Cultivating Wisdom (Dogen’s Eight Awarenesses of Great Beings)

The Buddha said, “If you have wisdom, you are free from greed. You will always reflect on yourself and avoid making mistakes. Thus, you will attain liberation in the Dharma.” Wisdom is listening, contemplating, practicing, and having realization. Cultivating wisdom brings us to a place of ease, of pacifying suffering. The essence of cultivating wisdom is letting off of the ego, or the idea that there is a “me” that is separate from “you.” It is not something we get — it arises very naturally from our practice. We all have exactly what we need right now to allow the clarity of wisdom to shine. When we LISTEN deeply—to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha--contemplate, and then integrate what we hear, we begin to see clearly, not using our physical eyes, but allowing ourselves to be illuminated with wisdom. This Dharma talk is the seventh in a series of talks on Dogen Zenji’s Eight Awarenesses of Great Beings.