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Knowledge and understanding or skill
zenff
Veteran
Is wisdom knowledge and understanding, or is it skill?
That’s an open door. It is skill!
When we face real problems in life, when the roof collapses, nothing we learned from books will help us. We can not go back and look it up. We can not post our question on a Buddhist forum.
We have to be able to respond to any situation immediately.
The diamond sword of wisdom must be in our hands every moment of our life.
So why do we study and try to understand Buddhism at all?
And what can we do to attain this ability of spontaneous and appropriate action?
That’s an open door. It is skill!
When we face real problems in life, when the roof collapses, nothing we learned from books will help us. We can not go back and look it up. We can not post our question on a Buddhist forum.
We have to be able to respond to any situation immediately.
The diamond sword of wisdom must be in our hands every moment of our life.
So why do we study and try to understand Buddhism at all?
And what can we do to attain this ability of spontaneous and appropriate action?
0
Comments
Please explain.
Wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and skill all overlap and are all part of each other. We must know theory of "swordsmanship" in order to practice correctly in order to be able to wield the "sword of skillful means" correctly. That is to say, we must know "life-skills" theory in order to practice and implement life-skills. And Buddhism is the best set of "life-skills" I know of.
So to the extent that I understand your question, the answer is "all of the above". But, to me, at least, the question is not phrased clearly enough for me to understand what you're driving at exactly. Could you maybe be more specific?
I’ve followed some abbhidharma course that was really absurd.
I just learned Pali-babble without any relevance.
And also I learned the Tibetan explanation of the different schools of Buddhism: completely irrelevant the next morning at work, I can assure you.
So how can we train practical Buddhism without too much mind-f*cking (if that is the appropriate English word for what I mean).
What kind of practical training have you had?
For me; I am still learning the hard way; learning from my mistakes in life.
pli
fy.
Please explain.
offload.
Deal with what is, not what the hell....?
Awaken each day glad you've opened your eyes.
fall asleep each day glad you've done your best.
Simple.
Really, what more do you need to do?
I think meditation has this aspect of practical training. Meditation is supposed to make us wiser, without the intellectual stuff.
How that works? I’m not sure. If I had to come up with a theory it would say our illusions are, well… illusions. When we stop sustaining them with our thoughts and actions they collapse.
Another aspect of practical training is direct contact with a teacher or a moderator; someone who is on your back all the time and kicks your ass when you’re off track.
In real life however, I only heard people were disappointed when they lived with a group of people around the teacher for some time.
I think basically living with someone is what makes the big difference.
A partner will give some strong feedback every now and then.
It’s like being married to a teacher or to a moderator.