One really powerful way to apply the wisdom wing in how we see the world – it’s extremely helpful – is the approach of you learning about your mind.
We do live in this world, which is a really busy world, and we see the world through our iPads and our phones and our televisions and God knows what, right? I mean, that’s what we see the world through – they’re the places we see the world. So naturally, automatically, what happens is we have an opinion. We all love to have an opinion, and, of course, we all think we’re right: we stand back as if we’re so pure, and then we judge people: “He this, she that, they this, the politicians this, blah, blah, blah.”
But if you apply this wisdom wing approach, which is the approach of you learning about your mind – that’s the wisdom wing – then the world is a rich, delicious place that you can learn masses from every single day.
You can tell I’m old because I don’t read social media; I put things on there, but I don’t read social media. I read newspapers: I buy subscriptions to magazines and newspapers: that’s how I get all my news. I pick up my iPad and I read my Financial Times and my New York Times and my Washington Post and my Wall Street Journal and my Vogue and my New Yorker and my Economist. They’re my big expenditures in a year!
I read, not at all every single word, but I read, and I learn – and what I’m learning about is human beings. I don’t care what the politics are – that’s their business. I’m learning about human beings: it’s grist for the mill; it’s rich, delicious grist for the mill, isn’t it?
If you’re trying to get compassion – this is the way the lamas talk – we need suffering sentient beings. If you are trying to get compassion – this is the compassion wing now; I’ll go back to wisdom in a minute – you’ve got to be in the middle of the garbage dump; you’ve got to be in the middle of the insanity of the human world because that’s where the suffering beings are. How can you possibly develop compassion if you never meet suffering sentient beings?
If you live in your little trees in the bush and eat your carrots and your pure food and put your compost out, I’m very happy for you, but you’re not helping sentient beings. Trees want you to leave them alone, insects want you to leave them alone.
But if you want to help people, you better go live in Liverpool or London or New York City, or where the chaos is, because that’s where the crazies are, and they’re the ones who need help. As Geshe Sopa says, the bodhisattvas need their enemies – best one of all!
When you’re trying to help others, you need to be around suffering sentient beings, but as Pabongka Rinpoche says, you need to be a suitable vessel to really qualify for the level of practice they call exchanging self for others. The work of becoming a suitable vessel is the wisdom wing.
How to work on the wisdom wing side, meaning how to learn about your mind when you see the crazies? All I’ve got to do is read the newspaper. Let’s say there’s a politician whose views I don’t agree with, let’s say I don’t agree with Mr. Trump’s views – let’s just say I don’t. There I am, sitting on my high horse – “Listen to Mr. Trump! Who does he think he is? This evil person, that evil person . . .!” Excuse me, who the hell do I think I am?
So, instead of that, all you’ve got to do is you check: I’ll go, “Well, there’s lying, there’s hubris, there’s anger, there’s jealousy, there’s arrogance,” and I’ll say to myself, “I recognize that.” And I do. There’s not a single delusion in Mr. Trump, or even in a psychopath that I don’t recognize.
This might sound extreme now, but a psychopath, as we call them, is a person who’s got extreme delusions, that’s all: extreme anger, extreme self-cherishing, extreme attachment. I mean, there’s only so many delusions in the mind, according to Buddha’s view, and so the difference between what we call psychotic and what we call normal is that psychotic just means extremely delusional, that’s all. There’s nothing in there that I don’t see in myself. Okay, I mightn’t want to jump on little girls, I mightn’t want to cut people up and eat their brains, but I understand habit, I understand attachment: it’s just a question of degree. Join the universe!
When you can look at the world through the lens of the wisdom wing, then you’ll be so happy to learn about the world. You won’t get depressed and angry and freaked out, which is what we do now. You’ll learn from it: you’ll go, “Well, I recognize that,” or you’ll say, “Thank you for showing me how not to be.” The world is then an incredibly powerful teaching.
You don’t get distressed then – you learn from it. Then the compassion wing is, “What can I do to help?” So there’s a way you can use the world every second to help you deal with your mind and then to know how you can help others. All of it is grist for the mill, you know?
Of course, if you’re very fragile, and you’ve got masses of anger, and you can’t cope with being around other angry people, then good, keep away. If you can’t cope with certain things, you keep away, just like if you can’t cope with alcohol, you keep away from it – pretty reasonable. Be intelligent. You’ve got to know where you’re at, what you can cope with – be intelligent – but there’s ways of living in the world that won’t make us crazy.