Nature of Wisdom

Wisdom, instead of just raw intelligence comes with experience, not just knowledge.

I used to be like Will in Good Will Hunting, arrogant, thinking I was above other people. In a way I evolved away from that, while I still maintain some of it.

But I didn’t see the difference between wisdom and intelligence. Actually, to be honest, I didn’t even understood what Wisdom was. I thought Wisdom was a lie, it was actually lack of scientific research on a topic, so you would believe things that were purely anecdotal.

But I was wrong.

There is a Park bench scene in the movie, I hope you take a time to watch it someday. It describes very well the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence.

However, just as I was blind to it even watching it, maybe I should give you people some tools to understand it.

Today Goenka spoke about wisdom, and as soon as he explained it I got it.

A guy was very sick, he went to the doctors.

“Doctor, I’m very sick. I need something to take away the pain.”

The doctor listened, asked for specific details, and eventually wrote down the receit for a medicine.

The guy goes home, puts the receit in an altar with the picture of the doctor, he reads it 8 times a day, walks around the altar 108 times a day, and from time to time screams the name of the doctor from the top of his lungs.

He wasn’t cured. The pain remained.

A second person went to the doctor.

“Doctor, I’m very sick. I need something to take away the pain.”

The doctor listened, asked for specific details, and eventually wrote down the receit for a medicine.

The person asked then, “But what does this mean? How is this paper cure me?”

“This is a receit, you bring this to a drug store, get the medicine that will treat the cause of your pain, and then you will be cured.”

This person then goes home and starts boastering “My doctor can cure me, and I can tell you how! But your doctors don’t do anything. My doctor wrote me a prescription of a medicine that I can get on a drugstore and it will treat the cause of my pain. I will be cured then! Your doctors are useless.”

However, this person doesn’t take the medicine. He/She isn’t cured. A third person walks in the doctor’s office.

“Doctor, I’m very sick. I need something to take away the pain.”

The doctor listened, asked for specific details, and eventually wrote down the receit for a medicine.

“But how will this help me?”

The doctor explained how the receit is for a medicine, that it can be obtained in any drugstore, and it will cure the source of the pain.

The person goes out of the office. On it’s way home, buys the medicine, takes it.

The third person is cured.

Each person represents one stage of Wisdom. Wisdom is then defined as the search for a cure. The cure for natural suffering we encounter in our life. It’s how we pave the way for a good life worth living (by our own definition).

First: Blind Faith.

The person is wise enough to go look for the doctor. But doesn’t test the solution. The person doesn’t even understand what the doctor is saying, he/she would rather just worship him and not try to get any understanding of his/her own pain.

Second: Intellectual Arrogance.

The person is not only wise enough to look for the doctor, but actively tries to understand what he is saying. However, instead of just taking the medicine, he/she considers it more important to shout out to other people that she/he knows more than them. She/He isn’t cured because the value on being right trumps the value of being cured in his/her own mind.

Third: Experience.

There isn’t lying here. What you experience is what you get. Even with a sickness that troubles the senses, what you sense is what you get. Sure you need to be able to treat any mental illness before calling yourself wise. However, experience shows more truth than any talk or scientific paper(although it is bound on experiments).

The third person Believes the doctor, it Intellectualizes, understand how it could cure him, and then Experiments it. Only through experience, through action, can one be cured of sufferings in life.

Wisdom as a way to eliminate suffering in your life requires the 3 stepping stones.

Only through exhaustive meditation I was able to understand how action is the only thing that really confirms things. And I was dethroned from my Intellectual Arrogance spot that I inhabited for so long.

Now watch the clip from Good Will Hunting, the Park Scene. Cya people. Have a good day 😀