Wisdom: Religion with no “use value”
We are used to thinking of religion as a system of beliefs in the right things—as discrimination between wrong beliefs and right beliefs. By definition, religions have “content,” that is they are full of ideas about right and wrong. Thus, in that sense, religions are ideologies—structures of beliefs that perpetuate those ideas about what is right in a formal and forceful ways. Suppose, though, that wisdom is entirely different, it has no set of beliefs as such. It is not an ideology, but a way of life. However, one could not say that it has no faith—it has an abundance of it—but not faith in the “right things” or “right beliefs,” but trust in the everflowing providence of the divine Mind.
Wisdom, therefore, is “useless” – that is, it is of no use to the egoic mind. Put to use by the egoic mind, it becomes just another system, an ideology, an orthodoxy of right belief. Instead, wisdom is religion with deep trust but no “use-value.” This may appear difficult to understand, but imagine it this way: People divide experience into my religion, my church, my beliefs against other groups, people, churches and religions which stand in contrast. As John Keenan has said, “There is poison, however, in enclosing oneself in the court of one’s own opinions,” because the confines are too narrow and little can come in from the outside. A person’s thinking filters experience, the world, and religion in the service of the narrow confines of the self. As a way of life that is discovered as it is lived, wisdom, therefore, does not depend upon strict beliefs, but upon practice as it is worked out (and discovered through practice) in daily life.
In that context, wisdom is also compassionate living which does not enclose one either within the narrow framework of personal or religious ideas nor within discriminative boundaries apart from others. Again, Keenan has observed, that nondiscriminative wisdom is not judging this or that, nor even thinking about this or that. Instead, it abides in the silence of an awakened heart. It is not self-enclosed, therefore, within the thoughts or opinions of a person who insists on trying to cling to the right set of beliefs, correct perspective, exclusion from others, or on being in control—because this form of thinking disallows receiving the gift of wisdom.
Both eastern and western wisdom traditions, including the wisdom of Yeshua, place great trust, not on right-belief, but in standing open before the living presence of the divine Reality whose flow through the universe is always a dynamic, changing reality—ever fresh and ever new.
--Quotation from John P. Keenan’s The Wisdom of James: Parallels with Mahayana Buddhism, NY: The Newman Press, 2005.
Wisdom, therefore, is “useless” – that is, it is of no use to the egoic mind. Put to use by the egoic mind, it becomes just another system, an ideology, an orthodoxy of right belief. Instead, wisdom is religion with deep trust but no “use-value.” This may appear difficult to understand, but imagine it this way: People divide experience into my religion, my church, my beliefs against other groups, people, churches and religions which stand in contrast. As John Keenan has said, “There is poison, however, in enclosing oneself in the court of one’s own opinions,” because the confines are too narrow and little can come in from the outside. A person’s thinking filters experience, the world, and religion in the service of the narrow confines of the self. As a way of life that is discovered as it is lived, wisdom, therefore, does not depend upon strict beliefs, but upon practice as it is worked out (and discovered through practice) in daily life.
In that context, wisdom is also compassionate living which does not enclose one either within the narrow framework of personal or religious ideas nor within discriminative boundaries apart from others. Again, Keenan has observed, that nondiscriminative wisdom is not judging this or that, nor even thinking about this or that. Instead, it abides in the silence of an awakened heart. It is not self-enclosed, therefore, within the thoughts or opinions of a person who insists on trying to cling to the right set of beliefs, correct perspective, exclusion from others, or on being in control—because this form of thinking disallows receiving the gift of wisdom.
Both eastern and western wisdom traditions, including the wisdom of Yeshua, place great trust, not on right-belief, but in standing open before the living presence of the divine Reality whose flow through the universe is always a dynamic, changing reality—ever fresh and ever new.
--Quotation from John P. Keenan’s The Wisdom of James: Parallels with Mahayana Buddhism, NY: The Newman Press, 2005.
posted by Lynn Bauman at 6:34 AM
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