The Wisdom Companion
Practice
January 8, 2009
Wisdom is knowing what is most important and living in accordance with what is most important.
While definitions of wisdom are numerous, it is very likely that any definition will involve these three elements: KNOWLEDGE (of a particular kind), JUDGMENT (how specific situations align to this knowledge), and CHARACTER (living accordingly, carrying out this judgment). Wisdom involves a knowing-what, a knowing-how, and a doing.
The knowledge, judgment, and character that comprise wisdom can be developed. It is unlikely that humans are currently more wise than Australopithecus was a master of language. To begin with, consider the violence, short-sightedness, avoidable suffering, wasted potential and poorly chosen priorities in the world.
The following exercises provide activities that can be practiced throughout the day for developing wisdom. They form one of the four parts of the Wisdom-Centered Life program. The others are: Background, learning about wisdom; Perspective, principles that help form a wisdom way of perceiving; and Action, using situations from daily life as “games” for exercising wisdom. Results can be assessed.
For millennia, wisdom was held to be knowledge of the divine pattern and human’s place in it. Wisdom required living in resonance with this order. But humans are very small and inclined to identify partial patterns as ultimate; we are skeptical of the existence of an ultimate order, or that we can know it. The order our ancestors perceived was static, but more important was the insight that there is a pattern which applies to all partial patterns. The purpose of human life from this perspective is to know this pattern and develop in accordance with it.
Humans are capable in only a very limited way of knowing what, if anything, is most important. Yet we cannot help but choose, throughout life, things that seem more important than others. Knowing what is most important can begin with observing the mind, its confused wandering, its attachments, and the patterns it discerns.
Wisdom involves recognition of the beauty, transience, and fragility of life; of perception’s role in creating reality; of context, development, and transformation; of psychological limits; of the depth of illusion; of the oneness of being; and of the purpose of existence: to flourish.
Wisdom is a way of life, a particular mode of being in the world. The practices in this booklet help develop that way of life. They are:
Previewing the day
Observing the mind
Mindfulness
Slowing down
Perceiving beauty
Centering before entering
Instant calming
Frustration transformation
Empathy
Humor
The door
The zone
Entering the perimeter
Centering the environment
Accepting invalidation
Enduring misfortune
The limits of knowledge
Reframing
The perspective of death
The perspective of eternity
The wise person
The wise society
Doing something difficult
Oneself as wise person
Reviewing the day
Life review
Note on gender-inclusive language:
For the generic use of pronouns with human referents, ‘E’ is sometimes used here for the nominative case (= he, she), and ‘hir’ for the other cases (=, e.g., him, her, his). We are fortunate that in English it is easy to make our language gender inclusive. There is no reason not to do so, and every reason not to postpone doing so. To use E or hir is as simple as to use ‘Ms.’ to refer to any woman (= Miss or Mrs.); and in speaking, the pronunciation is the same as currently used terms. That is, ‘E’ is pronounced almost like the word ‘he’, and ‘hir’ is pronounced exactly like the word ‘her.’ The term ‘hir’ dates back to Chaucer, though he used it as a plural (= their).
Previewing the day
The day ahead is a gift: you are allowed to be a witness of a great cosmic drama taking place around you and within you. The day will bring unexpected opportunities and unexpected challenges. Go over the day as you envision it proceeding. How can you live wisely in all that will occur—the distractions, pulls toward habit and addiction, the emotional enticements, the hidden opportunities? You can repeat a statement such as this:
All other creatures depend on their circumstances for flourishing or withering; only humans can consciously create flourishing for themselves and for others. This is the opportunity, and the responsibility, given humans. My thanks to the Cause, the Pattern of patterns, for this opportunity. The highest form of wisdom is love; love is doing what is best for that which is loved. I will be fully present to all I encounter today, and dedicate every moment to bringing about a wisely stewarded world.
Observing the mind
The mind perceives patterns. We live according to these patterns. We dislike uncertainty, and are quick to claim that a pattern is ultimate. The patterns of ego, group, and creed are particularly captivating.
To perceive the larger pattern in which all these fit requires time, and humility. A mind always busy, preoccupied with smaller patterns of individual existence, can hardly perceive the largest pattern. The patterns it sees, it will believe are ultimate. We resist change and challenge.
Humans are a very small part of the ultimate pattern, whose details we can hardly discern. In a cosmos so large that our galaxy is insignificant, where the cosmic clock ticks away a million years at a time, a human life, and human dogmas, are very small. Until recently humans were unaware of microbes, or of galaxies beyond our own. Is it likely that we know ultimate reality? Yet we must make choices.
To perceive the larger pattern, observe the mind. It is a stream that brings thoughts, urges, desires and aversions, emotions and memories. Watch them appear and let them pass. The stream brings insights and understanding. Pieces come together. Watch them appear and let them pass.
If we cannot know the largest pattern, we can avoid prematurely identifying it as the individual, the group, or the creed. Nosce teipsum: Know your mind.
Mindfulness
To achieve the constant attentiveness, or centeredness, essential to wisdom, requires a habit of mindfulness. This means quieting internal preoccupations. It also requires the ability to disengage attention from activities that demand, or tend to preoccupy, full conscious attention. It means paying attention to the world around us and within us. Controlling the mind and directing its activity consciously is the fundamental skill of wisdom.
One way to be mindful is to go over what your senses are reporting. What are you hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting, at this moment?
Slowing down
To understand a situation, to perceive the pattern, requires taking the time to become aware of all that is involved. To do this requires slowing down the body and the hurrying mind. Practice interrupting the mental monolog. Spend a moment observing objects.
Get into a habit of frequently stopping yourself for a moment throughout the day, simply to refocus, take a breath, and observe the world around. When stepping outside a building, for example, or before driving. Breaking up physical and mental momentum is a key to achieving mindfulness and serenity.
Perceiving beauty
Perception of beauty is a central aspect of wisdom. Taking the time to be moved by the beauty of nature, of people at different stages of their lives. The beauty of art. The beauty of ideas. Spiritual beauty. The beauty and attraction of wisdom, of that which is most important.
For a brief, one-minute exercise, simply find something in the immediate environment and appreciate the beauty in it. The colors, the sounds, the feel. The testimony to the life-force. The associations and memories.
You can go a bit further with this exercise by articulating your response, or creating something that communicates your sense of beauty, or at the least, by talking with another.
Centering before entering
Before going into a building or a room, recall yourself to mindfulness and your purpose. It is easy, when we enter a new situation, and our senses and mind are suddenly engulfed with much new information, to become totally focused on that situation. A person can record the times E centers before entering and the times E forgets.
You can also practice this exercise when encountering any person. You can develop the habit of associating any transition with returning to a mindful, centered perspective.
Instant calming
A 3-second exercise for recovering equanimity:
1) Take a breath and relax the body as you exhale;
2) scan the body for areas of tension; 3) notice something in the environment that you hadn’t noticed before; 4) repeat a word you’ve learned to use to trigger your connection with your best self. You’ll get better with practice. A person can describe the situation and what made it difficult, and what he or she was able to accomplish in making the transition.
Frustration transformation
George Leonard and Michael Murphy (1995) call a form of this “taking the hit as a gift.” It is for situations that are upsetting, frustrating, discouraging, repulsive. For situations that “push your buttons.” There are two responses to such situations useful for breaking free of reflex reactions, and perceiving the situation more objectively.
The first is to learn to welcome the frustrating or painful event. We can be glad we have been annoyed or repulsed, that we have been given the opportunity to overcome an indulgent behavior, or thoughtless reflex response. You can even seek out such difficult situations—think of the previously fastidious Francis of Assisi embracing lepers. The point is not simply to welcome psychologically difficult situations, but to shatter the reflex perception we have of them. The point of many of these practices is to perceive reality more clearly.
The second response is to see positive opportunities in the situation. The energy it brings. To find a lesson in it. What is it telling us about the world and about ourselves? More often than not, when we stop being frustrated that the situation did not go the way we thought it should, we find that it turned out just as well. Frequently a door opens to a new insight or direction.
Empathy
Learning the other’s perspective and imagining being in hir (or the nonhuman’s) situation. Some empathic responses are automatic, at least for some people in certain settings. To understand another thoroughly, we need to reflect on hir situation: hir physical appearance and body language, verbal communication, values, concerns, and attitude in various circumstances. Many aspects of empathy can be consciously cultivated. Intuition itself can be improved. We can become better at sensing and interpreting intuitions.
To improve empathy, spend time with the other, asking hir about hir life, views, beliefs. Simply listen and try to understand from hir perspective. When alone, think about others and their lives. This takes practice to do well.
Psychologist Carl Rogers, a great proponent of empathy, recommended giving the other “unconditional positive regard,” restating what they have said, tentatively interpreting the other’s acknowledged feelings, quickly altering our own mistaken responses.
Humor
A wise person knows there is a humorous side to almost anything—particularly our own tendency to take ourselves seriously. Humor is related to humility and to freeing ourselves from slavery to expectations. It is a way of affirming that life is good.
The door
This involves recognizing, in moments of discouragement, boredom, or frustration, that the door to inspiration, to the sublime, to peace and beauty, is near. Learning to step through that door: we perceive a larger realm transcending the constrained, negative situation. You can learn to find that door.
The zone
The zone is a feeling that you are in a rich place, connected with the Center, living at your best. This feeling can be consciously invited—we do not have to wait for it to appear. Here’s one way to connect: 1. Direct the mind toward a topic you find stimulating. 2. Get into the space of the topic by recalling key features of it. 3. Sit and let ideas come forth.
Maintaining focus is essential, and resisting distractions. Particularly if the topic is difficult, it may be difficult to enter into it. A special effort is required in order to find an opening. At the same time, when in the zone, ideas on various topics may suddenly surface.
Entering the perimeter
When we are getting involved with new activities, and rushing from one thing to another, we are going around the perimeter. There is a time for this. With increasing wisdom a person accepts that there are limits to what E can do, and that the more we attend to the seed already present, cultivating what we have already begun, the further we go with it. There are profundities beyond depths in existence. Continuous focus on new things tends to keep us at a surface level.
The urge to rush off to something new can be an addiction, something we cannot control. It can be an escape from doing the harder mental work of attending to what is before us. It’s easier to give a minute to this, a minute to that, and the next thing and the next thing, rather than decide for ourselves what we will pay attention to and for how long.
This is an exercise for strengthening the mind. The ability to focus on a topic for an extended period, when our mind wants to skitter away, is essential for wisdom.
Centering the environment
Everything in our personal environment can be arranged to be a reminder, recalling us to our true nature, a reminder of the sublimity of the universe, and the priceless gift, opportunity, and responsibility of being human. In order to be “in the world but not of it”, surround yourself with elements of the world to which you do belong. Your home and all areas of your personal space and time should reflect the priorities to which you are committed.
Eventually, everywhere you turn will present you with the larger pattern. The idea is that at some point seemingly isolated occurrences fit together. This requires a certain forming of our life, and comprehension.
Accepting invalidation
That is, being disagreed with, disrespected, criticized, rejected, and encountering unreasonable hostility. Consider this an opportunity to look at yourself dispassionately: you are a witness to your life, watching what happens with no concern other than to perceive reality and do what is best.
Use invalidation as a reminder of your own guilt, or of the suffering others endure, or as a reminder of how deeply rooted is ego. It is an opportunity for practicing independence from others’ opinions, as you follow your conscience. Use it as practice for times that may come when you are tested much more severely. Humility is essential. Hatred is not overcome with hatred, hatred is overcome with love.
Enduring misfortune
In the misfortunes of life: the losses, defeats, humiliations, disappointments, and suffering, we must find a rock of refuge. For many this is a religious belief. For the Stoics, it was the conviction that nothing beyond our control is relevant to our ultimate purpose. Viktor Frankl (1959) wrote of a realization he had while in a Nazi concentration camp:
In a position of utter desolation, when a person cannot express hirself in positive action, when hir only achievement may consist in enduring hir sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position a person can, through loving contemplation of the image E carries of hir beloved, achieve fulfillment. (Gender-biased language amended.)
The limits of knowledge
All humans were conceived as single-celled creatures required to view the world from their perspective: experiencing only a small part of the world, and themselves as the center of it, suffering from such perspective errors as egocentrism, my-side bias, and self-as-norm.
Further, we are usually not aware of our own motivations: our need for acceptance, our traumatic past, resentments, our weak and fearful inauthenticity. We are not aware of our sloppy thinking, of the idea we haven’t had, of the ways in which fears and desires color our beliefs, of our parroting of others’ opinions, of our prejudices, and the feebleness of our attempts to think through serious questions. To be wise, it is essential to be able to recognize our limits and appreciate perspectives that conflict with our cherished views. For this exercise,
a) find a person who disagrees fundamentally with you, and seriously consider hir views.
b) learn about the limits to human knowledge.
c) engage in reflective thought regarding the well-foundedness of your own claims to knowledge.
d) ask yourself continuously and seriously, Do I actually know this? What do I know?
Reframing
Much of the difficulty with difficult situations lies in seeing nothing else but the problem. Time is one ally in helping put a situation in context, but there are other techniques such as
a) distracting oneself when a concern proves difficult to keep from returning to consciousness
b) leading the mind back gently to its attentiveness (or breath-counting, or mantra) whenever we become aware of intrusive thoughts
c) learning about people who have survived with dignity, or even triumphed, in similar circumstances. Use such people as models
d) consciously putting the situation in a larger context of your life or the world or the cosmos
e) ask yourself how important the situation really is. How important will it be five years from now?
f) keeping your goal before you.
Perceiving from the perspective of death
Pierre Hadot (2002:275f.) writes that Stoics and Epicureans kept the possibility of death before them, freeing themselves from fear of the future and the burden of the past. They practiced, daily, perceiving the world as if for the last—or the first—time. Read or listen to the stories of people with terminal illnesses or who have had near death experiences. Before going to sleep, you can say farewell to life: “It’s been a good life. I did the best I could and accept all that happened. Now I take my leave.” A followup for the next morning (if you are still here) is to say, “I have been given this day as a gift. It is mine to live to the full. It is a new day, the first day!”
The perspective of eternity
Our experience seems very real, very solid, very natural. A conscious effort needs to be made to realize that the view from the organism is not the way things are. We change from moment to moment, and quickly age, but “the geological clock ticks away a million years at a time.” You may live 1 century, but the universe has been around for about 130,000,000 centuries. And eternity is not only about size—in this eternal moment all things past, present, and future, are unfolded.
Envisioning the wise person
The wise person is traditionally considered a person of great serenity, calm amid turmoil and personal trials, open to criticism, possessing an upright moral character combined with an understanding tolerance for others’ weaknesses, and the ability to provide excellent and profound advice.
Wise people are not perfect, and probably not wise in all circumstances, nor were they born wise. There are many such models, the great people of history and the less visible great souls. The model you envision doesn’t have to be an actual person. A single image of a single exemplary action can be inspiring. I dreamed of a person who demonstrated utmost magnanimity and good will; this example has remained a model for me.
The wise society
It is sometimes said that “If science can do something, it will.” If humans can become wise, we will and we must. Some humans have developed an exemplary sense of priorities. They are able to put self-interest aside, and make choices for the good of all. It is possible that many more could live with this level of wisdom, and Homo sapiens, “the human who is wise”, could in fact be wise stewards of the world.
Imagine an educational system, a health system, a judicial system, economy, foreign policy, spirituality and relationships that truly recognized the intrinsic value of all beings, and our interrelatedness; that sought to provide for the flourishing of all and the well-being of future generations.
Doing something difficult
Life is difficult no matter how we live it; but living wisely requires effort equivalent to the training undertaken by top-level athletes. It means transforming the way we live and the way we perceive. If we want to become something new, we need to let go of the old—and habits are key parts of our old self that need to be released.
If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth much. It is not abstinence that is required: abstinence is often an indulgence in rigidity—although abstinence is better than engaging in destructive behaviors, if that is the only way to control them.
Habits are strong; the goal must be stronger. Many have gone down this difficult path before you. Study them, let them walk with you.
Old ruts prevent new ways. Remember, another common definition of wisdom is “seeing through illusion.”
Since so many humans are addicted to something, the wise person should have familiarity with the nature of addictions, the difficulties they bring, and the difficulty of overcoming them. Is there a better way to have empathy for a brother or sister with an addiction than by experiencing our own addiction or habit?
Yourself as a wise person
The definition of wisdom can become a part of your very being: knowing what is most important, knowing how to live in accordance with what is most important, and doing so.
Qualities of a wise person include self-knowledge, openness, empathy and love, concentration, reflection, willpower, emotional and social intelligence, good practical and moral judgment, humor, appreciation of beauty, humility, forgiveness, serenity.
How would you behave if you possessed these properties and qualities? How would you feel towards other people and nonhumans? What would your feelings toward civic issues be? How would you live, how would you go through the day? Think and act as if you were a wise person: wisdom is something we grow into over a long time. Ask, “What would a wise person do in this situation?”
Reviewing the day
At the end of the day, recall its encounters, actions, and thoughts. What beings passed my way? How attentive was I? How did I exercise my stewardship? Where were my behavior, words, or thoughts less than wise? What opportunities were missed? Where was I understanding, insightful and giving? Where did I connect with the Center?
This review can be practiced at odd moments throughout the day. No writing is necessary, although insights may occur that you will want to note.
The Pythagorean Golden Verses, dated variously between the 4th century BCE and the early Roman empire, recommends this practice:
Do not welcome sleep to your enfeebled eyes before reviewing three times the activities of the day. Where did I go astray? What did I accomplish? What did I neglect that should have been done? Beginning from the first go over the rest, grieving for bad deeds, rejoicing in the good.
Life review
Life review forms part of what Harry Moody (2003) calls “conscious aging”. It is the practice of reflecting on our life to date. To Moody, this is similar to the idea of wisdom as Erik Erikson described it in his stages of psycho-social development, and to Abraham Maslow’s concept of self-actualization.
As we are unable to see ourselves fully, it is best engaged in with a professional, or with someone whom you trust and who is able to be frank with you. Working individually is of course also very rewarding. Some questions to begin with are:
What hand was I dealt in life? How did I play that hand?
What are the milestone events in my life?
Who are the persons who have played a significant role in my life?
What are the talents and gifts I possess and have developed? Are there new ways to use them?
What are the values and resources my family of origin offered? How did I incorporate these?
What is my belief (or unbelief) in God, or a higher power?
What is my story; what are the threads running through it?
What wisdom can I gain from my life experiences?
References
Cooper, Robert K. 2001. The Other 90%. New York: Crown Business. (For the Instant Calming exercise.)
Frankl, Viktor E. 1959. Man’s Search for Meaning. rev ed. Boston: Beacon Press.
Hadot, Pierre. 2002 [1995]. What Is Ancient Philosophy? Trans. by Michael Chase. Cambridge MA: Belknap—Harvard UP.
Leonard, George, and Michael Murphy. 1995. The Life We Are Given. New York: Putnam.
Moody, Harry R. 2003. Conscious Aging: A Strategy for Positive Change in Later Life. In Judah L. Ronch & Joseph A. Goldfield. Mental Wellness in Aging: Strengths-Based Approaches. Baltimore: Health Professions Press. pp. 139-160.
Pythagorica. Golden Verses. English translation available at <www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/greece/pythagoras/golden.htm>.
This material is available in pamphlet form by contacting rht@wisdomcenteredlife.org
For more information on wisdom and on this program for becoming wiser, visit
wisdomcenteredlife.org.
Your comments and questions are appreciated!
© 2006-2009 Richard Hawley Trowbridge All people will be able to flourish in a
flourishing natural environment