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On Study and Practice: “If you practice, but don't study, it is blind. If you study, but don't practice, it is sterile.” – Buddhist Tien Tai Master Zhi Yi

You must integrate gnosis and praxis - knowledge and practice to bring about wisdom.

| frame | [[Mañjushri, embodiment of all the buddhas' wisdom]] Wisdom translates two different Sanskrit and Tibetan terms:

1. (Skt. prajñā; Tib. ཤེས་རབ་, sherab; Wyl. shes rab), the sixth of the six paramitas, defined as the precise discernment of all things and events. <br>
2. (Skt. jñāna; Tib. ཡེ་ཤེས་, yeshe; Wyl. ye shes), which is sometimes translated as primordial wisdom. One of the two accumulations.

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche says:

:“Sherab consists of the syllable ཤེས་ shé, which means ‘knowing’ and རབ་ rab which means ‘excellent’ or ‘best’. So it is the best knowledge, the best form of knowing. It is knowing correctly, clearly and fully.”

Patrul Rinpoche says:

:“Wisdom is identified as the recognition during the formal meditation session that all phenomena are empty, and the knowledge during the post-meditation phase that all phenomena are unreal, like a magical illusion or a dream.”

Chökyi Drakpa says:

:“Through the wisdom that comes from hearing, you are able to recognize the disturbing emotions. Then, through the wisdom that comes from reflection, you are able to overcome the disturbing emotions temporarily. And finally, through the wisdom that comes through meditation, you conquer completely the enemy of negative emotions and obtain the confidence of knowing inexpressible and inconceivable reality with the wisdom of discriminating awareness.”

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche says:

:“In the word ཡེ་ཤེས་, yeshe, ཡེ་, yé is short for ཡེ་ནས་, yé né, which means ‘right from the beginning’ or ‘primordially’. Some people translate it as ‘pristine’ or 'pure', meaning that it is untouched and unstained, and has been there all the time. It is the way it always was. So yeshe is discovered with ཤེས་རབ་, sherab. Yeshe is understood by sherab, or approached by sherab.”

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche says:

:“The difference between sherab and yeshe is very subtle and slight. But I think we can say that yeshe is the most natural state of our awareness or consciousness, which is unstained, uncontrived and completely ordinary. It is there all the time, but we don’t recognize it. It is sherab that brings about the recognition, but of course they are not two separate things.”

Thinley Norbu writes: :“The Tibetan words sherab and yeshe appear again and again in [the teachings] because they are connected with enlightenment. It is important to give an explanation of these words because of the tendency to materialize and separate them, which is incompatible with the meaning of Dharma, which is to make noncontradiction.”

• Incisive wisdom (Light of Berotsana)
• Analytical appreciative understanding (Herbert V. Guenther)
• Intuition (Murti)

• see primordial wisdom article

• Teachings on ''Prajna - Perceiving the True Nature of Reality'' by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Bengaluru, India, 2020

• Dominique Side, Prajna online, 2 September 2021

• Thinley Norbu, A Cascading Waterfall of Nectar (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2006), pages 158-161.

Category of Buddhist Key Terms Category of Paramitas

Snippet from Wikipedia: Wisdom

Wisdom, also known as sapience, is defined by psychologists as a combination of "wit and virtue," the ability to apply expert tacit and experiential knowledge, balancing intrapersonal, interpersonal and institutional interests, to deal with complex questions of life and attain a common good. Wisdom can be viewed as a stable personality trait, but also as context-bound process, meaning that a person in some contexts behaves wisely, but in other contexts does not. Wisdom can also be viewed as influenced and determined by sociocultural norms and traditions. And wisdom can be viewed solely as wise behaviour, describing actions which lead to "an altruistic outcome by creatively and successfully solving problems."

Throughout history, wisdom has been regarded as a key virtue in religion and philosophy. Religiously, wisdom is an important element in the Biblical wisdom-tradition - often contrasting human knowledge with divine omniscience - which was further developed in Christianity and Islam. In Mahayana Buddhism, prajna (insight, "wisdom") is wedded to karuṇā, compassion, as icographically represented in yab-yum. Philosophically, wisdom has been explored by thinkers from Ancient Greece to modern times, with Greek (Plato) making a distinction between sophia, philosophical and contemplative wisdom regarding the divine order of existence; phronesis, practical wisdom; and episteme, formal or scientific knowledge.

Psychologists have researched wisdom since the late 1970s, starting with exploring folk conceptions of wisdom, and subsequently developing explicit-formal theories of wisdom. Theories that regard wisdom as a developmental cognitive and personal trait hark back to Erik Eriksons theory of stages of psychosocial development, and post-formal stages added to Jean Piagets theory of cognitive development. Explicit-formal theories include Robert J. Sternbergs Balance Theory of Wisdom, which explores the relation between intelligence, creativity, and wisdom, and sees wisdom as "the value-laden application of tacit knowledge to attain a common good"; and Paul Baltes' Berlin Wisdom Paradigm, which sees wisdom as a combination of "excellence in mind and virtue" and "an expert knowledge system dealing with the conduct and understanding of life." Psychological definitions include two common components, namely wit and virtue: an emphasis on cognition, meaning, and affect, and a concern for human welfare.

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“The wisdom of both science and art will be recognized by their being lofty in their scope, but simple in their language; clear in fancy, but clearer in interpretation; severe in discernment, but delightful in display.” — John Ruskin