Wisdom
"Wisdom" (prajñā / paññā), sometimes translated as "discernment" at its preparatory role, provides the sense of direction with its conceptual understanding of reality. It is designed to awaken the faculty of penetrative understanding to see things as they really are. At a later stage, when the mind has been refined by training in moral discipline and concentration, and with the gradual arising of right knowledge, it will arrive at a superior right view and right intention.
Read more about this topic: Noble Eightfold Path
Famous quotes containing the word wisdom:
“It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldst have it, to fear and suspect the worst.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466–1536)
“In times past there were rituals of passage that conducted a boy into manhood, where other men passed along the wisdom and responsibilities that needed to be shared. But today we have no rituals. We are not conducted into manhood; we simply find ourselves there.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)
“Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)