Understanding and Wisdom

Ajahn Chah

1. No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding.
2. A clever person watches others, but he watches with wisdom, not with ignorance. If one watches with wisdom, one can learn much. But if one watches with ignorance, one can only find faults.
3. The real problem with people nowadays is that they know but still don't do. It is another matter if they don't do because they don't know, but if they already know and still don't do, what's the problem?
4. When we know the truth, we become people who don't have to think much, we become people with wisdom. If we don't know, we have more thinking than wisdom or no wisdom at all. A lot of thinking without wisdom is extreme suffering.
5. These days people don't search for the Truth. People study simply in order find the knowledge necessary to make a living, raise their families and look after themselves, that's all. To them being smart is more important than being wise.
6. If you see things with real insight, then there is no stickiness in your relationship to them. They come - pleasant and unpleasant - you see them and there is no attachment. They come and they pass. If the worst kinds of defilement come up, such as greed or anger, there's enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to just fade away. If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn't wisdom. You're only creating more suffering for yourself.

... Ajahn Chah