Prajna: Cultivating Insight
5 Minute Read | On the secret to honing one's wisdom, by letting go.
“What’s perfectly whole seems flawed,
but you can use it forever.
What’s perfectly full seems empty,
but you cant use it up.
True straightness looks crooked.
Great skill looks clumsy.
Real eloquence seems to stammer.
To be comfortable in the cold, keep moving;
to be comfortable in the heat, hold still;
to be comfortable in the world, stay calm and clear.”
— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
In order to cultivate wisdom, to learn what it means to follow and promote a life of gentle strength and patient love, would require the ability to discern: to recognise “right” from “wrong”, to see beyond them both into the picture as a whole, and to do so intuitively, effortlessly, without contrivance or any destructive influence of the self-invested ego.
Eastern philosophies, primarily Buddhism, refer to this discernment as “Prajna”. In simple translations, it is taken to mean Wisdom, but the word carries a far greater depth of meaning than its Western equivalent, and for me, it has come to represent one of the most foudational elements of my philosophy, of this “Way of Cultivation”.
Prajna is often depicted as a sword, held by the bodhisattva (enlightened being) Manjusri— the “Vajra sword of discriminating insight”, that “cuts through ignorance and the entanglements of conceptual views”, an analogy that perfectly represents that aspect of wilfully cultivated awareness, of insight that supercedes simple “intelligence”, that the West has so desperately failed to account for.
We all have access to Prajna. We all have our own sword of insight, or eyes for truth— but they must be sharpened, to be effective. In the modern world, the ability to effectively discern sense from nonsense, value from distraction, good intention from bad, is inexpressibly valuable.
Not just for finding inner peace and discovering our “true selves”, but as much for escaping the ever-encroaching angst of the attention economy, and even for determining the smartest and most profitable way to live (whatever your desired profit may be).
Without this proactive cultivation of insight, of sharpening our capacity to see past the immediate, we are simply adrift, are simply victims of circumstance. Whether you want to help yourself or help others, doing so without first honing your judgement of what is meaningful, and learning to “think critically”, your actions will simply be an echo of the noise from which they arise.
But what does Prajna “look like”? How is it honed?
On this, Eastern philosophies offer many accounts, yet they all share a common theme, and one that lies in stark contrast to the Western response.
In the West, for every symptom of angst you seek a remedy for, a thousand “answers” are offered; even the very words you’re reading, in fact, are an attempt at just such an answer. Our folly, according to Eastern interpretations, is of seeking to cure the confusion and uncertainty brought about by active thought, through more thought.
The answers we are traditionally offered are all attempts to “wash off blood with blood”, as the Zen saying goes. Uncertain about your next career steps? Suffering from a crippling existential angst as to what the purpose of it all is? Unsure if you’re truly happy in your relationship? Sick and tired of your daily life, but don’t know how you could ever change it? The answer to all of these is not, paradoxically, found in more analysis— for it is analysis that first brought you to that angst-inducing precipice of thought to begin with.
Rather, your answer lies outside your mind; in the present moment, in suchness. Once verbal, rational thought brings you to its limits, you must learn to jump into “the unknowable”: into the world, into that inexpressible world we inhabit through action.
Prajna arises from an awareness of the reality “beyond” words— from seeing past all the neverending chatter of human ideas, of all the desperate claims at objectively true or real visions of the world, and into the (at first) somewhat unsettling recognition that the only “universal” is the lack of any universals.
Which is to say, that it is only upon seeing beyond the inescapable naivety and short-sightedness of artificial, intellectual concepts, of recognising the inherent relativity of all things (something Einstein has greatly helped normalise!), that Prajna may truly begin.
And what is the most direct way to see beyond ideas?
Through meditative practises— whatever they may be. The most obvious being meditation, and it’s the one that works best for me (and is advocated by so many for good reason). But there are other routes, such as yoga, or art, sport, running, or any practise where you find yourself deeply aware of the present moment.
Whatever the method, Prajna is sharpened by pushing yourself out of the (secretly false) comfort offered by our internal dialogues, and into the messy, inexplicable present moment. Into your body. Into a world free from the infinitely entangling mesh of conceptual thought.
Running doesn’t make you wise, in just the same way that meditation won't either. But actively training your mind to reside in the present, and let go of conceptualising about it, is like tilling the soil to let the plant of wisdom grow.
Exercised enough, you will come to find yourself seeing straight through what before appeared to be impassable objects; you may notice yourself less invested in notions that others lose their hair over, and find yourself on paths that bring you much deeper joy, all without ever having pickled yourself over how to get there.
Ultimately that is all it takes: gradual, proactive effort to seek to experience - to know - what the world is really like outside of your perception of it. Then, in time, you will come to recognise which ideas, beliefs, actions, et al., actually hold some nugget of truth, of something “more than just words”, at their core.
In short, Prajna is the art of seeing.
It is a skill, essential for cultivating sharp insight and deep joy in one’s life, and yet not attainable through study or learning. Rather, it is honed by letting go.
Prajna, wisdom, insight— whatever it is called, it is available to anyone looking for it, is waiting for us; we have only to let go, and come to see reality in its suchness, in the ever-open present.
As a long-time meditator who’s pained his way through many different philosophies, scouring for answers to that terrible angst so well imparted upon us by our modern societies, take it from me:
One single moment’s glimpse beyond the walls of this “world” that are built around us, word by word, day by day, for as long as we can remember— one glimpse of suchness, will feel as though the world has been quite literally lifted from your shoulders.
Seeing through all the nonsense, gaining even the most fleeting glimpse of how innocently silly it all is, is a gift more valuable than any achievement in life may bring.
With it, comes a growing recognition of what things are worth your time, and which of them are not; whose judgements are worth taking onboard, and how irrelevant the others are; what pains are worth grieving over, and which are far less serious than they first appeared; what truly matters to your life in the grand scheme of things, and what matters not.
Life slowly stops being so serious, and as a result, it starts becoming much easier see things for what they truly are.
Thanks for reading, folks - if you enjoyed what you read, I’d love to hear about it in the comments! Equally if you have feedback to give, I’m all ears.
Now stop thinking so much and go cultivate some wisdom, before I come and hit you with my Prajna stick.
Have a lovely week, and be kind to yourselves,
Kingston x