The Light of Wisdom

Wednesday night, my Mom and I were at a Buddhist temple for Jacob Cooks Eagle Scout Board of Review. We got there early, so I picked up a pamphlet or two to learn a little bit about Buddhism and to pass the time. One of the pamphlets I picked up was about Buddhist symbols, including Buddha statues, beads, and incense. It was very informative. But the part of the pamphlet I liked best was the part that talked about candles:

Candlelight is a symbol of wisdom. In our physical world, we see things through the medium of light. If there was no light, this world of ours would be so dark that we could not see anything. In trying to get around, we would stumble and run into many objects. Spiritually, without the light of wisdom,we would stumble and bump into many obstacles in life. 

Wisdom is very important in Buddhism and is different from knowledge. Knowledge is something acquired from external sources, such as read, listening to lectures, etc., but wisdom cannot be acquired externally. Wisdom must come from within a person's own life. Wisdom is realized only through direct and immediate personal experience. 

It is through being a sincere truth seeker that one's eye of wisdom can be opened. The word "Buddha" means the "awakened" one. The Buddha woke up to the truth of life and lived accordingly. The ordinary person goes through life spiritually asleep. True religiosity is not a search for light; light is all around us but our eyes are closed! Enlightenment is to "wake up" and see the light that has been shining all the time.

I really liked this message because so much of it rang true to me. If we don't follow spiritually light, if our eyes or hearts are closed to it, then we end up stumbling. Actually, life is difficult enough that we might stumble anyway, but when we follow the light, we don't stumble as much.

I also like what the pamphlet said about knowledge and wisdom - that knowledge can be gained externally, but wisdom must come from within. I think I agree with that for the most part, but what the pamphlet fails to mention about wisdom is that it requires knowledge as a base. Say there are two doors that look exactly the same. You know that behind one door is a very nice person who will give you ice cream, and behind the other door there is a very angry person who will cut your head off. Without the knowledge of which person is behind which door, you can't make a wise decision about which door to open (Unless, of course, you decide not to open either door. A 50% chance of getting ice cream isn't worth a 50% chance of getting killed. But you needed to know that there was a killer behind one of the doors in order to make that judgement, so again, knowledge was a prerequisite for wisdom).

The pamphlet probably didn't include all of that partly because of space, so I can't fault them for that. But I can compliment them on how much good stuff they did fit into those paragraphs. I find it striking that even though much of our doctrine is different, many of our core beliefs are the same. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we believe that one of the main purposes of this mortal experience is to gain wisdom and experience, so the emphasis that Buddhism places on gaining enlightenment, or advance wisdom, makes a lot of sense to me. And like they said, the light is all around us. We just need to open our eyes to see it, and then to put our feet on the right path and follow it.

I'm grateful for a God who loves all His children, and who shares gems of light and truth with everyone. I'm grateful for the guidance that I've been given, and I hope that I'll be able to gain more wisdom and knowledge as my life progresses. I want to be more enlightened.