My teachings of wisdom are built upon the original psychological teachings of the Buddha, otherwise known as eastern psychology. I have been a Buddhist practitioner since I was 17 years old and my practice became a habit of second nature and who I am to this day. Feel free to put the teachings on this page to practice with yourself if you seek the benefits of the wisdom.
Let's start with the definition of the term "Wisdom"
Wisdom (noun) - the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.
You must know that: Knowledge is only knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge with experience. In order to attain wisdom, you must put knowledge into practice.
The first thing that you should do before you begin to learn the teachings is consider the following quote from the Buddha:
"Do not listen to what anybody says, including me, if it doesn’t agree with your own common sense."
As you study the teachings, keep this knowledge in mind.
1. “We know what we can observe. We do not know what we cannot observe. The ability to distinguish between the two defines clarity.”
It is better to know that we don't know something instead of believing in an answer that we have no evidence for. For example, it is better to know that we don't know the answer to the question, "What came first? The chicken or the egg?" then it is to believe in one of the options. The ability to distinguish between that which we know and that which we do not know helps us think more clearly and logically about our understandings of the world.
2. "We are capable of changing our habits of thought and behavior. We can do so by paying attention to ourselves and making the conscious decision to form a new habit."
We can change our bad habits of our thinking, speech, and actions by making a conscious decision to form a new habit. If we begin to observe ourselves and identify our behavioral patterns, then we can make the decision to interrupt ourselves when negative behaviors arise and start practicing a new habit that is more beneficial.
3. "What we believe about ourselves will become true. If we want to improve ourselves, we can adjust our beliefs to our advantage."
One example of negative beliefs that we can have about ourselves is self-doubt. If we believe that we are not capable of doing something, then we are more likely to fail at doing it. On the contrary, if we change our beliefs to ones of self-motivation and empowerment, then we are more likely to succeed. The beliefs we hold about ourselves are important because they can have a true impact on who we become.
4. "Focusing on ourselves is freedom from jealousy."
There is no need to compare our fortunes to the fortunes of others. There are no benefits to being jealous and jealousy can lead to feelings of hatred and even bad intentions towards others. The truth of the matter is we are always only going to live our own lives and we can use our energy more wisely by focusing on ourselves.
5. "We can return to nature if we pay attention to our 5 senses over dwelling in the mind."
We have 5 senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. In any moment of time, we can pause ourselves and return our focus to experiencing our reality through the 5 senses given to us by nature. This is a useful technique to regain our peace of mind if we catch ourselves dwelling with negativity and to become aware of the present moment. The more often we return to our 5 senses, the more it will become a habit and easier to do. If we want to increase our conscious awareness of our senses, we can choose one sense to focus on for the day and rotate the senses through the week for practice.
6. "Tranquility is speaking to all others on the same level."
We may have many reasons to believe we are better or more important than others, but we do not have to feel this way. If we feel like we are better than others, then we are not being a better person. The desire to feel better than others is malicious, whereas feeling like you're on the same level as others is a display of humanity, benevolence, and greater intelligence. At the end of the day, we are all just human beings. To be able to see this truth is freedom from many negative feelings we can hold for others or hold for ourselves because of others. If we practice compassion towards ourselves and others, we will begin to experience this feeling of tranquility.
7. "Every person is unique and has a unique understanding of the world and interpretation of it."
Oftentimes, we may try to understand others based on our own experience; however, we cannot understand others unless we understand the uniqueness of every individual's experience. If we wish to understand others better, we can become aware of the fact that each person has had their own life experience which has led to their own understandings about the world. It is also important to note that we are all capable of various interpretations of the same things.
8. "Bias is ignorance in the lightest sense. We can alleviate our ignorance by considering a viewpoint that encompasses all possibilities."
The lightest sense of bias is ignorance. If we have a predetermined rejection of an opposing viewpoint, it will only serve to hinder a greater understanding and prevent us from seeing the larger picture. If we want to form more educated opinions, we should approach a topic with objectivity. The more knowledge that we attain, the greater the number of new ideas that we can form. Sometimes, we will be able to find new solutions to a problem if we consider different sides of an argument. Our view of the larger picture should encompass all the possibilities.
9. "The best emotional support comes from ourselves. We can be our own cheerleaders."
In contrast to putting ourselves down, we can cheer ourselves up. We don't have to rely on emotional support from others if we choose to be our own cheerleader. If we begin to practice cheering ourselves up, motivating ourselves, congratulating ourselves on our accomplishments, and telling ourselves good things, then we can form a good habit.
10. "Our minds work based on what we pay attention to."
What we pay attention to creates our current state of mind. The feelings we experience are based on the emotions we have towards what we pay attention to. We can change the way we want to view things for our benefit. If we wish to have more positive feelings towards something we dislike, we can adjust our perceptions to trigger more positive emotions when we think of it. If something triggers negative feelings within us and we can't change it, we can always pay attention to something else. For example, if we are depressed, we can make a conscious decision to pay attention to something else that makes us happy.
11. "If we step back to think before we act, we can act with our intelligence instead of acting on our emotions."
Oftentimes, people act irrationally when overcome by emotions in an unexpected situation. We can avoid chaotic feelings, actions, and consequences if we take a moment to view our current situation from an objective viewpoint and think before we respond. By taking a moment to think before we act, we can adjust ourselves to the present situation and adjust our responses accordingly to best resolve the current problem. When emotionally-heated situations arise, we can often calm the situation with our speech. For example, when someone is angry with us or says something rude to us out of anger, we can step back to take a moment to feel our emotional reaction and letting it pass before we choose how to respond in the best way.
12. "Be happy for others."
Being happy for others is important for feeling good about ourselves. Instead of being jealous, which can lead to bad intentions towards others, we can practice being joyful at the sight of another person's success. Being happy for others leads to positive behavior towards others and it leads to more positivity in the world. If we are happy for others, it also shows that we are happy about ourselves. Being happy for others is a good habit.
13. "The more knowledge that we attain, the more new ideas that we can come up with."
The more knowledge we learn, the more ideas we have in our minds that we can connect together to reach new conclusions or even new ideas. If we seek a greater understanding, it is important to look at the larger picture. The more knowledge we attain, the more we see of the larger picture of the greater whole. We can often find new solutions to problems if we consider the opposing viewpoints. To form a more educated opinion, we must seek more knowledge. If we are capable of entertaining a thought without accepting it, then we can entertain other perspectives or opinions without being afraid to believe it ourselves.
14. "Don't take criticism to the heart."
Oftentimes, people will criticize another's work without being able to do better themselves. It is advisable to not listen to those people. When it comes to art, everybody deserves to feel like they're the best at what they do. It only helps the art. When it comes to non-artistic skills, it is important to know what we did wrong if we made a mistake and learn. However, we should never let criticism hurt our value and self-worth because it won't be helpful for developing our skills.
15. "Don't believe in something just because of it's establishment or you might become just as foolish as your predecessors."
This follows the Buddha's quote, "Don't listen to what anybody says, including me, if it doesn't agree with your own common sense." We should always be wary of the indoctrination in our educational systems and remain cautious of believing in anything without serious consideration. Oftentimes, people just cram knowledge and apply that crammed knowledge all the way to their PhD degree without giving serious consideration to the validity of the information presented to them in the course of their education. For many people, the establishment of an industry or the presence of information in a college textbook alone is enough for them to believe in it. When it comes to comprehending knowledge, we must always strive to think for ourselves.
16. "We must feel our emotions to release them."
If we want to relieve tension within ourselves and to release our emotions, we must be able to feel them thoroughly. We can allow ourselves to feel our emotional suffering and let it burn until it seasons within us. This is a method for overcoming and releasing emotions and fear of experiencing those emotions. With enough practice, we can use this skill to develop the ability to transform our emotions which can prove to be useful in many ways such as how we react to unexpected situations and calming down a heated argument with ourselves and the other party as well.
17. "Pay attention to your intentions."
Having awareness of our intentions allows us to catch ourselves before we take an emotionally-charged action and to make a conscious decision about the intentions we wish to have. We can choose how we want to conduct ourselves by changing the root to our behaviors: our intentions. This form of awareness is very useful for understanding ourselves, others, and for gaining an understanding of the overview of a situation by improving our ability to analyze our own perception as well as the perception of others.
18. "The moment we believe that we are smart, we are giving away our power to continuously analyze with scrutiny."
The moment we believe that we are smart and know something with absolute certainty, we invite possible foolishness. While there are some things that we can know with absolute certainty, many things that are not facts are foolishly believed due to overlooking. We must always invite other perspectives to our consideration, search for questions that could be asked, and continuously analyze knowledge with scrutiny; otherwise, we might become just as dumb as our predecessors.
19. "Words and labels of identity carry emotional attachments whose feelings are based on how we define the word or label or what we think of it."
When we think of words such as the labels of identity that we have for ourselves, we associate a feeling with that word. For example, you can think you're a "white person" or a "black person" if you think that about yourself or if others identify you using those labels. People can make you feel good or bad for possessing those labels of identity. It is important to acquire the conscious awareness to recognize words and labels of identity in order to be able to transform the feelings that come with them by adjusting our beliefs pertaining to the words or labels of identity that we use for ourselves, or we can choose to identify as something else that we can also identify with in order to stimulate the feelings associated with those words or labels of identity.
20. "We can go on a personal spiritual journey to decide how we want to conduct ourselves for the rest of our lives."
When I was 17 years old, I went on a spiritual journey. I asked myself the question of "how do I want to conduct myself for the rest of my life?" and began considering how I want to transform myself. A technique to the transformation of self is asking ourselves "who am I?" as many times as we need until we decide.
21. "Words
make you feel based on your current understanding of what that word
means to you based on what you have been exposed to in your reality."
Your
reactions are registered into your subconscious. You can select option
to choose possible reaction adjustment for future exposures of triggers
to this current reaction and register that as well. Habit forming
through selective programming in the mind is known as Neuro-linguistic
programming which I have achieved subconsciously after acquiring the
intention to program my mind and registering it subconsciously.
This page will be continuously updated with more teachings by Nir Hazon....
© 2021 Hazon, Nir
