What’s Contrary Wisdom?
This is the first post to Contary Wisdom. I will begin by explaining how this came about, and where we are headed. But what exactly does Contrary Wisdom mean anyway.
Websters Dictionary defines it as follows:
Contrary: a proposition so related to another that though both may be false
they cannot both be true; i.e. “right and wrong” are contrary terms.
Wisdom: accumulated philosophic or scientific learning : knowledge.
Therefore, when these two words are used together as such, contrary now becomes a definitive adjective to wisdom. Contrary Wisdom is wisdom and its definition as knowledge as contrary terms, both may be false, but they cannot both be true. Knowledge is not wisdom, and neither is wisdom knowledge.
Contrary Wisdom means in simpler terms, wisdom that cannot be known through right and wrong terms, or any contrary terms. In fact, wisdom is not knowable, and there lies the foundation of this blog. Wisdom is contrary to itself as defined.
You should now have a better understanding of Contrary Wisdom. I will followup with how this all came about soon. For now, I will leave you with this old saying from China . . .
A wise man once said, “I am the master of so many things, that I practically know nothing at all”.
© Mark Naea, 2008
Paradoxical Insight:
Paradox - A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true: the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking.
Insight - penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into inner character or underlying truth.
And so it is. Or isn’t.
A true paradox would be the pursuit of self realization i.e “enligtenement”. The paradox being that the seeker is and has always been enlightened.
Ah, Wisdom…
To whom is Wisdom Wisdom? The one sharing it, or the one receiving it? So the dictionary says wisdom is accumulated learning? Accumulated by who? How much accumulation constitutes Wisdom and how much is just learning but not yet Wisdom? And who determines that? Is there really such a thing as Wisdom?
If not then how could there be Contrary Wisdom?
So is there a right and a wrong? Who determines that? Is he or she right? Who decides that? Is it an ultimate proclamation of accumulated learning, or ‘Wisdom’ that evokes the contrarian positions of right and wrong?
Hmmmm…..
Is this contrary to the Contrarian position?
Hmmmmm…..
As it says in the post, wisdom is not knowledge, therefore it cannot be learned, accumulated, taught or shared. Like fingers pointing to the moon, one must look beyond the reference that the fingers provide if one is to “experience the moon”.
The Tao Te Ching states: “Those that know do not speak; those that speak do not know.”
When questioned, Lao Tzu commented, “Have you ever smelled a rose?” and, “if so describe it?”
Therefore, the Zen-like statement “Contrary Wisdom” is self-explanatory.
Ah, I see. The Contrarian rejects the dictionary definition of Wisdom and replaces it with his own! Convinient. It begs one to wonder then, what is knowledge? And that being defined, what is the Contrarian definition?
Remembering, of course, that “those who speak do not know”.
I have not given wisdom any definition, other than what it is not.
As to knowledge, I will give this example: Picture two people, one with a picture and description of an apple and the other with a real apple. For both of them, this is their first experience with an apple.
The one with the picture and description now has knowledge of an apple. But it is only reflections of an apple, without depth or reality.
The one with the apple is “one with the apple”. It is beyond words.
…And so we begin the journey of not knowing. This Web presence, then, is the picture of the apple - pixels on a screen. Wisdom exists, but we can’t say what it is, only what it is not. And Contrarian Wisdom? Well, it gives us the finger.
Now, the intro reads, “Contrary Wisdom is wisdom and its definition as knowledge as contrary terms, both may be false, but they cannot both be true”.
Within the construct of Paradox we find “a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true”.
Is it not evident then that contrary wisdom is resolved through paradox? For every contrary situation where both can not be true, they are, indeed, both true (and both not true)? Is it true then, that for this to be the case, the situation from which the contrary wisdom is derived does not actually exist? Does the finger point to the emptiness of the vessel and not its contents?
Taking it a bit further, is it not that neither exist nor not exist, but that it doesn’t matter? For a subjective someone to whom it would matter must exist for it to matter in the first place, and no such someone exists. Yet they do — well, they think they do — so they do exist, at least to themselves as a fractal of consciousness. Contrarily this is not possible. Paradoxically it is. All fingers pointing. Stop looking at the finger!
Ooooo, “Fractal of Consciousness”. Where did that come from? Can you shed some darkness (I’d say light, but this is contrary wisdom) on the concept of consciousness with us?
“The one with the apple is “one with the apple”.”
Can one be ‘one with the apple’ without also being one with the tree from which it fell, and the water, earth and air that sustained the tree to produce the apple? …And the sun, and the Universe and so on?
Can one be ‘one’ with anything without being ‘one’ with everything?
As the echoes fade and the type on the screen starts to get blurry, so to will this exchange on that which is and is not. For those that seek are caught within the net of concepts, and bound by the chains of consciousness. It is for them that Contrary Wisdom exists.
They that are truely free, the self-realized, the enlightened, know without knowing, do without doing, are conscious of all while indeed there is nothing to be conscious of.
I will end this exchange with a quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj;
“The world and the mind are states of being. The supreme is not a state. It pervades all states, but it is not a state of something else. It is entirely uncaused, independent, complete in itself, beyond time and space, mind and matter. ……..There is nothing to recognise it by. It must be seen directly, by giving up all search for signs and approaches. When all names and forms have been given up, the real is with you. You need not seek it. Plurality and diversity are the play of the mind only. Reality is one.”
If you are “in the flow”, then it doesn’t matter what contrary wisdom means…….what good fun!
When the Buddha was asked how he was different he answered ” I am awake ”
Nothing so blinding as dreams in whatever form they may seem to come.
When you can not count beyond one, you will have seen.
Non-Dualism,it is what isn’t happening!