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by Shamar Rinpoche www.shamarpa.com I would like to share a traditional teaching about how to cultivate good judgment. This is a teaching to help us trust our common sense and avoid being misled. The four reminders here apply to dharma as well as all aspects of our daily lives. I believe that many problems in modern society could be solved if people would just follow this simple advice. I call this teaching the Four Ways of the Wise. The wise know who and what they can depend upon. Thus, they avoid many traps of sloppy thinking. This teaching consists of four simple maxims: 1. Depend on the teaching and not on the teacher 2. Depend on the meaning and not on the words 3. Depend on the depth and not on the surface 4. Depend on wisdom and not on concepts
Traditionally, teachers of Buddhist philosophy are separate from teachers of meditation. It is not easy to find someone truly qualified in either area of course. But teachers skilled in meditation are even harder to find than those with a good academic knowledge of philosophy. Philosophy teachers may even be able to teach basic meditation. But more advanced practices can only be taught by someone who has made some progress on the Buddhist path him or herself. Buddhist teachers should teach the teaching of Buddha, not their own teaching. So it is helpful to know something of the Buddhas teaching. Read books about the historical Buddha and other great teachers of the past such as the Buddhas disciples and Tibetan masters like Milarepa. This will help you judge whether a teacher seems to be conveying the genuine dharma.
logic and reason are limited and cannot give access to ultimate reality, so they do not put much stock in these. Depend not on dualistic or logical and conceptual mind, which is illusion, this maxim says, but on non-dualistic mind. Go underneath, dont follow illusion as usual. Please do not forget that no matter how impressive or convincing our thoughts are, ultimate reality is beyond their reach.
Conclusion
So these are the four Ways of the Wise. Is it a sign of a decadent age that most people today behave in a way opposite to these precepts? They pile up one mistake on top of another without respite. People mislead themselves and then one person misleads another who in turn passes on wrong thinking to yet others, creating an endless chain of error. Please, dont let yourself get caught in this chain. Rely on these four maxims, and you will cut through the bonds of illusion just as the great bodhisattva Manjushri, who has realized the perfection of wisdom, cuts through obscurations with his sword of wisdom.
Taken from teaching on Phowa given at Bodhi Path Virginia, June 20, 2004.