Greetings,

This month we'll be exploring wisdom. Wisdom is the 4th parami, coming right after renunciation. If you're quiet you can begin to see that that restraint you were practicing with last month actually helps you develop a "seeing that frees." Seeing that frees is a phrase used by Rob Burbea as the title of one of my favorite Dhamma books. This type of "seeing," like wisdom, is not the same as ordinary seeing. It has an innate clarity that can penetrate beyond our habits, assumptions, opinions, preferences, etc. This type of seeing is developed because of the support of the first three paramis and our meditative practice. This month we will be cultivating something beyond intellectual, academic, and/or psychological thinking. The wisdom we are cultivating is clear, discerning and an unentangled knowing. I chose the primordial Om symbol to represent wisdom because 1) the wisdom of the fourth parami exists only in a present moment and 2) because this wisdom is outside of our ordinary thinking. Practicing the paramis allows the heart to open and our habits to be restrained so that we can discern the appropriate or skillful response in the present moment.

The first aspect of practicing with wisdom is the recognition that it is not about what you know. It's about how you are experiencing the three characteristics in the present moment. The three characteristics are anicca (impermanence), dukkha (suffering or dissatisfaction), and anatta (non self). If you remember, I like Ruth King's version, "it's not permanent, it's not perfect, and it's not personal." This means that in any given moment you recognize the truth of these three things. Not as an intellectual understanding. Not as something you learned or read in a book. And not as something that psychologically you should believe. When we develop the wisdom parami, we know this to be true. We know this to be true because we see it in the present experience, while we simultaneously feel it in our bodies. Granted this is a practice that we cultivate over a long period of time. Most of our experiences are felt as permanent or the impermanence feels upsetting in some way. And, generally, all experiences feel personal, like we are responsible for its arising or its passing. This kind of thinking is how we get entangled in dukkha. Wisdom brings clarity and enables us to unentangle our identity from the experience itself. In all my years of practice, I have found that whenever I am in the present moment I cannot be entangled. Entanglement is a mental construct around the present moment. Being in the present moment is what helps us clearly see entanglement. Letting go of entanglement is not a problem whenever we see it. The problem is in the seeing it. It takes the cultivation of wisdom to allow us to see that which is obscured in our ordinary daily lives.

This is where our meditation comes into play. Wisdom needs quiet restraint to be revealed. It's why cultivating renunciation is what gives rise to wisdom. The more we are willing to practice restraint against our habitual reactivity, the more we can see what is giving rise to that reactivity. The more we let our conduct settle, our minds settle, our energy settle, the more we can see the three characteristics. We see this play out over and over again on every retreat we go on. It starts out with all this self identifying behavior, all this frustration around the changing nature of everything while at the same time having fear that it's always going to be like this. Somewhere at the halfway point, things begin to settle. Our minds settle, our sensory experience settles, and our energy settles. We begin to see the natural flow of it all and by the end of the retreat, even five day retreats, we feel relaxed, tranquil, and pretty equanimous with whatever arises. The householder's dilemma is how to bring enough quiet and restraint to cultivate wisdom in our ordinary, everyday lives. I have a few tips.

1. Meditate daily for however long you want, but don't get up until you have spent some of the time noticing the changing nature of something, i.e., the breath, sensations, the passage of time; whether unpleasantness is present and how often that happens; and/or notice the lack of control you have over the nature or quality of your sit.
2. Take one activity you do every day and notice the entire process. Make sure you notice all the micro movements involved in doing the activity.
3. Occasionally notice you are thinking and then shift your attention to notice what each of the other sense doors are experiencing, i.e., seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and sensing/touching.
4. Take one sense door and focus on it for a period of time. For instance, take five minutes to just notice seeing. Don't concern yourself with what is being seen. Just notice the eyes are seeing. Maybe even use a noting practice of "seeing, seeing...". Next time use a different sense door like hearing, or when you're eating try tasting.
5. Try practicing a day of noble silence, speaking only functionally when necessary.
6. Give yourself a personal retreat. Pick a day where for three hours you will just sit, walk, and maybe listen to a Dhamma talk.

These are suggestions, but really you can do whatever supports a quieting of the mind to help you see the three characteristics. They exist in every single moment. The Buddha said that the nature of existence is the three characteristics. In every moment of our lives, we could strengthen our capacity to see them. The more we see them as reality, the freer we will be. This what I think this month is about. Let's talk about what we are seeing on Thursday nights. I assure you, two or three days of doing this and you will have something to share.

With a deep bow,

Tuere