Buddhism is basically Buddha’s own direct findings, his own experiences about how things exist. And of course he would say confidently that his views are factual. He’s allowed to say that; anyone can say that. But you have to back it up with your findings, your proof, etc., etc.
Buddha’s like Einstein. If I were Einstein here, and I start telling you about E=MC2 and I say, “This is the truth!” well, you would hope I would be confident that it is true! If I’m sitting here saying, “Well, I’m not sure if it’s true,” you’re laughing and you tell me to shut my mouth, don’t confuse you. If I’m not confident, I should keep quiet.
So we want Buddha to be confident that he is right too. But he’s not asking us to believe him: this is a crucial point that we’re not used to hearing when it comes to spiritual teachings. He’s asking us to check out his findings, to discover the truth of them – or not! – for ourselves. It’s up to us; we’re the boss, not Buddha.
Like with Einstein, we need to listen to what Buddha says and then, with confidence, decide to use his views as our working hypothesis in order to discover the truth of them for ourselves. How else can you work with something if you don’t propose it? Working with Buddhist ideas has nothing to do with believing it, squeezing it inside yourself, not like that at all. And it’s got nothing to do with liking it or not liking it. It’s either true or it’s not. And we have to find out. That’s the Buddhist approach.
Also, like Einstein, every word that Buddha says is from his own direct experience, his own findings. He didn’t make it up; he’s not speculating; he didn’t have a vision or a dream about it; it wasn’t revealed to him.
That’s why you need to check the Buddhist centers carefully, check the Buddha’s teachings carefully, check the authors of books, check the people who teach, check the Dalai Lama, that he’s a valid person who represents Buddha’s teachings. If not, be careful! Don’t confuse yourself.
And why would we want to develop wisdom? Simply because our suffering is a consequence of believing in and acting upon the misconceptions.
We hear a lot about “wisdom” in Buddhism, but it’s not some special holy word, all high and fancy. “Wisdom” simply means being correct. If you say there are two cups on my table, that ain’t wisdom, honey, that’s ignorance. There’s one.
Of course, the wisdom Buddha’s saying we can accomplish is a pretty outrageous level of wisdom: seeing the universe as it exists without mistake. That’s the level of wisdom we can accomplish; he calls it omniscience. I mean, my Catholic mother was shocked by that! It’s quite radical.
The part of us that cognizes how things exist is the mind, and that’s Buddha’s expertise. According to the Buddha’s model of the mind in our mental consciousness we have positive, negative and neutral states of mind; there’s no fourth category. And these are technical terms, not moralistic.
The negative states of mind have two main characteristics: they’re disturbing and they’re delusional. They’re liars, they’re not in sync with reality. They’re the ones that decorate on top of what’s already there layers upon layers of characteristics that simply aren’t there.
The virtuous states of mind have the characteristic of being peaceful – just check the last time you were loving, kind, generous; you felt peaceful. And, there’s a sense of interdependence there. You’ve got a sense of connectedness with others, which means you’re in sync – to some extent – with interdependence, which is reality, which is how things are.
So, for the Buddha the job to be done is, one, to eradicate utterly from the mind the delusions, the neuroses – and we can because they’re made-up nonsense, having no basis in reality; and, two, develop to perfection the virtuous states of mind, including wisdom that sees everything as it is.
That’s buddhahood!