Wisdom
What is wisdom?
Wisdom comes from the word wise. The word wise in the Oxford Dictionary is defined as having or showing experience, knowledge, good judgment, prudence and etc.
Smart as defined in the Oxford Dictionary is having a good or quick brain, showing ingenuity, clever and intelligent but perhaps dishonest.
Clever as defined in the Oxford Dictionary as quick in learning, understanding of things and showing of ability and skills.
Human being would like to be in any of the above 3 categories and nobody would like to be stupid, ignorant, a fool, an idiot or naive. Do we have a choice or can we acquire wisdom?
Basically there are different in elements of meaning and explaining of the 3 words, i.e. clever, smart and wise.
The word clever as quick in learning, understanding of things and showing of ability and skills and do not have elements of insincerity or deceitful.
The word smart is skewed more towards of being shrewd and has elements of outwit or outsmart and skewed more towards benefiting own self more than others. Human being always likes to be smart. They felt smart is cleverer than clever.
The word wise is noble because it has elements of being righteous, knowledgeable, good judgment, and prudent. Basically to be wise is to be able to differentiate the rights from the wrong, the appropriate from the inappropriate and the good from the bad.
Why we need to be wise?
We are all governed by a set of laws depending on the country that we are staying in. If there is anything that we do that have violated the law and being caught, we will be charged and punished by the law.
There are no laws to govern our mischievous and unruly behavior or being cunning and etc. We will not be punished by the law if we behave as mentioned above. The difference between the wise and the smart are the wise will be on guard of their mind and behavior while the smart might take advantage to outwit others.
The proverb, as sly as a fox, what does it mean?
Being cunning or tricky and will not be easily caught. Even if they are caught they will be able to get away scot free, i.e. will not be able to charge them under the law.
The wise will be able to differentiate the rights from the wrongs and will not do things that are morally wrong even if they do not violate the law of the country.
Many parents would like their children to be smart. They felt smart is cleverer than clever. As from conversations very often we can hear parents praising their children being smart. Very seldom you will hear parents praise or dare to praise their children are wise. Many people do not know or really understand the word wisdom.
Parent being ignorant of the word smart which has elements of insincerity or deceitful will feel proud if their children are smart. They will feel that their children will be one up or on the advantage side when compared to children who are clever and not to mention about children who are not so clever.
There are many parents who like to praise their children of being smart to friends with their presence. This is indeed not a wise action because it will further encourage their smart children to outwit other children as most children do not know how to differentiate the rights from the wrongs.
Smart children know how to hide some of their wrong doings, i.e. to say, they know some of their doing are not proper or not correct and yet they do it. They will know how to explain of their short coming by painting a different picture to hide their inappropriate action. Sometimes, by the time their parents find out their wrong doing it can be already too late for corrections. Parents must be aware of the underlying negative effect of their smart children. The question here is which is more inferior, to beg or to cheat? The choice is yours.
For the wise, if their children are smart, they will be very careful and concerned and will take all measures and efforts to help and guide their children to the right bringing up. The wise do not want their smart children to abuse their intelligence to take advantage of those who are lacking in terms of intelligence. The smart children are supposed to help those children who are no smarter than them and not taking advantage of them.
Another point to note is, we human being like to hear sweet words or being praised but we are easily insulted or offended and get agitated, disturbed, or hurt by words of mouth. This is real human weakness.
The worst part is when people praised us we get pleased, delighted or trilled but only for a very short while and we forget about it. If we had been insulted or offended we get disturbed, troubled or uneasy for quite a while. It may affect us over a couple of days or maybe longer and maybe cannot be forgiven for what they have spoken.
The question here is, from the same cause i.e. by word of mouth, why is it that the impact is different?
Are we aware of the vast difference in impact?
Do we want to be caught in these types of situations? Think about it.
Can we stop people from talking? Absolutely cannot.
A wise man knows that he cannot stop people from talking but he can choose what he wants to hear. People get into all sorts of problems, issues, conflicts, misunderstandings, disagreement, quarrel and etc, etc because they hear everything and not knowing that they have a choice to choose what they want to hear. People say filter, sieve or select of what you want to hear and remember you cannot stop people from talking. Or just simply do not pay attention to what they are talking so you will not hear everything. It is just like attending a lesson or training session where the participants are dreaming or not paying attention. When you asked them a question, they cannot answer you because they did not hear what you were talking. It is so simple.
How to acquire wisdom?
Can we acquire wisdom? Yes we can otherwise it serve no purpose writing this article.
Allow me to quote a few wisdom quotations from the wise.
3) “When we are young, we go and learn a lesson and then take a test. When we have grown up and working, we go and take a test and learned a lesson”
4) “Life can only be understood backwards but we must live forwards”
From the above quotations we can understand that wisdom is not born with but a process of the lifelong attempt of acquiring it. It also does not mean if you are literate or 80 years of age, you will be wise. It also does not mean an illiterate is not a wise person. If a person is not aware of his surroundings, no realization, not observant of nature, no awakening, there will not be wisdom.
Wisdom can be acquired. Wisdom is the process of the lifelong attempt of acquiring it. It means as we live our life, we can acquire wisdom from:
1) What we have learned
2) Our experiences
3) Our observations
4) Our realizations
5) Our awakenings
6) And put it into practices what we have learned
How do we learned from the above 6 steps?
We may have come across some quotations from reading or what we have heard from our elders. Initially we may not be able to understand that quotation. From our daily life experiences and observations, we will encounter some experiences of the quotations. Then we realized and understand the quotations of the wise. This will awakened us. If there is awakening, there is wisdom.
To quote an analogy of the above, for example:
“Contentment is the highest of wealth”
When we first come across the above quotation we may not be able to understand and believe the above quotation is true especially the young’s. We thought that when we are contented there will not be any progress anymore. Contentment means we have enough and are able to live within our mean and will not commit things not within our means. When we are able to live within our mean, there will be peace of mind. With this peace of mind we will be able to focus on what we want to do. Being able to focus on what we want to do, results will follow. With results, remunerations and status will follow.
If we are not contented and we focus on remunerations or status, results will not be as per expectations.
As the saying goes, if you focus on results, there will not be change. If you focus on change, there will be results. That is why contentment is the highest of wealth.
Another way of acquiring wisdom is also to understand the teaching of Lao Tzu. He taught of the “Ying & Yang” theory. Lao Tzu has a history of a couple of thousand years. Since then until today and even tomorrow, the “Ying & Yang” theory will not be proven wrong by anyone. In fact it does synchronize with the Buddha’s teaching of the “Universal Law of Unsatisfactory”.
Refer to diagram below.
What does the “Ying & Yang” theory explain?
It simply explains that in anything there is white and black. In the white there is some black. In the black there is some white. The white refer to good whereas the black refer to bad. Or the white and black just simply refer to the pros and cons of things.
It simply means that in any phenomenon, there is always the good and bad side of things. No matter how good, there will be some bad or short comings. No matter how bad, there will be some good in it. In another word, there is no perfection. If we can only see the white or the black then we have yet to acquire wisdom. To be wise we must be able to see the whole diagram of the “Ying and Yang” theory for us to know and understand the pro and cons of phenomenon. We have to be awakened and lead a life that flows with nature to acquire wisdom.
A lotus flower picture was use as the heading of the title to resemble wisdom and how do we explain it?
As you are aware lotus flower emerge from the pond murky water and yet the beautiful lotus flower is not dirtied, stained or tarnished by the murky water. Not even one drop of the murky water is able to blot, mark or blotch the lotus flower.
This is where we have to learn from nature. We are living in this dishonest, untrustworthy, deceiving, cunning, cheating or corrupted society. We can also emerged beautifully or an orderly person and not being affected, tarnished by the corrupted society if we choose to learn to live the correct way.
We have been taught and only know how to read books with words. Nature is book without words. We must also learn from book without words and that is nature. Nature was there, is there and will be there. It was there since the beginning of time. It is like the words are already there in the dictionary and we also know quite a lot of the words. To be wise is if you able to arrange the words in a way to form a meaningful sentence that they call it a quotation. Most of the wisdom quotation words are words that we know. The only difference is we do not know how to arrange in a manner to make it a meaningful sentence. That is the difference between the wise and the smart.
Currently and the future regret is, human being is destroying nature and will be destroying more and more nature as we progress. Books without words are being destroyed and becoming less and less as we progress into the modern world. It is like the global warming, human being cannot decide whether to save the Earth or the Economy? There is a price for everything.
In the next few decades, we will have a multi trillion dollars questions to answer. Our children, grandchildren or great grandchildren will ask us:
Why at that time you all had a chance to save Earth and why did not do so?
You have to pay the price. You will find that everything in life exacts a price, and you will have to decide whether the price is worth the prize, quoted by Sam Nunn.
If you have watch the video of the recent 2011 tsunami that happen in Japan, you can see vehicles, boats, ships, houses and manmade things being washed or swept away. That is the power of nature. The question here is did you see grass or even one blade of grass being swept away? Anything that go against or obstruct the flow of the tsunami will be swept away but not even one blade of grass was being swept away although it is so flimsy and fragile. It is because grass knows how to maneuver or sway to the direction of the tsunami was going.
If we human being also knows how to maneuver or move with the flow of the wind or things, we will not suffer. That is what we meant by to lead a life in accordance with nature.
A wise man does not mean he knows everything. He is aware that there are things he does not know. Although he does not know some of the things, he will know what to do next.
The wise will know how to seek for advice, counseling, recommendations or opinions from others who knows to help him. He is able to differentiate the proper and the not proper. He will not abuse his intelligence to take advantage of others if it is morally wrong.
What are the qualities of values and behavior of a wise man?
It is indeed difficult to:
1) Control one self
2) Govern one self
3) Restrain one self
4) Blame one self
5) Understand one self
6) Discipline one self
It is easy to control others especially if you are in possession of authority. Anything to do with one self will be difficult to manage. It is very difficult to acquire the abilities to manage ourselves of the above mentioned values. It will take time and effort to slowly learn to manage and able to control one self.
A wise man is able to control and managed of him well. He governs and disciplined himself from a set of good ethics. And he will refrain or restrain himself from violating the laws or immoral or unethical activities. These will make him become an upright, well respected and a wise person.
A wise man will not blame others for his short comings. He will correct himself to overcome his short comings.
If you want to trust do not blame. If you want to blame, do not trust, quoted by Sunny Goh.
Below is the photo of Confucius. He was known for his wisdom and was in the same era with Lao Tzu. He was the man who taught us to lead a life that flows with nature.
This is wisdom.
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