The Wisdom of Compassion

You do not question or worry about your wisdom. You just do whatever is required. The situation you are facing is itself profound enough to be regarded as knowledge. You do not need secondary resources of information. You do not need reinforcement or guidelines for action. Reinforcement must be conducted in a tough manner, you must do it because the situation demands your response. You do not impose toughness; you are an instrument of the situation.

Chogyam Trungpa:

The Open Way,

Cutting Through

Spiritual Materialism, p. 107

۞

I have more than a few shelves of books devoted to spiritual knowledge or attainment; however, I always suspected that wisdom never arose from the dusty tomes arranged in those stacks. There are just too many examples in my life of those who have never picked up anything more profound than the morning newspaper but conduct their lives in a life as meaningful as it is wise. Anyone who doubts the wisdom of a farmer; rising every morning under any and all conditions, tending to the land allotted to him for his family and community’s sake, is a fool if he spends his time huddled around the greatest teachers without learning a thing about truly living. To foster respect and understanding for all who labor; taking pride in hard work; going to bed with aching muscles and sore back; sitting all night on the graveyard shift at a cab stand; a soldier standing watch at a lonely post in some far away country; a clerk at a desk at a miserable job but still perform at their best in order to feed a family; mothers and fathers all, giving their lives to nursing and nurturing their  children: they are as wise or wiser than any scholar cramming a head full of knowledge without the wisdom of compassion. If I am to learn anything of value in this life it is to learn how to love and, in doing so, to love well. Any mother who has held a child to her breast knows more about love than I ever will.

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