Wisdom and the Heart
This word wisdom, like most words in the English language has a not very precise meaning. Ask 50 people what the word means and you’ll get 50 different answers. Some will be similar and others very different. In the Buddhist Scriptures the word wisdom is used to describe something subtle, deep and vast depending upon the person that is bringing it to use. When we use wisdom to investigate our mind to drive out our defilements, that’s called “using wisdom correctly — pañña. The Buddha did not use the term “Right Wisdom” — samma pañña — because wisdom is just what it is. It grows out of the Eightfold Path.
One does not have to be an expert on the Scriptures to know how to divorce himself or herself from the defilements. In many cases where the mind is so nit-picky or stuck on words, it might be a good thing not to investigate the Scriptures. Such a person would just get hung up on this definition or that word and never get to the point. The Dhamma is described in the Scriptures but the explanation of Dhamma is a matter for individualized investigation here and now. The texts we call the Dhamma were extricated from the heart that had genuinely uprooted the defilements and clearly had seen the fruits of this effort. Only then could it be written down in the Scripture we have today. It the case is not that Scripture came before Truth. Truth is the actualization of the practice. The text came later. The Buddha was the first to practice and actualize the fruits of his efforts, at least the first in this dispensation and our fragile knowledge of human history.
When he taught his disciples the Four Noble Truths he did it from the heart. He had no texts to instruct him. Nor did he immediately write the instructions down on a palm leaf for them. He taught them by word of mouth and likewise did his earliest disciples. They could continue the Teaching because they too relied on their hearts. They had seen the results of their own practice and it was exactly as the Buddha described. Because of this, the techniques and strategies of “mindfulness” and wisdom depend almost entirely on the individual. Each of us must individually examine, investigate, and work out strategies that work for us according to our abilities and intelligence. There are some that will run to scriptural authority to validate their experience but this is not really the method of Dhamma and cannot be called “right use of wisdom.”
When we glean lessons from the Scriptures that we cannot actualize in ridding ourselves of our defilements this too is not “right use of wisdom,” at least not for us.It might be right use of wisdom in the Scriptures but it is not right use of wisdom in the way we are using it. A hammer is the right tool for pounding a nail but it is the wrong tool for planing a board.
The Scripture explains the Dhamma to a very limited extent. The Scriptures allow us to explore and test out what works at this time and what does not. It offers us a huge tool box. If we compare the explanations in the Scripture with a science or technology. Medicine offers specific remedies for specific diseases. The Scripture is very nonspecific. Medicine aims at steadily and consistently extracting a certain defilements and when we integrate and formulate the Teaching and apply it capably at uprooting a specific defilement this too is called a medicine. This is why when anyone who successfully practices in the right way of wisdom they have Dhamma. They have mindfulness and wisdom with them no matter where they are. This is why the Venerable Ajahn Mun could say he “listened to Dhamma day and night.”
How amazing is that? Sense objects — aka “things” — constantly reach our senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. If knowledge of these contacts doesn’t arise in the heart/mind where else would it arise? The heart — aka “mind” — is always ready to acknowledge these sense contacts. What exactly is it that acknowledges? It is the mind or heart and it is in the heart that mindfulness and wisdom are stirred. It examines these contacts and progressively, with practice, knows when to withdraw from the object. This is what Ajahn Mun meant by “listening to the Dhamma day and night.” This kind of listening is the primal principle of nature. This principle is the hongaku in Hongaku Jodo. Hongaku, “Original Enlightenment,” is nothing more than listening to the Dhamma of physical contact. Samadhi, (mental concentration or composure), pañña (wisdom), and Dhamma (Truth or Reality) are natural to the mind, it’s all a matter of how we use them. Mindfulness and wisdom are the perfect tools to investigate our reality, our delusion, and our defilement.
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