In Search of Wisdom
Rev. Lilli Nye
November 5, 2006
Our world is awash in information. Information streams into our lives in unprecedented
volume. Imagine an average day….
We may take in the local, national, and international news several times in the course of a day, by newspaper, internet, radio, magazine, and television—most likely some combination of these. We will see and hear any number of talking heads blabbering away on subjects in which they apparently have expertise. On the television, images and stories will change every few seconds so that we are continuously stimulated. We will be exposed to countless advertisements coaxing us to buy, buy, buy. We will hear or read hosts of names, be asked to consider and feel some responsibility for the conditions of the lives of multitudes of people from every corner of the earth. At work, we may be expected to assimilate large amounts of information in order to do our jobs; we may spend hours at the computer, on the phone, or interacting with others. We may read and respond to scores of e-mails.
Some social historians say that for most human history the average person encountered only about 100 people in the course of his or her entire lifetime, and in the same span would have been exposed to less verbal and visual information than we get in one day.
Our world buzzes and swarms with information. Our brains swim in it. We know
a lot.
But do we have wisdom? Does life in our society reflect wisdom? Do our schools,
our hospitals, our governments, our businesses, our family lives grow out of
wisdom? Does the way in which we function as a church community reflect wisdom
and the seeking of wisdom?
A deep and qualitative difference distinguishes wisdom from other forms of knowledge. How wisdom is gained is also quite different from other forms of acquisition. What wisdom is, where it can be found, and how it is cultivated are the things I would like to touch upon today.
I am going to begin with what might be a rather radical assumption: that the nature of wisdom itself, and the paths to gain it, have not really changed all that much in the course of human history. A wise person today may have a kind of sophistication layered over his or her wisdom, a reflection of the realities of modern life. But the essence of wisdom itself does not come from that sophistication, and could exist without it.
Why would I claim this assumption—that the essential nature of wisdom has not really changed in all these thousands of years? Because we still turn to and quote the great thinkers, teachers, and wisdom texts of millennia past. Though written or spoken in times and circumstances extraordinarily different from our own, they still carry the penetrating ring of truth, cutting through our own confusion to touch the core of existence.
We can still turn to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which contains elements reaching back 4,000 years. If we clear aside some of the more alien mythological elements, we can discover that the ancient Egyptians held ideas quite similar to ours about what makes a moral life and a just society. Here are some lines drawn from a hymn called “The Declaration of Innocence”:
I have not impoverished my associates…
I have not learnt falsehoods…
I have not defrauded the humble man of his property…
I have not slandered a servant to his master,
I have not caused pain,
I have not made hungry, I have not made to weep,
I have not killed, I have not turned anyone over to a killer,
I have not caused anyone’s suffering…
I have not copulated illicitly…
I have not increased nor diminished the measure of grain…
I have not diminished the palm groves…
I have not encroached upon another’s fields,
I have not tampered with the balance weights…
I have not taken milk from a child’s mouth,
I have not driven cattle from their grazing…
I have not stopped the flow of water in its seasons.
I have not built a dam against flowing water…
It’s interesting to notice here how right relationships with other human beings and with the forces of nature itself are inexorably intertwined. The just and compassionate life honors human, animal, and ecosystem simultaneously.
We can turn to Lao Tsu, author of the Tao Te Ching, which means The Book of the Way and How It Manifests Itself in the World.” Although Lao Tsu lived only about 2,500 years ago, the Taoist philosophy that he captured in his poetry is perhaps the oldest living tradition on the planet. Its roots reach far back into the mists of prehistory and yet the teachings still apply today. Listen to this passage, translated by Stephen Mitchell:
The Great Way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths. Be aware when things are out of balance. Stay centered within the Tao. When rich speculators prosper while farmers lose their land, when government officials spend money on weapons instead of cures, when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible, while the poor have nowhere to turn—all this is robbery and chaos. It is not in keeping with the Tao.
How piercing are these words from his time, ringing across cultures and centuries to indict us in ours!
And so, what is wisdom, this quality of insightful being that distinguishes a more mature person from a less mature one? Perhaps one can more easily begin with what wisdom is not:
Wisdom is not I.Q., intelligence quotient, raw smarts, the capacity to learn and to think clearly and logically. Intelligence can be employed in the cultivation of wisdom, but they are not equal. It is possible to be extremely intelligent and yet lack insight and understanding. And it is possible for profound understanding to come from a simple and even childlike heart and mind.
Wisdom is not book learning or knowledge—in other words, it is not the same as having a brain full of information. Taoism and Buddhism are both quite clear that “he who is learned is not wise.” This axiom lies behind the story of the professor who pays a visit the Zen master, explaining that he would like to learn about Zen. Yet each time the humble little Zen master tries to begin teaching, the professor interrupts to pontificate and boast about what he has studied and the books he has written. While he drones on, hardly allowing the master to get a word in edgewise, the master asks him if he would like some tea. The professor absentmindedly accepts. The master quietly begins to pour the tea into the cup. He pours until the cup is full. He pours until the tea runs into the saucer and continues to overflow. Because the professor is so absorbed in impressing the master with his vast learning, it is only when the tea begins to run off the table into his lap that he suddenly jumps up and cries, “Can’t you see the cup is already full!” “Ah, yes!” says the master, “and can you see that your mind is so stuffed full of old ideas that there is no room for anything new. Therefore, you cannot possible learn about Zen.” The wisdom of the ages actually claims that wisdom begins with unlearning.
Continuing on, wisdom is not personality, charisma or personal power. In fact, powerful teachers or leaders can be narcissistic and self-serving, and dangerously seductive for those who mistake charisma for spiritual maturity. In the history of wisdom teaching, it is often the most unassuming presence, rather than the flashy one, who turns out to have true wisdom to offer.
Nor is wisdom dramatic spiritual experience, what might be called “inner phenomena” or visions. Like book learning or a magnetic personality, vivid spiritual experience can potentially be a distraction for the true seeker of wisdom. Without the cultivation of maturity to moderate such experiences, they can feed egotism and self-absorption.
To this point, another Zen story tells how a monk suddenly jumps up from his meditation cushion and runs into his teacher’s room. Forgetting even to take off his shoes, he barges in and breathlessly exclaims that he has just had a vision of a golden Buddha radiating light! Without even looking up, his teacher says mildly, “Don’t worry. Just keep at your meditation and it will go away.”
So, true wisdom is neither intelligence, nor acquired learning, nor charisma, nor spiritual visions. What is it, then?
Roger Walsh, author of a book called Essential Spirituality, defined wisdom as a deep and pragmatic understanding of the central existential and spiritual issues of life, those crucial concerns we universally face because we are human. They include finding meaning and purpose in our living, managing relationships and aloneness, understanding both our limitations and our capacities in a universe we hardly comprehend, being able to live with uncertainty and mystery, and dealing honestly with the realities of suffering and death. A person who has developed deep insight into these issues might be called wise.
I recently heard another person define wisdom very succinctly. He said, “wisdom is the ability to comprehend other as other,” meaning, the ability to see the world and other human beings without projecting our own fantasies, opinions, needs, and agendas onto them. Wisdom is seeing what really is there. A wise person knows herself and knows where she ends and others begin.
Such wisdom suggests a fair amount of stillness as well as self-knowledge. And so, how do we gain wisdom? One thing that has become very clear to me from my own struggle is that we do not become wise by rushing around like chickens with their heads cut off. The culture of our day might seduce us into filling every possible moment with activity and every emptiness with acquisition, but these strivings will never bring us the richness of an understanding heart.
Just as we can still turn to the wise ones of past ages to drink from their wells of insight, we can also learn from them the paths to wisdom. They tell us that…
We learn wisdom through the deep observation of nature. This is where the Taoists began, with the primordial laws of the Way, which move through and undergird all manifested things. In the hymn to Lady Wisdom from Proverbs which we heard earlier in the service, I was fascinated to discover the series of lines describing how she was present when “the foundations of the earth were laid down.” This implies that Wisdom is another name for the intelligence within the creation itself. Like the poets who praised the Tao, the author of Proverbs exhorts us to understand that some laws are truly universal, embedded in nature itself, and that Wisdom is ignored only to great folly.
We learn wisdom in silence and solitude. This is the central understanding of all contemplative traditions, East and West—that there is an inner source of wisdom that can only be heard when we turn within and seek it in stillness.
We learn wisdom by seeking out the wise and keeping their company. Whether we turn to living sages or to those long past who continue to live in the teachings they left behind, we should make time to sit with them—to sit at their feet, so to speak—learning from them, absorbing their understanding, and striving to integrate it into our own lives.
We learn wisdom by becoming self-aware. This is the hard work we do in psychotherapy, in meditation, and in intimate relationship, learning to develop an increased capacity for clear-eyed self-observation. Becoming a wise person calls one to know oneself deeply, to look fearlessly even into the shadows of oneself, and to know the nature of one’s own mind, soul and body.
We learn wisdom by reflecting on the nature of life and death. We can never become wise without remaining devoted students of existence. Seekers embrace an attitude of wonderment about this amazing passage between the two doors of birth and death, and remain inquiring, humble, flexible, and willing to be instructed by new discoveries. As we heard in the opening words, the Master is described as “fluid as melting ice, shapeable as a block of wood, receptive as a valley, clear as a glass of water.” This quality of profound openness points to the character of the wise-fool, a common archetype of wisdom teachings. He or she can seem childlike, and yet sees more penetratingly into the nature of the heart and the world than the greatest philosopher, and can shatter the rigid illusions of the most self-satisfied pedant.
The image from Proverbs of Wisdom crying out to the people at the gates of the city, from the high points, and from the crossroads, resembles the archetype of the biblical prophet. Like the prophets, Wisdom calls us to seek and understand the ancient truths that give life and govern it: the laws of right relationship. She reminds the people that these laws have been with us since the beginning of time and are embedded in foundations of the earth. Like the prophets, Lady Wisdom warns that the choice to seek her or to spurn her is essentially a choice between life and death. At the end of this passage she says, essentially, to find me is to find life, to spurn me is to injure yourself, to reject me is to embrace death. How remarkably relevant her call remains some 2,500 years after these teachings were written.
Let us allow ourselves the time and the permission to sincerely seek after wisdom—to do those things that allow understanding to grow within us, so that we may become beacons of light for others, and help our world turn from its great suffering and self-injury toward the ways that bring more abundant life.
From the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 8
Does not Wisdom call,
And understanding lift up her voice?
On top of the height, beside the way,
Where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
Beside the gates at the opening to the city,
At the entrance of the doors, she cries out:
To you, O people, I call,
And my voice is to the children of humanity.
O naive ones, understand prudence;
And, you, O fools, grasp wisdom.
Listen, for I will speak noble things,
And the opening of my lips will reveal right things.
For my mouth utters truth;
Wickedness will never defile my lips.
The utterances of my mouth are born from integrity;
There is nothing crooked or perverted in them.
They are all straightforward to the one who understands,
And right to those who love knowledge.
Take my instruction rather than silver,
Choose knowledge over the choicest gold.
For wisdom is better than jewels,
All desirable possessions cannot compare with her.
I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence, and attain knowledge and discretion.
Pride, arrogance and the perverted mouth, I abhor.
Counsel is mine and sound wisdom;
I am understanding; true power is in me.
By me sovereigns reign,
And rulers decree justice.
By me honorable leaders govern,
And all who judge rightly.
The Creator possessed me at the beginning of all things,
Before the works of old.
Out of the Infinite I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills, I was brought forth;
When the earth and the fields had not yet been made,
Nor the first dust of the world.
When the heavens were established, I was there,
When the Creator inscribed the compass upon the face of the deep,
And made firm the skies above,
When the springs of the deep were fixed,
When the sea received its boundary
So that the water would not transgress its command,
When the foundations of the earth were marked out;
Then I was with the Creator as a master craftsman,
And was a daily delight,
Rejoicing in the world, this earth,
And having my delight in the children of humanity.
Now therefore, O people, listen to me,
For blessed are they who keep my ways.
Heed my instruction and be wise,
And do not neglect it.
Blessed is the one who listens to me,
Watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts.
For to find me is to find life, and walk in divine favor.
But the one who turns from me injures himself;
And those who hate me, love death.