Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Old and new knowledge 2

The goal in the classical Buddhist knowledge of mind is to reach a combination of wisdom and compassion. If somebody does not want that, there is no use to start the process of learning and practice. 
Compassion here is a total compassion, including all. It is not only compassion for me, my group or nation but for all.
Wisdom is not knowledge in general, but knowledge for a purpose. The purpose is compassion. 
This purpose is understood in a very wide sense. The ambition is not to limit knowledge, but to avoid wasting time and energy in learning things that never will be used, as for violence and conflict.
If we knew how to live in harmony, we would not need to know how to fight. This has never been tried practically, but it sounds reasonable.
The combination of wisdom and compassion is not artificial. It is the goal we arrive at even if we do not want it initially.
In every generation there are a lot of individuals who try to reach something good by neglecting compassion and using knowledge that is not very wise. The result is always disaster. 

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