Wisdom: The heart of Buddhism

By J.P. Pathirana

When one sees the Noble Eightfold Path listed in sequence, one begins with Right Understanding and yet in the context of threefold division of good conduct, mental development and wisdom; wisdom comes at the end.

One tries to explain this by using the analogy of climbing a mountain. When one sets out to climb a mountain one has the summit in view and it is the sight of the summit that gives direction to one's path. In that sense, even when one begins to climb the mountain, one has one's eyes on the summit. As such, right understanding is necessary right at the beginning of the path. Yet in practical terms one has to climb the lower steps, scale the intermediate ridges before one reaches the summit, the attainment of wisdom. In practical terms, therefore, wisdom comes at the end of one's practice of the path.

Wisdom is described as the understanding of the Four Noble Truths, or the understanding of dependent origination and so forth. What is meant by this is that when we speak of the attainment of wisdom, we are concerned with the transformation of these items of the doctrine from intellectual facts to real personal facts. We are interested in changing this knowledge from mere book learning to real living experience. And the way this is done is through the cultivation of good conduct and specifically through the cultivation of mental development. Otherwise anyone can read in a book the explanation of the Four Noble Truths and so forth and yet this is not the same as attaining wisdom. And the Buddha Himself said, it is through failing to understand the Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination that we have all run on in this cycle of birth and death.

Obviously, when He said this, He meant something deeper than simply failure to be acquainted intellectually with these items of doctrine. Understanding here has to be taken in the sense of Right Understanding, Direct understanding, in the sense of seeing. This is perhaps why so frequently the language of seeing is used to describe the attainment of wisdom. We speak in terms of seeing the Truth, of seeing things as they really are. The attainment of wisdom is not an intellectual or academic exercise. It is seeing, understanding these truths directly.

When this kind of direct understanding of the truth is gained, this is equal to gaining of enlightenment. This opens the door to freedom, freedom from suffering and to ultimate Nibbana. Wisdom is the key in Buddhism.

In other religions we find that faith is paramount. In still other religions, we find that meditation is supreme as for instance in Yoga. In Buddhism, faith is preliminary, meditation is instrumental. The real heart of Buddhism is Wisdom.

The two steps of the Noble Eight fold Path that are included in wisdom are Right Understanding and Right Thought. Right understanding can be said to be seeing things as they really are. Understanding the truth about things rather than simply seeing them as they appear to be. What this means is insight, penetrative understanding, seeing beyond the surface of things. If we want to explain this in doctrinal terms, we will have to speak about the Four Noble Truths, dependent origination, impermanence, not-self and so forth. But for the moment let us reflect on Right Understanding. Here we can again see the scientific attitude of the teachings of the Buddha. Because when we come to look at the means of acquiring Right Understanding, we see that we begin with objective observation of the situation and of ourselves. We join objective observation with enquiry, examination and consideration.

In acquiring Right Understanding we find that there are two types of understanding. One is the understanding that we acquire by ourselves. The other is the understanding that we acquire through others, that we are shown by others. Ultimately, these two types of understanding merge because in the final analysis real understanding of Right Understanding has to be our own. But in the meantime, one can distinguish between Right Understanding that we achieve through observation of the environment and the Right Understanding that we achieve through the study of the teachings. We are asked to observe objectively what we see, what we experience and then examine and consider its significance, so when we approach the teachings of the Buddha we are asked to study them, to listen to them and to consider them and to examine them. Whether we speak in terms of observation and enquiry, or whether we refer to the study of the doctrine and when we speak in terms of reading, or listening and consideration, the third step in this process of acquiring understanding is meditation. It is on this third stage of the process of acquiring Right Understanding that the two types of understanding merge. Let us say we intend to travel to a certain destination. In order to do so we require a road map which shows the route to reach the destination. We first look at the map for directions. Then we must review what we have seen, review the map, examine the map to be certain that we understand the directions. Only then we actually travel to our destination. This is analogous to meditation.

Let us look at the Four Noble Truths again for a moment. The key to transforming one's experience from the experience of suffering to the experience of end of suffering is understanding the Second Noble Truth, the truth for the cause of suffering. Once we understand the cause of suffering, we then act to achieve the end of suffering. The Four Noble Truths are divided into two groups, two of them to be abandoned, and two of them to be gained - the truth of suffering and the truth of the cause of suffering are to be abandoned, and the truth of the end of suffering are to be gained. Understanding the cause of suffering enables one to do this. We can see this clearly in the Buddha's description of His experience on the night of His enlightenment. When He saw the cause of suffering, when He understood that desire, illwill and ignorance were the causes of suffering, this opened the door to His enlightenment. Ignorance, desire and illwill are the cause of suffering. If we want to reduce our examination to the most essential concept, we must focus upon ignorance because it is due to ignorance that desire and illwill arise.

Essentially, ignorance is the idea of a permanent, independent self. It is this conception of an "I" opposed and separate from the people and things around us. Once we have the notion of an "I", we have an inclination to favour those things that sustain this "I" and to be averse to those things that we think threaten this "I". It is this conception of the self that is the fundamental cause of suffering, the root of the various negative emotions - desire, anger, illwill, envy, greed and jealousy. It is ignorant of the fact that the so -called "I" the self, is just a convenient name for a collection of ever-changing, dependent contingent factors. Is there a forest apart from the trees? The self is just a convenient name for a collection of processes.

The self is a cause of suffering and fear. In this context the self is likened to mistaking a rope in the darkness, we may assume the rope is in fact a snake in the semi-darkness. If we come upon a rope in the darkness, we may assume the rope is in fact a snake and this assumption is a cause for fear.

Similarly, in ignorance we take the impersonal, impermanent processes of feelings, perceptions, and so forth to be a self, and as a result we respond to situations with hope and fear. We desire certain things, we are averse to others. We are fond of certain people, we dislike others. So ignorance in this sense is the mistaken notion of a permanent ego, of a real self. This teaching of non-self does not contradict the law of moral responsibility, the law of Karma. In fact you will recall that we described Right Understanding in terms of two aspects, understanding the law of Kamma and here in terms of seeing things as they really are, understanding the nature of existence. Once this egoism is removed, once this erroneous notion of the self is dispelled by Right Understanding, greed, anger and the rest do not occur. When this is stopped the end of suffering is gained.

Let us go on to the next part of the path that belongs to the wisdom group and that is Right Thought. Here we begin to see the reintegration, the reapplication of the wisdom group to the sphere of good conduct because thought has an immense influence on one's behaviour. The Buddha has said if one acts and speaks with a pure mind, then happiness follows as one's shadow that never leaves. And if one speaks and acts with an impure mind, then suffering follows as the wheel follows the hoof of the ox. Thought has a tremendous influence on one's behaviour. Right thought means avoiding desire and illwill. So you can see how important wisdom is because the cause of suffering is described in terms of desire, illwill and ignorance. Right understanding removes ignorance. Right thought removes desire and illwill. So Right Thought and Right Understanding remove the cause of suffering. Understanding this, one develops and cultivates an attitude that wishes to see all living beings free from suffering.

In this way, we can develop and cultivate the attitudes of renunciation, loving kindness and compassion which between them counteract and eventually eliminate greed and anger. Finally through wisdom, having eliminated ignorance, greed and anger, having purified ourselves of these three defilements, we can attain freedom, the final goal that is the purpose of the Noble Eightfold Path, the Final Bliss of Nibbana.

More Plus

Return to the Plus Contents