The Three Buddhist Trainings: Wisdom 3/3

The third and final installment of my short lecture series introducing the three trainings of Buddhism. Wisdom (or insight) is the path of awakening which the Buddha taught that could bring lasting transformation to our consciousness and understanding in this world. While it is supposedly practiced by many, it is often made complicated when. in fact, is very simple!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the third and final part of this three-part short lecture series on the three trainings of Buddhism,

Which in a certain sense provide the framework for the entire path as a whole.

As I did not want to make this a two or three hour long lecture on the three of them,

I have tried my best to keep it short and to the point,

As well as split it into three parts.

I'm Silas Day,

And thank you for joining me.

I should also remind you that this talk is just a little general overview of the training in wisdom,

And that it is far deeper than what I will present here.

So,

If you get a little lost or don't know a term,

Don't worry.

I'm producing a 30-day course which covers the whole of the third training,

As well as starting to work on a course which covers the second training of concentration in a much greater depth.

Giving both of these things,

I think,

Their full due.

Of the three trainings,

The third,

In my opinion,

Is the path least walked,

And the one which requires the highest degree of humility.

It is the path least walked,

Not due to lack of trying,

But a lack of understanding,

An overestimation of ability,

And oftentimes a less than pragmatic view of meditation.

The third training is called wisdom,

Or sometimes referred to as the path of insight.

It taps not into your average,

Everyday wisdom,

But reaches into the core of the nature of our existence.

It is more than surface-level wisdom,

But fundamental,

Ultimate,

And truly felt insight into the axiomatic underpinnings of this current moment.

Some may think my use of the word ultimate to be a little uncomfortable,

Or even kitschy,

But I stand by it.

The discoveries and ideas made through this training have been examined,

Re-examined,

And practiced by countless tens of thousands of practitioners,

And has thousands of fairly pragmatic texts written on it over the past 2500 years,

Which I'm sure you know.

In this,

And due to my own experience in the practice of insight,

I feel like the wisdom,

Understanding,

And view gained through this training,

Though not always easy to explain,

Holds great merit.

So while we take a look at this training,

Realize it comes not just from my mind and practice,

But the entire lineage of meditators going back to the Buddha.

So if any of this sounds familiar,

Meditators around the world have literally been talking about it since the Buddha,

If not before him as well.

The whole trick and practice of training in insight is to have the focus to rapidly understand specific aspects,

Sensations,

Qualities,

And arisings which generate our present experience of reality.

Training in insight or wisdom,

From this point I will kind of use the two interchangeably,

Is really working at the pure base of sensate experience,

Taking a direct and pragmatic long view of the things that arise,

Where they come from,

And watch them go.

It forces us into improving how we fundamentally perceive and interact with our bare reality both on the cushion and off of it.

One of the main ways that wisdom training teaches us to hone our view again and again is through what is called the three fundamental insight doors,

Or the three doors of perception.

These are no self,

Suffering,

And impermanence,

Which I am sure these three ideas sound familiar if you have ever picked up a text on Buddhism,

But they are a much more complicated part of insight that we will discuss at a later point.

So as we continue to train in insight,

The clarity which comes from that bare sensate understanding and perception of reality can be felt and immediately seen not only on the cushion,

But carried into our everyday lives,

Which,

As opposed to concentration,

Makes it unreasonably more valuable,

Yet all the more difficult to get to.

It is as if our clarity and understanding into and of the moment increases from a baseline of zero to one,

Or depending on degree of path attainment,

Which is a whole other thing entirely.

The clarity that is brought through this training,

I think,

Can be incredibly helpful to those with their wits about them,

And a good measure of humility.

But it can also cause problems of claiming things which aren't true for those who feel that they have gotten something much farther down the path than where they actually are.

It is truly astounding that those who have spent the time to carefully observe this ordinary everyday experience and investigate it thoroughly all tell us,

No matter really the tradition,

That there is something spectacular about it.

We only need to recognize it all the way down to our bones and realize that just this experience of now holds all the awakening that there ever was,

Is,

And will be.

More than anything,

When it comes to training and wisdom,

I believe you can read a thousand old books from long gone masters.

You can listen to a million podcasts and lectures on it.

You can talk to living masters of these traditions and do all sorts of things.

But at the end of the day,

You are the one that needs to conduct the experiment.

Until it is felt and experienced and known within yourself,

It will only be a half-truth tainted by the poison of the personally unknown.

If you are wanting to push off from the shore in your own boat and get into the waters of insight training,

There are a couple things we should consider.

First is a measure of acceptance.

An acceptance that there are things which we perhaps can neither articulate or understand in any ordinary way.

It is an acceptance that we are limited by our faculties of expression and ordinary understanding as human beings.

That these states of consciousness and alterations to being go beyond even those which can be attained in concentration states of meditation.

Again,

While the states of concentration can be marvelous and incredibly useful,

They are as temporary as your meditation is,

While the deep-seated changes in insight training are permanent once we get to a certain point.

The next thing to know is that training in insight is a lot like jumping off a bridge.

Once you finally take the leap and get to a certain point in the falling,

There is no stopping you from hitting the water and turning around and catching the bridge.

More specifically,

There are practices that you can train in which will lead you to this radical understanding as long as you simply take the time to actually engage with them.

If you actually sit down and practice these specific styles of meditation,

No matter how you choose to riff on them or label them,

You can have success in them.

Are you ready?

Here it goes.

To gain this understanding in your insight practices,

In the wisdom training,

You must,

Must stay on the sensate level.

The level of actual sensations which make up this very moment.

Here and now.

That's it.

It's kind of a joke,

Isn't it?

This is what the Buddha taught.

If you really want to train in insight,

You can imagine all the holy bodhisattvas and buddhas,

Or I mean whatever turns your crank,

But until you actually put in serious practice strictly at the sensate level,

It will mostly be smoke and mirrors or creations of your own mind which come about.

Doing this,

Working just with sensate experience,

With the understanding that you must make a practice of abandoning both the average perception of the world and the altered states of concentration,

No matter how fun or joyous either may be.

My teacher has told me that here and had to tell me again and again to quit intellectualizing my practice and just quote,

Proceed from the premise that the teachings on wisdom point to universal truths that can be perceived in all types of experiences without exception,

Except that if we can simply know our sensate experience clearly enough,

We will arrive at fundamental wisdom,

End quote.

I sometimes chuckle at how long it took me to understand that and how even to this day,

I find myself slipping back into old habits while trying to do insight practice,

Wanting to intellectualize the whole nature of my experience instead of working with the base sensate world.

Of the three trainings,

Insight practice is the most specific theory and form.

While morality may be incredibly wide-lensed and all-encompassing,

And while concentration can have many styles but is far less wide than morality,

Wisdom training is almost single-pointed in its efforts.

The third training of insight is about setting aside all other ideas,

Understandings,

Perceived notions,

And qualities which you bring to the practice,

And instead rooting your attention to the six sense doors,

The eyes,

Ears,

Nose,

Taste,

Touch,

And mind,

And their true nature.

You are focusing on them not as you did in concentration but investigatively.

Not one stream of concentration,

But watching as sensations from these six sense doors arise and vanish,

Arise and vanish,

Arise and vanish,

Coming from no true original place and going to nowhere.

When seeking out traditions and practices to aid in the third training,

I advise great caution.

Search for a system which has had its metal tested time and time again.

No matter what it is,

Though,

Make sure that it seems to lead to consistently profound realizations into the nature of reality through the normal people who practice it.

Not the leaders or the clergy,

But the normal people.

It is even better if you take the time to dip your toe into the waters of whatever tradition you are practicing with to see if they are strong internally as they seem to be externally.

Training in wisdom can seem incredibly complex and intellectual.

It can seem to have all of these facets and aspects that you must master to make any progress.

It can seem like something you will never be able to get a somewhat complete picture of.

Let me tell you this now.

Anyone who is telling you that insight training is complex is only telling you a half-truth,

Or worse,

Is telling you a half-lie.

While complexity and nuance exists within the third training,

Especially,

I mean,

Much has been written on it,

Thousands of pages,

Which I will get to when I produce a proper course on it,

At its core it couldn't get any more simple.

You have six sense doors.

Sensations arise and vanish from them.

Notice this for every sensation.

Rinse,

Wash,

Repeat.

This is all there is.

Yet somehow people make them much more complex than they need to be.

We like to add flowery words and concepts to it,

Especially when it's that bare-bones.

I know I have been guilty of doing so not only in my own practice,

But when I first began to teach.

Just like this.

And notice just this for all there is.

That's it.

Your own immediate,

Sensate reality holds the key to everything in the third training.

This is one of the things great teachers like Dogen means when he says,

Awakening is found right at your feet.

No matter how flashy or mystic some book you may be reading,

Or some teaching you may be hearing on insight practice is,

This is just it.

No matter what arises from any of the sensations,

Be it normal,

Abnormal,

Or hallucinatory,

Just notice it without applying anything to it,

And watch it arise and vanish.

Just as with concentration practices and morality,

The more time and effort that you work to developing it,

The greater the dividends it will pay back to you.

These simple instructions can easily seem overwhelming,

Vague,

Or trivial to many people.

In fact,

One person mocked me for teaching that gaining insight into the nature of reality was so simple,

Yet it astounds me how quickly people can fall off this simplicity,

And how far some can miss the mark when the target is in arm's reach.

This is the basics of the third training.

Far more is to be said at another time on it,

But a brief note of caution before I go concerning this.

Don't get caught up in the quest for ultimate wisdom,

Which transcends all other things.

Don't forget that everyday life,

Morality,

And concentration on other aspects of your existence is important.

Sometimes people get swept up in the world of spirituality and forget themselves and their common sense.

They imagine that by gaining these things they may be transcending morality and this normal world,

When it is in fact this normal world which holds what they are searching for.

They can get pretty weird and out there,

Believe me,

Have met a couple.

Try not to become one of those people.

Awaken to the actual truth of a life well lived.

Wake up to a life you want to wake up to,

With all of its bells,

Whistles,

Shortcomings,

And conventional aspects.

In summary,

By seeing deeply into the truth of our own experience,

Profound and beneficial transformations of consciousness are entirely possible.

You guessed it.

I'm talking about awakening and nirvana,

The unconditioned and all that jazz,

But that's a topic for another time.

I'm Silas Day and I hope you enjoyed my little three-part series briefly going over the three trainings.

If you enjoyed this content,

Please say so by leaving a review.

Also,

If you enjoyed this content,

I have courses here on Insight Timer and will be having more courses up on my website,

Silasday.

Com,

Soon.

Thanks for listening and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

These three talks have helped to further develop my practice. Thank you.

Any new talks coming up? You do great in inspiring and helping!

Thanks Silas, a very good overview. Look forward to learning more.

So simple, yet so complex … 🙏

Thank you, Silas. I have followed your meditations and teachings over a few years and I look forward to your upcoming courses.

Silas is a master of explaining :)

Great...!!!Very clear and declutters some of the very complex writings on this topic! You have a way of explaining concepts that makes them easy to understand!

Excellent, thank you, Silas.

Silas, this was wonderful. I love the manner in which you present your lessons. You speak with great clarity and conviction. Yet there a lightness and even jocularity at times which is lovely. I am grateful for your work and the sharing of your knowledge. Thank you. I truly look forward to listening to all your lessons.

Seems, I have a lot to learn. I enjoy your lessons, they make sense.
Thank you so much.

Great short courses, Silas. Looking forward to the courses you mention. Thank you.
I am
Gosh, I am glad you are feeling better. May you have a happy and healthy holiday season.

the complete key! live the moment, recibe and realese, and enjoy de life with u others and each moment, with our magic touch!! 😘

Again another very informative and interesting talk. When do you plan releasing your next 30 day course on insight timer? I have done your other two and love your teaching.

Thank you...profound concepts presented simply..terrific

Thoroughly enjoyed and feeling so included,thank you sweet sibling soul!
Love,light and blessed be..
Namaste
🙏⭕🙏