Wisdom Is More Than Introspection

There's an active thread over on the DhO, started by Florian Wepps, that is very interesting and points to what I believe is something often missed on dharma message boards -- wisdom gained on the cushion, through introspection and meditation, is truly wonderful but there's much, much more. Wisdom is more than introspection. It requires that we get off the cushion and apply the insights, the ability to see, in our daily lives. I've come to this point: once we wake up we have a duty to employ our wisdom and insight to do some good, to help. The good can be as simple and "passive" as not causing any more pain and suffering in those around us, or as active and complex as leading legions of devotees in massive global campaigns for justice.

We wake up to the milieu that is a several billion human beings living in close proximity to each other, doing some good and some bad things to each other, in large and small measure, all of us being some elements of both. The point is, all the stuff we do to wake up is just the first step. What's your second step?

Chris, this reminds me of how often at times my practice has been very solitary and very introspective. Sometimes that has seemed necessary, like a kind of incubation or "retreat" (in the sense of going on retreat, even though I'm just living normal life and not actually on a retreat). But the benefits of practice from the beginning have really had an impact on daily life: being able to be more patient and kind to family, friends and strangers was one thing that I noticed fairly soon after starting to meditate. It became easier and easier to wait patiently in line or on the phone, not to be rude to employees and clerks and sales people and call center attendants and other people that often drive one a bit crazy. That sort of thing. And when I was kinder to them, it seemed to come back around and make the whole interaction more pleasant.
More recently I feel like it's even more important and broader: helping others by being a sympathetic listening ear for friends in need; offering encouragement to people who ask me for advice about their own practice; finding ways for my writing and art and other work to shift and change so they reflect my practice and serve some kind of useful purpose; being aware of my motives and baggage and doing my best to act from a place of kindness and honesty and caring. Nothing huge and earth shattering, but it feels like a harmonious and loving way to live in the world, and I hope to always improve myself in that regard, day by day.

Hi Chris,

IMO - A good introspective practice is bound to manifest on the "outside" as well. It can never just stay on the cushion, it has and does flow out to the world - in the forms that you have mentioned, either by not creating more suffering, or by trying to help others, I don't see how one can become more happy and not become more compassionate or helping to others in the process.
Just like its impossible to keep one's suffering to oneself, I think its impossible to keep happiness to oneself.

Part One: Step One

This post provokes a deep question that I think of often. When is my practice an escape from the world and its problems and when is it the cultivation of skillful attitudes that form the foundation for skillful action?

I cannot conceive of the dharma with out meditation and introspection. Sitting still and going within; not much to it really. And yet, meditation and introspection are so much more than simply meditating and introspecting. I've come to the conclusion that a daily sitting practice is a radical act. To sit and just be is a great act of kindness to myself and others. In that stillness I harm no thing. Whereas in action, regardless of how mindful I am, doing harm is inevitable.

For instance, I'm a self-aware coffee and tea drinker. This means that I know that many thousands of acres of forest have been cleared and creatures killed or displaced so that I can enjoy my daily cup of joe. Has this fact stopped me from drinking coffee or tea? Not yet.

Someone should compare the ecological footprint of 20 people on retreat for a week and then measure that time against what their eco-impact in the week after retreat. I bet the numbers would be instructive...

The great lie of our time is that in order to be you must have and do. The having and doing reqiure consumption. There are two definitions for the word consume that are useful here. The first is to destroy by fire, and the second is to waste away. The next time someone refers to you as a "consumer" remember that.

The wheel of samsara is actually a mill stone and it's designed to grind you into paste. You can't negotiate with it. It derives its momentum from action both skillful and unskillful. But in stillness, you can for a time slip out from under the wheel and do no harm, add nothing to the GDP of the nation, skirt the lie and just be what you are.

I love frogs. Have you ever watched a frog in the wild? They don't do much. They can sit still on a leaf or a rock for hours. But does their lack of activity make them anyless a frog? Hell no! They're still awesome!

Although meditation and introspection are not the end, they are a terrific beginning.

To be continued...

"its impossible to keep one's suffering to oneself, I think its impossible to keep happiness to oneself."

So true.

Unless we decide to live in isolation we're stuck here, in this world, with these people, with this way of doing things. The point I was trying to make is that once we have some insight, once we can see what's going on inside and among all those other human beings, the choice becomes:

- withdraw, find that cave in the mountains or don't let on that you have new eyes

- engage, use the insight we have to increase the use of wisdom in the world

What I was getting from Chris's question was really about how we bring awakening (at whatever level of realization we are at) to our actions in the world, yes, but more specifically to our relationships to and interactions with *other people* - people who may not have any relief from suffering. And I don't mean starving refugees wherever, I mean your boss, your aunt, your neighbor, your kids, your mom, strangers on the bus, your colleagues at school or work.

Every day you are interacting with all these people. Most of these people are very, very stuck in fear and anxiety; often this makes them lash out in various ways. When you have freed yourself from that to some degree, that can/should/does really deeply change how you relate to people who are suffering. At least in most people I know who have a deep meditation practice, they gradually gain an enormous amount of empathy and compassion, in part because seeing other people hurting, upset, angry etc doesn't make them afraid anymore, and they can be with it more completely rather than getting defensive or wanting to go away from the other person's pain.

Yep. That's what I was addressing.

Thank you.

I take classes at the state university at its main campus, so there's a lot of people here. And it's pretty sedate. It's very true in my experience just this semester that people are stuck in fear and anxiety; it's so much the case that it seems some of the time the real agenda is to just shut up already and listen to what the teacher says. Even the teachers are that way, they stick inflexibly to the lesson plan. So if, for example, in my french class we're going through the problems of a certain excercise, if I'm curious about another form of the conjugation or whatever, maybe because I wasn't paying attention in the first place, when it comes to be my turn and I get it wrong or right but in any case ask something that's beyond the correct answer for the particular problem, it's immediately shoved aside and the next person in line is called to answer the same narrow question. This is fairly typical in all my classes, with it varying a little. They are not interactive, they're rote. No one is interested in their time spent 1) learning this subject matter and 2) being around this set of people for 6 hours every week.

And I think that my meditation has helped shift this relationship, I can go to class and talk to people, even if its just for the sake of projecting a relaxed, kind of happy voice (when I'm able to do that), it helps a lot. People feel more interested in whats happening, there's some kind of charisma involved, derived from totally meaningless interactions. It's sometimes difficult to do though, much of the time there's a lot of judgmental things one might be confronted with... I think meditation makes me more flexible and elastic in things like this, patience goes up and ones tendency to be very serious about things goes down

So we gain a certain perspective on the behavior of others because we recognize it (what they do) as being the same as the issues we have. This leads to a level of compassion and empathy that is otherwise not accessible.

"- engage, use the insight we have to increase the use of wisdom in the world"

Part Two: Step Two

The point I was trying to make above was that through introspection we are already increasing wisdom in the world in seen and unseen ways.

I think of it this way; we're always practicing something. The next question is what is that something? What are we cultivating? What are the insights that guide our action? In every moment and every encounter there is a fresh opportunity to add to or lessen the suffering in the world for ourselves and others.

I don't have much in the way of insight or wisdom or prajna to offer, but I can try to give myself and others honesty, encouragement, gentleness and, when needed, my time and energy.