Seeking the Heart of Wisdom (eBook)

FromChapter1: Discovering the Heart of Meditation Itis saidthatsoon after his enlightenment, the Buddha passed a man on the road who wasstruck by the extraordinary radiance and peacefulness of his presence. The manstopped and asked, 'My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being ora god?' 'No,'said the Buddha. 'Well,then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?' Againthe Buddha answered, 'No.' 'Areyou a man?' 'No.' 'Well,my friend, what then are you?' TheBuddha replied, 'I am awake.' Thename Buddha means 'one who is awake,' and it is this experience thatis the very heart and essence of vipassana, or insight meditation. It offers away of practice that can open us to see clearly our bodies, our hearts, ourminds, and the world around us and develop a wise and compassionate way torelate to and understand them all. This practice of insight meditation comesfrom the original core of the Buddha's teachings as transmitted for 2,500yearsin the Theravada tradition of southern Asia. But it is not an 'Asian'practice. It is a practice by which anyone can awaken to the truth of life andbecome free. RightUnderstanding Thepath of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.Right understanding has two parts. To start with, it asks a question of ourhearts. What do we really value, what do we really care about in this life? Ourlives are quite short. Our childhood goes by very, quickly, then adolescenceand adult life go by. We can be complacent and let our lives disappear in adream, or we can become aware. In the beginning of practice we must ask what ismost important to us. When we're ready to die, what will we want to have done?What will we care about most? At the time of death, people who have tried tolive consciously ask only one or two questions about their life: Did I learn tolive wisely? Did I love well? We can begin by asking them now. Thisis the beginning of right understanding: looking at our lives, seeing that theyare impermanent and fleeting, and taking into account what matters to us mostdeeply. In the same way, we can look at the world around us, where there is atremendous amount of suffering, war, poverty, and disease. Hundreds of millionsof people are having a terrible, terrible time in Africa and Central Americaand India and Southeast Asia and even right here in North America. What doesthe world need to foster a safe and compassionate existence for all? Humansuffering and hardship cannot be alleviated just by a simple change ofgovernment or a new monetary policy, although these things may help. On thedeepest level, problems such as war and starvation are not solved by economicsand politics alone. Their source is prejudice and fear in the human heart—,andtheir solution also lies in the human heart. What the world needs most ispeople who are less bound by prejudice. It needs more love, more generosity,more mercy, more openness. The root of human problems is not a lack ofresources but comes from the misunderstanding, fear, and separateness that canbe found in the hearts of people. Rightunderstanding starts by acknowledging the suffering and difficulties in theworld around us as well as in our own lives. Then it asks us to touch what wereally value inside, to find what we really care about, and to use that as thebasis of our spiritual practice. When we see that things are not quite right inthe world and in ourselves, we also become aware of another possibility, of thepotential for us to open to greater loving-kindness and a deep intuitivewisdom. From our heart comes inspiration for the...