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The Four Noble Truth (Part 3)
I have talked about the truth of suffering and the truth of the origination of suffering. Today I will talk on the realization of wisdom.
Most of the prayers and meditation we do is to enhance our love and compassion and to realize wisdom. Even Shantideva said in his guide to bodhisattva way of life that all the sub-division, that is the first five of the six perfections are explained, so that is able to understand about wisdom. Therefore, if one were to overcome the sufferings, one must achieve wisdom. In the practice of the six perfections, the first five perfections of generosity, morality, patience, enthusiastic, perseverance and concentration are explained and practice so that one can understand and gain wisdom.
It is because of wisdom that one is able to understand the wisdom realising emptiness and wisdom realising phenomena. If one were to overcome suffering, one has to achieve wisdom. Wisdom realising emptiness is the universal antidote to overcome all kinds of sufferings. Having not yet achieved the level of wisdom realising emptiness, what we practice now is to use patience to overcome hatred or practicing compassion or practicing filty, ugliness towards attachment. Such practices are confined to counter hatred or desire and not the universal antidote to all sufferings. Patience may not be the tool to practice to overcome the object of desire. Compassion which is to overcome hatred and anger may give rise to desire. Wisdom is the key to counter ignorance and delusion which are the cause of all sufferings. Some great masters even make a joke out of the 84,000 volumes of Buddha’s teachings, saying that it is because there are 84,000 kinds of delusion or 84,000 fools and required 84,000 kinds of antidotes to overcome. It sounds big and is difficult to overcome 84,000 kinds of delusion, but if one were to achieve wisdom then wisdom is the only weapon to overcome the 84,000 different kind of delusions. Meditation and prayers are to help us to achieve wisdom. There are people who think that meditation is to relax but as a buddhist, any meditation we do is to control our own thoughts, the negative thoughts or wandering mind or mental cloudiness. It is to control and still our mind at one point.
Take for example the simple meditation on breathing. By focusing on our own breathe it is helping us to focus on self. This will help to sharpen our weapon, because we are focusing our mind at one point and that is our breathe. Such meditation will help us to achieve insight and to stay calm. By staying calm it is like relaxing but actually it is not. It is actually helping us to concentrate and sharpen our mind.
This breathing meditation is simple. It is just focusing on your breathe, to exhale and inhale slowly and concentrate on the movement and count from one to ten or fifteen and then count back wards until one while concentrating on the breathe movement. When you have many thinks disturbing your mind you may sit down and try to do this meditation.
Every aspect of our practice is very important and wisdom is needed. In the practice of the first perfection of generosity, the lack of wisdom can turn it into ignorance. One may have a good heart and really want to help someone but due to lack of wisdom the good intention of helping the someone may turn out to be not a help but instead creating other problems. For example, if someone comes to you for help to give him some money to buy his basic needs to survive and you, out of generosity gave him RM 100,000.00. He may die of a heart attack or he may go crazy, or using the money to do negative actions. Such giving is not helping that person. Though your intention is good, but by giving more than needed for his basic needs, it only shows the lack of wisdom in you.
When we use our wisdom we will only give enough for his basic needs to survive, the amount the person can hold. That is why we have to balance our wisdom. Why is that person born in that form is because of his lack of merit and the lack of merit makes him unable to hold that amount. People that can hold large amount are people with high merits. To hold such energy, one has to accumulate merits. The practice of generosity has to be done with wisdom accordingly. If someone needs food, we give them food only and not giving a large sum of money, otherwise we are harming that person instead of helping him. This is how wisdom is used.
Another aspect of lack of wisdom is when you are doing good things with a good heart and when people talk negative things about your good deeds behind your back, you wonder why after, you having done so much of good deeds, people are still talking negative things behind your back. If you had the wisdom, you would not expect anything in return for your good deeds and couldn’t be bothered with what people may talk behind you. As long as your heart knows that you are doing the right thing, you don’t bother what other people may say. Different people say different things. When we do something infront of so many pairs of eyes, there is bound to be different talk. We can never make everyone happy.
Like if I make prostration to the east, some people in the west will not be happy because my face and my bowing is to the east and my back is to the west. Those in the west, who do not understand will not be happy, because I am showing them my back. We can never make everyone happy. As long as we know that we are doing the right thing with the right intention and motivation and without expecting anything in return, we are using our wisdom. When we do meditation and prayers we are sharpening our wisdom and the more we do, our wisdom will also become more sharpened. Even Buddha and Shantideva said that all other practices are also helping to enchance our wisdom, so try to meditate and pray more to enhance your wisdom.
(End of part 3)
[this talk was given by Lama Phuntsho on 25 Oct 2009
and it has transcribed courtesy of Bro HP Lim]
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