❖ “Do we need spiritual goals in life? If so, how can we avoid becoming attached to them?” ❖
~ Response by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
We endeavor and aspire to do everything with intelligence, with wisdom. We already have some paññā, some intelligence and wisdom, and so we endeavor to do everything with wisdom rather than with defilement and desire.
We can call this our spiritual goal – to do everything with intelligence and wisdom. This means everything we do, everything that wisdom tells us we must do, we do that with wisdom. And things that wisdom says we shouldn’t do, we don’t do. What we do, we do only with wisdom rather than with desire and defilement.
When we speak of paññā – right understanding, wisdom, intelligence – we mean something that is already free of attachment, because paññā is essentially the understanding that there’s nothing which can be clung to as ‘me’ or ‘mine.’ When there’s clear understanding of the fact of anattā (not-self), then there’s no possibility of desire, attachment, and the defilements interfering with what we’re doing or with this goal.
So if we have genuine wisdom then there’s no problem.
In some languages there’s a word for wisdom which is correct, and there’s also a word for a kind of twisted, crooked, deceptive, or deceitful kind of understanding or intelligence. In English we might distinguish between intelligence and cleverness or craftiness, for example the kind that’s used by psychologists who make the advertising on TV. You can call that intelligence, but it’s a crooked, dishonest kind of intelligence used to deceive people.
And so in the same way we need to distinguish between genuine wisdom and false, crooked wisdom. If what we do is with genuine wisdom, then there’s no problem. We just investigate, just use that wisdom to continually investigate and examine everything we do.
(From the retreat “Why Dhamma?” as translated from the Thai by Santikaro)
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Dhamma Questions & Responses sessions were offered by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu in 1990-1991 to foreign meditators attending Suan Mokkh International Dharma Hermitage courses.
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To listen to this teaching on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/buddhadasa/19910510-4-dhamma-questions-and-responses
For all English retreat talks by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu:
https://soundcloud.com/buddhadasa/
For more information and free ebooks, visit Suan Mokkh – The Garden of Liberation:
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Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives C03766
25th November, 2022
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