Wisdom: significance, cultivation, perfection

“Insignificant, meditators, is the increase of wealth. The best thing in which to increase is wisdom”, The Buddha in AN 1:79

“Meditators, there are these four radiances. What four? The radiance of the moon, the radiance of the sun, the radiance of fire, and the radiance of wisdom. Of these four radiances, the radiance of wisdom is the foremost.” The Buddha in AN 4:142

“Just as, meditators, among animals the lion is declared to be their chief, so too, among the states conducive to enlightenment the faculty of wisdom is declared to be their chief, that is, for the attainment of enlightenment.” The Buddha in SN 48:51

Introduction

Wisdom takes on a very significant role in The Buddha’s Teaching. Here wisdom is the main prerequisite and proximate cause to the realization of nibbana. It is not generosity, service, universal love, faith, virtue or concentration. So although all these qualities are wholesome and lead and incline one’s mind towards nibbana, it is wisdom that when correctly cultivated, actually precipitates enlightenment. Why is this so? In other words, what is mechanistically the nature of this quality called wisdom, that precipitates into enlightenment?

To understand this, we first need to understand what enlightenment is, according to The Buddha’s Teaching (in the theravada tradition). Especially we need to understand the mind of an enlightened one.

Before clarifying this point, one needs to realize that The Buddha’s Teaching is not exoteric. All aspects of The Buddha’s Teaching can be mechanistically explained. That is, all phenomena and processes mentioned in The Buddha’s Teaching can be explained as a detailed sequence of causes and conditions leading to results. The mechanisms of function even for phenomena as foreign to the common person’s mind as access concentration, the jhanas, nibbana, the psychic powers, can all be carefully fleshed out.

The mind of an enlightened one has stopped creating new kamma, whether good or bad. The function of the intentions of an enlightened one are now simply functional, because the underlying tendencies that are otherwise responsible for holding together a future rebirth have been uprooted. So that habit of mental factors arising automatically to produce a rebirth has disbanded. In the expression “House builder, you have been seen. You are never again going to build another house. Your rafters have been shattered and your ridge pole has been broken.”, the house builder is intention (cetana), the rafters are all mental factors (wholesome and unwholesome) including craving and the ridge pole is ignorance. The mind has become so refined that it is incapable of holding a gross object long enough to cause it any problem. The second of 24 “lawfulnesses” in the pathana (Abhidhamma) show how the objects of the mind condition the mind. Gross objects condition and lead to a gross mind, subtle objects condition and lead to a subtle mind. Subtlety or sensitivity is synonymous to wisdom. Gross objects cause or are themselves suffering, whereas subtle objects cause or are themselve happiness. That is why a mind cultivated and accomplished in wisdom, does not experience much suffering any longer. That mind is simply no longer capable of holding gross objects that would cause mental suffering.

So what is wisdom?

Wisdom then in The Buddha’s Teaching is a measure of how subtle or refined and continuous the knowing of an object is. In its weakest form, this is the wisdom that knows long enough of an object such that the five hindrances have been overcome. That is why the five hindrances are described as “weakeners of wisdom”. This weakest form of wisdom forms the first of six stages of wisdom comprising in ascending order of strength: broad wisdom, deep wisdom, joyous wisdom, fast wisdom, sharp wisdom and finally penetrative wisdom.

The first three of these stages of widom are shared both by successful calm meditation and successful insight meditation. It is after this third stage that a decision to either deepen the calm by working to enter the absorbsions based on a suitable conceptial object or else using objects of ultimate reality to continue on to develop insight meditation.

Significance of wisdom

From the introductory quotes, it is clear that wisdom is a very important mile stone along The Buddhist Path. It should however be noted that wisdom is not the culmination of The Buddhist Path, but rather Nibbana. The role of wisdom is dispassion, that is followed by relinquishment, further followed by a cessation (normally brief) and finally the experience of Nibbana. There is the special case of a non-returner or fully enlightened one, whose experiece of cessation can be as long as seven days. This possible for such a non-returner or fully enlightened one who has mastered the eight absorbsions and then practises insight meditation on the mental factors in each of the eight absorbsions sequencially and carefully.

Cultivation of wisdom

Because of the uniqueness of the mind to sequencially build on previous qualities, may they be positive or negative, the cultivation of wisdom and indeed the entire path of The Buddha is gradual. It is the cultivation of virtue that allows non-regret to florish in the mind and prepare the mind to restrain itself. This opens the door to the capability of observing an object or class of objects for a contiuously longer perion of time to allow the hindrances to be overcome.

Mindfulness and its role

As we have seen, the first three stages of wisdom are basically the wisdom necessary and essential for the cultivation of concentration. That is why The Buddha says wisdom is necessary for insight, and insight is necessary for concentration. He also mentions the hindrances as a weakener of wisdom anytime the absorbsions are mentioned. Mindfulness belongs to the concentration group among the noble eight fold path, not the wisdom group.

As a reminder the noble eight fold path comprises: right view, right intention (wisdom group), right speech, right action, right livelihood (virtue group), right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration (concentration group).

The reason why mindfulness is necessary in the beginning, in the middle and in the end is because of the role of mindfulness: it is defined as the recollection of what The Dhamma or The Buddha’s Teaching is. The Dhamma means lawfulness in the case. This recollection can be remembering what the mind observed a microsecond ago or many many life times ago. When we recollect a suitable object every few microseconds, then our knowing of the object will be continuous. Then in a relatively short while the mind will overcome the hindrances. That is why mindfulness is so critically.

As a sidenote, when we notice that mindfulness is weak, we can arouse and strengthen mindfulness by triggering the proximate cause for mindfulness. There are two proximate causes in this case: a strong perception and mindfulness itself. So in times when our mindfulness is weak, we can either make the perception of our chosen object strong or else actively remembering how object as perceived just before. Taking the breath as an example: we don’t have to change the breath but rather the perception of it, or else we should replay whatever we new to be the breath from moment to moment.

Effort and its role

Of cause effort is also necessary to keep recollecting just that suitable object or class of objects that we have chosen. This represents in this case The Dhamma. But actually we need more than just effort. We need all the components of the noble eight-fold path. We need right view and right intention, so that we can let go of thoughts and other distractions easily. We need to be free of regret by keeping and having kept flawless virtue. All these rely on effort.

Perfection of wisdom

The perfection of wisdom is more or less a repetition and refinement of the wholesome dhammas. Knowing the theoretical part of The Buddha’s Teaching, and reflecting deeply on that, will help with the implementation the The Dhamma and to finally attain Nibbana, the end of all mental suffering.