Buddhist Hour
Script No. 442
Broadcast live on 3MDR 97.1FM
9 PM to 10 PM
On Friday 25 August 2006 CE 2550 Buddhist Era

This script is entitled:

"Lifetimes of Learning "
Class 9 - Exploring the Perfection of Wisdom, Part 1

Tonight we will introduce the fourth Perfection, which is the Perfection of Wisdom.

The Macquarie English dictionary defines wisdom as:  "Knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgement as to action." 1.

The Perfection of Wisdom, as opposed to conventional wisdom, concerns the direct realisation of the Dhamma; the law of dependent origination, selflessness and emptiness.

There are many levels of wisdom which can be described. For our purpose tonight we will talk about wisdom of three types only.

The first we could call worldly wisdom. The second we could call "higher" order wisdom and the third we could call the Perfection of Wisdom. All three are important to Buddhist practice because they each offer powerful means to reduce our suffering now and in the future and finally, it is only wisdom that enables a practitioner to complete the Buddhist Path and be free from all forms of suffering.

The first type, which we call worldly wisdom, deals with the methods and means that make our life easier to live or enable us to be more effective in what we are trying to do. Things like time planning, goal setting, financial planning, positive thinking, lateral thinking and self- education are examples we are all familiar with.

They each contribute something to better organising our time, our priorities or our attitudes, helping us to be better equipped to deal with life and the process of looking after our wellbeing and happiness and the others around us as well. We have suggested some of these methods during this course.

The second type of wisdom, that we're calling "higher" wisdom, is higher in the sense that it deals with clear insights arising in our minds into how we live and how we react to life experiences. These insights may deal with the more fundamental aspects of life, or on a smaller scale, they may be insights which help us deal better with particular situations or improve our own reactions to things happening in our life.

These insights have the characteristic of enlightening our mind or, putting it in another way, giving us a brand new view of something which is better equipped to deal with life sanely. Sometimes a person may hear or realise some aspect of this type of wisdom and it could end up changing their life forever.

We can give an example of this which happened to one of our radio panel Members here tonight, Frank Carter, when he was about 23 years old in 1978. Frank wrote about his experience many years later for our Tuesday Night Dhamma Teachings.

He recounted that he had been travelling across a field in a train in Sardinia. He was standing on the back of the single carriage train as it travelled through the countryside.

He wrote what happened as follows:

"I came to the realisation that I had never found anything in my life which I felt was worth being dedicated or committed to doing. Or as I put it, I hadn't found anything that was worth my life."

"When you take on long term commitments I felt it's your life which you are "spending" to do that thing, or be in that relationship. I had completed my tertiary education, worked in corporate life for a few years, been in a happy relationship with a girlfriend and spent 12 months travelling around the globe, yet I couldn't identify a single thing which I felt had true substance or consequence."

"Family life is one of the main things people identify as what they feel deeply committed to, but personally it didn't have that appeal to me. I felt, if there was something of true worth "out there " I should find out what that was first, before I had committed my life to other things. So I had this idea (and this is an example of the second type of wisdom) if I ever found something of "true" worth I would do it 100%. And that's in fact what happened and it was an initiating cause for me being here tonight".

Other examples of wisdom of this type which could give guidance for a person’s life or actions could be a statement like:

"Be in the service of others."

On the surface it may sound a bit puritanical or naïve however it is a profoundly powerful mission from a Buddhist perspective. If you consider it analytically, "to be in the service of others" is a source of immeasurable well being and happiness for the person who does it. It creates vast good causes, it builds the development of generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, patience and the other Perfections and it contributes to conquering our obsession with the self, which is most difficult to overcome.

Wisdom says if you want to help others, first help yourself by fixing yourself up.

If you decide that's for you, then you need to find out how to structure your life and your time to fix yourself up whilst the opportunity to do so still exists.

From a Buddhist point of view the chance to learn how to practice the path to full enlightenment is extremely rare. To start with, just getting a human birth is considered to be inconceivably rare. A simile the Buddha gave to illustrate this is to imagine there is a small circle floating on the surface of the ocean, much like a lifebuoy. Then imagine a tortoise swimming along deep in the ocean, once in a long time it surfaces. The chance that the tortoise will come to the surface directly inside that lifebuoy circle is equivalent to the likelihood a being will, on average, be born in human birth.

So the Buddhist Teachings say to not waste this incredibly rare human birth. Use it wisely to create the good conditions now so you can practice the Dhamma for your future wellbeing.

Wisdom is to not follow your kamma when it causes suffering for yourself or others. That's a really simple statement on the surface but it requires us to recognise and analyse our thoughts, speech and actions to see what they produce. There are things we do which are creating suffering for ourselves or others everyday. We may even know what some of them are. Wisdom is to abandon those things.

Conversely, wisdom is to not give up doing the good things when we know they are beneficial. It means if we can see something is really worthwhile for ourselves or others then don't give it up because of laziness, procrastination, anger or any of the defilements.

It is wisdom to develop mindfulness as much as you can. The Buddha was once asked to describe the essence of his teachings in one word. His answer was "mindfulness". The thing about the practice of mindfulness is you can do it anytime, any place. You don't need more spare time, or more money, more anything, you just need the will.

In the words of a great Buddhist monk, Venerable Piyadassi Maha Thera, who visited our Centre in Upwey in 1981:

"You know about this discourse on mindfulness. Be mindful of everything. Be mindful. Practice it, then you get used to it. Then you see the advantages. People today, because they don't have mindfulness, must create trouble for themselves unnecessarily. Because of this lacking of mindfulness they get all sorts of troubles. You can run mindfully without tension. (without creating stress) You go driving your car. You come to traffic lights. Most people, you know, when they see the green turning to amber, they get agitated. "Oh it is red" Impatient. It is red so the best thing to do, the sensible thing is when you see the red, to not get agitated. There is a little rest for you. Leave the wheel, take a deep breath, you see and patiently wait for the green. No tension." (Piyadassi).

The thing is, most of our suffering comes from little things like this. Our own behaviour from minute to minute produces our immediate experience of either some form of happiness or some form of suffering. If we think that it is not important to deal with the little things, that we should concentrate on "big" ideas or radical changes to live more happily, we will not realise the real key to happiness is to understand how to train our minds. We will have every worldly thing we want but we will not know how to be happy.

It is the ability to promote wholesome minds and wholesome actions for as long as we can which brings forth the experience of happiness. You can say, "how many minutes of a happy heart did I experience today?" If you find this number of minutes per day of a happy heart is increasing on average from week to week you are going in the right direction.

We say a happy "heart" to distinguish this form of happiness from the type of happiness which comes from getting something we want in the world. We want to build happiness which "comes from within" because the happiness that depends on external conditions which we can't control is completely unreliable. It's not good enough. Our girlfriend or boyfriend runs away and we become instantly miserable.

It's worth repeating what we said last week that we've got to the bottom line of the series of these Dhamma Classes which is - developing wholesome minds is a true foundation of your long term well being and happiness.

You're going to get old age, sickness and death this life - that's your body's inescapable future destination. However, it is possible to maintain your wholesome minds as you get older, it is possible to maintain bright, intelligent, happy minds even as your body wears out. Many people's minds deteriorate along with their body's deterioration because their minds are not trained to stay wholesome.

Prompting mindfulness until it becomes your habit is indispensable to your mental development and improving your behaviour. As you are listening to this broadcast now check if you have mindfulness. You can check by noting if you have awareness of your body sitting in the chair or on the floor. Are you aware of your breath, or the feeling of your legs or your back for example?

You can build mindfulness which stays knowing your body most of the day. At that point you will find you have much more energy, both physical and mental, your mind will automatically be much more peaceful - just from the mindfulness being inside your body, and your unwholesome mental states will be weaker and easier to let go of.

If you wish, decide to make it a priority tonight and tomorrow to increase your mindfulness of your body by a particular percentage. You decide how much you think you can increase it by. Test yourself out.

From Buddha Dhamma Education Association's article titled The Fundamentals of Buddhism, Wisdom:

"It is said that one who approaches the (Buddhist) teachings ought to seek to avoid three faults in his (or her) attitude and these faults are illustrated with the example of a vessel. In this context, we are the vessel, the teachings are what are to be filled into the vessel. Suppose the vessel is covered with a lid, we will not be very successful in filling the vessel, say with milk. This is similar to one who listens to the teachings with a closed mind, a mind that is already made up. The Dharma cannot enter, fill the vessel. Again supposing we have a vessel that has a hole in the bottom. If we fill the vessel with milk, the milk will run out of the hole. This is similar to those of us who find that what we hear does not stay with us. And finally there is the case of the vessel in which there are impurities. Suppose we fill the vessel with milk before having cleaned it. Suppose there is some spoiled milk left in the vessel. The fresh milk that we fill into the vessel will be spoilt. In the same way if we listen to the teachings with an impure mind, with impure attitudes, because for instance we want to achieve a certain amount of honour, or fame, with these kinds of selfish attitudes or desires, we are like a vessel tainted by impurities. We must seek to avoid these faults in our approach to the teachings of the Buddha, in the study of the Dharma.

Alternatively, it is said that one might listen to the Dharma in the way that a patient listens to the instructions of the physician. In this context, the Buddha is the physician, the Dharma is the medicine, we are the patients and the practice of the Dharma is the means by which we can be cured of the disease, the disease of the defilements - greed, anger and delusion - that produce suffering. We will surely achieve some degree of Right Understanding if we approach the study of the (Buddhist) Dharma with this notion in mind." 3.

It is wisdom to cultivate the attitudes of renunciation, loving-kindness and compassion which, between them, counteract and eventually eliminate greed and anger.

To get a better view of something you need to have some space in your mind by being willing to let go of your habitual view.

One can cultivate loving-kindness and compassion through having empathy with the situation of the other beings. They are facing life's complexities, uncertainties and difficulties just as we are. You can see it is hard for them. You can see the fragile and perilous nature of animal and insect birth for example. The being is caught in that unfortunate kamma. You can see most human beings in the world are worse off than we are living in Australia.

"All desire happiness, all fear pain. In this, we are all alike. All living beings are alike. Recognizing this, one should not place oneself above others, one should not regard oneself differently from the way in which one would regard others. This recognition of the fundamental equality of all living beings is basic to the cultivation of loving-kindness and compassion. All want happiness just as I want happiness. Understanding this, one ought to regard all living beings with loving-kindness and compassion. One ought to cultivate this wish that all living beings may be happy. Just as I fear suffering and pain, and wish to avoid it, so do all living beings fear suffering and pain, and wish to avoid it. Understanding this, one develops and cultivates an attitude that wishes to see all living beings free from suffering." 3.

It is wisdom to recognise with broad view the full scope of the sentient beings true condition like this. It gives us a more realistic appreciation of why it is urgent to not waste these precious conditions of having the Dhamma appear in our world, which grants us the possibility to cut off of birth in the lower planes of existence forever. The word Dhamma has been defined by one Buddhist monk as that teaching which enables us to destroy the possibility of being reborn in the lower planes of existence.

Next week we will start to consider the third type of wisdom which is called the Perfection of Wisdom.

Wisdom is a mind, the 25th wholesome state listed in the Buddhist texts, that has access to Dhamma and views the world through that. It never goes to any other view because other views cause suffering. Coming to the Perfection of Wisdom you apply the knowledge that the Buddha found out.

May you contemplate the benefits of developing conventional, higher and perfect wisdom.

May the light of perfect wisdom dawn upon your mind.

May you be well and happy.

May all being be well and happy.

This script was prepared and edited by Anita Carter, Frank Carter, and Alec Sloman.

1. Delbridge, Arthur. (C. Ed.) The Macquarie Dictionary. Published by the Macquarie Library University, NSW 210, Australia.

2. Venerable Piyadassi Mahathera. 1981. Summary of Talk Given by Ven. Piyadassi Mahathera of Sri Lanka at the B.D.C.(U.). Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. Newsletter # 4. Published by the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd, 33 Brooking Street, Upwey, Victoria 3158.

3. Buddhanet.net. Wisdom. The Fundamentals of Buddhism Series. Published by www.buddhanet.net at http://www.buddhanet.net/fundbud8.htm.

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