Four Ways of the Wise #2
by HH Shamar Rinpoche
Taken from teaching on Phowa given at Bodhi Path Virginia, June 20, 2004

3. Depend on the depth and not on the surface

No one intentionally tries to be shallow, but many of us allow haste or lack of confidence in our own judgment to cause us to rely on received ideas, prejudices and clichés. Particularly when it comes to your spiritual life, it is important to investigate any teaching for yourself. There is no call for blind faith in Buddhism. On the contrary, you cannot make progress on the Buddhist path unless you are willing to go beyond popular

In Buddhism, it is particularly important to try to see below the surface. Buddha gave teachings at different levels depending on the aptitude of his audience, whether beginners or advanced practitioners. Yet, even beginning teachings can express profound messages for the highly qualified practitioners who are able to de-code them.

More importantly, you need to be able to think deeply to get any benefit from dharma at all. Let me explain.

If you have a problem, you should seek a solution appropriate to the problem. If your problem is simple, you can find a quick, easy solution. But if your problem is complex, you will need an appropriate remedy. And if your problem is the most profound problem that humans or living beings can experience—the problem of suffering and existence—then you will need a deep solution, the most profound remedy available.

If you have no ignorance, then you don’t need to deal with ignorance. Buddhadharma gives us the directions to get to enlightenment. To draw the quality of enlightenment out of the stuff of our everyday ignorance, dharma has to be applied to every aspect of that ignorance itself. In this way, the solution will come directly out of our problems. A famous Buddhist text by the ancient Indian philosopher Vasubandhu, the Abhidharmakosha (“The Treasury of Manifest Dharma”), says that if you practice using remedies for small problems, then eventually you will chip away at your biggest problem, ignorance itself.

Thus, the strongest confusion can be cured by the simplest meditation. For example, you can decrease sexual desire by meditating on dead bodies. Yet, the most subtle confusion can only be solved by the most profound wisdom. For example, it takes the Diamond Samadhi, the final level of meditative absorption before enlightenment, to end the tiny obscuration that remains at the end of the Buddhist path.

Following this precept means that you yourself should not be satisfied with shallow thinking and that you should encourage others to judge deeply as well.

4. Depend on wisdom and not concepts

I will be very brief here. This final maxim is the most profound, but we can say very little about it.

It is mainly intended for serious meditators. Gaining wisdom means realizing the nature of mind. To do this, you cannot rely on dualistic consciousness; you will go through to the non-dualistic mind, which we call wisdom. Meditators depend on the non-dualistic mind and not on the normal dualistic mind. They know that language, logic and reason are limited and cannot give access to ultimate reality, so they do not put much stock in these.

Depend not on dualistic mind, which is illusion, this maxim says, but on non-dualistic mind. Go underneath, don’t follow illusion as usual. Please do not forget that no matter how impressive or convincing our thoughts are, that ultimate reality is beyond their reach.

Conclusion

So these are the four Ways of the Wise. Is it a sign of a decadent age that most people today behave in a way opposite to these precepts? They pile up one mistake on top of another without respite. People mislead themselves and then one misleads another who in turn passes on wrong thinking to yet others, creating an endless chain of error. Please, don’t let yourself get caught in this chain. Rely on these four maxims, and you will cut through the bonds of illusion just as the great bodhisattva Manjushri, who has realized the perfection of wisdom, cuts through conceptual thought with his sword of wisdom.