Pāramīs. The first three provide the information that begins showing us where benefit is, where welfare begins to reside.

Generosity, the first one, is not meant to be obligatory. It's meant to be voluntary, coming out of a spirit or an attitude of generosity. To do it well is to also appreciate the joy, the delight, the satisfaction, the goodness, and how it supports us to be generous. I don't know if it's ironic or a paradox that if you do generosity selfishly, only so you can benefit from the joy and delight from it, then it's not generosity. There has to be a certain degree of selflessness, a certain degree of non-selfishness to be genuinely generous. But in doing that, we also benefit. To feel how it opens us, delights us, and provides satisfaction begins providing an inner reference point of inner well-being.

Ethical conduct, the second one—virtuous conduct—is the practice of restraint. It takes a lot of work sometimes to restrain ourselves from some of the unethical or harmful things we want to say or do in certain areas of our life. But what is the wise way of having virtuous conduct? What's the way to do virtuous conduct so that there's the bliss of blamelessness, the joy, and the satisfaction of well-being? Can we avail ourselves of that? Can we allow ourselves to feel the goodness, the value, or the wholeness that comes from virtuous conduct? Some people will be virtuous, live a good life, and not harm others, but there's maybe even a kind of resistance to allowing oneself to feel the goodness of that. In Buddhism, the idea is not just to do ethical conduct for its own sake, or to just restrain ourselves and be rigid in it. It's really done to open, to allow something marvelous to bubble up inside of us: joy, happiness, freedom, and ease. An easeful way of being in the world because we're living without harming anyone.

Renunciation is also not meant to be a burden, something restrictive, or something that diminishes ourselves. The idea of renunciation is the movement of letting go of clinging, of holding on to things, so that something good within us can bubble up. There's space inside for the contemplative life. There's space inside for compassion, for awareness, and mindfulness. There's space inside for wisdom to operate, space inside to begin feeling that we don't just let go of things, we let go into some beginning of goodness, wholeness, inner welfare, lightness, easefulness, or peace. Renunciation is not just letting go of something and just going on; it's letting go so that we know there's something inside that's good and has a chance to arise.

In all these three steps, we're beginning to feel and experience within ourselves something healthy, a form of inner welfare. This growing development of sensibility and sensitivity to what inner welfare is becomes stronger and stronger. It becomes stronger than some of the beliefs and thoughts we have that might be self-critical, or critical of others, blaming others—philosophies and beliefs that are operating that are actually oppressive, diminishing, or harmful, that don't really make space and room for the amazing potential we have for thriving, maturing, and growth. I'm quoting three words the Buddha sometimes used together in English: thriving, maturing, and growth. What allows for inner growth, inner thriving, and maturation, the ripening?

The first three give us this reference point for welfare, for what is good, what is helpful and beneficial. That is the material that allows this wisdom to arise. The more we understand what's beneficial, the more we can understand what is harmful. What diminishes us? What restricts us? What goes in the opposite direction of thriving and, rather than being nourishing, de-nourishes us? We start having an experiential reference point for what's beneficial and what's not, and the first three Pāramīs set the ground for that.

So when we get to the fourth Pāramī, we can ask ourselves, "What is wise?" We don't have to run to the books to understand what that is. Rather, we run to our heart, we find it inside ourselves, and we can see what that reference point is.

Of course, with these Pāramīs, there is often a reciprocal relationship with those that are paired together. With renunciation and wisdom paired together, the more wise we are about what's beneficial, the more renunciation can be beneficial. I think often we don't think of renunciation in terms of how it's beneficial, but that's really the spirit, the way in which we're looking for that in Buddhism. The more we understand what's beneficial, the more healthy renunciation we do, and the greater reference point we have to ask the question, "What is beneficial?" Then, when appropriate, we see where greater renunciation can happen in letting go, which, if it's done well and healthily, gives us an even greater reference point for inner health, nourishment, and thriving.

Reflections on Wisdom

We ask ourselves the question: "What is wise?" If you're interested, I'm encouraging you for each of these days, twenty-four hours after I've introduced a Pāramī, to try to live with it. Think about it, reflect on it, talk to friends about it, read about it, listen to Dharma talks about it. You might do that today with wisdom.

Reflect on wisdom, consider what wisdom is. Maybe read about it and see if you can distinguish between ideas about what is wise that are a little bit more conceptual and removed, and ideas of wisdom that clearly point you back to what you can experience for yourself.

In these next twenty-four hours, why don't you really delve deeply into yourself? Maybe through your memory of your past, what you've learned. What have you learned within yourself that's experiential, that's a living, lived experience that you can sense and feel, that is a reference point for answering the question, "What is wise? What is wisdom for you?"

My wise friends, I hope you have a fun and enjoyable time reflecting on this wisdom Pāramī. The Pāramī of wisdom is meant to support your capacity for compassion and your capacity for liberation. That's what makes each of these Pāramīs a Pāramī: how wisdom supports these hugely beneficial, nourishing things, compassion and liberation.

Great, thank you.