Prajna is our own innate and intuitive wisdom. Pema Chodron wrote that it is “the fundamental aspect of your being — this prajna, or Buddha nature, basic goodness.” It is prajna that moves us to do something good and kind and to avoid the mean. It is also the deep understanding that we are all interconnected. Thich Nhat Hanh said this is the “highest kind of understanding, free from all knowledge, concepts, ideas, and views.” 

Prajna–our inner wisdom guide, as Sogyal Rinpoche used to say–know the impermanent and imperfect nature of life. One of the last things the Buddha said to his community was “transient are all conditioned things.” Whatever arises, passes away.

This is wise understanding and wise thinking…where we can let go of all the rumination and self-centered projections. We see that what’s happening in life isn’t personal to us—there are causes and conditions to everything that happens. Whatever arises, passes away. Sometimes we can see it… I did/said this and consequently this thing happened… Yes? But most of the time it’s impossible to pinpoint the causes and conditions of a particular situation or event in our lives.

And so we think about these things… over, and over, and over…

In the Ball of Honey Sutra, the Buddha said, ‘What one feels, one perceives,” (labels in the mind). What one perceives, one thinks about. What one thinks about, one “papañchizes.” The original meaning of the Pali word papañca (papañcha) is ‘unfolding’, the constant unfolding, the constant proliferation of the mind.”

A friend of mine used to say it like this, “One moves toward and becomes like, that which one thinks about.” Perception is the mental process that makes sense of the world. Papañca is the mental process that won’t let go of the things we can’t make sense of! Think of the “thought loops” that we get stuck in.

In the twelve links of dependent origination, Buddha gave us a way to understand how suffering arises in the mind in a simple moment of contact with a sense organ, a sense object, and a moment of consciousness that sets off a feeling, a craving, clinging—and an existence. If we can be aware in that moment of contact, then we can see it as just an event in the mind… nothing more than a passing thought. Awareness let’s us stop the proliferation in the mind.

The important thing is to be aware… to notice.

Often when we talk about Prajna (wisdom) in Buddhist circles, the three characteristics of existence are pointed to as part of the ultimate understanding of reality: all conditioned things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not self. Stephen Batchelor has reinterpreted this teaching and instead talks about them as three basic facts of human experience: nothing is permanent, personal, or perfect.

This is such an easy and uncomplicated way of looking at life with understanding. Of course, we see how quickly everything passes… The most anticipated events of our lives are over seemingly in a heartbeat. As time goes on, we learn that the more we take the vicissitudes of life as being personal to us the more heartache we create for ourselves. And, oh as much as we wish it were untrue… nothing is perfect.

There are, O monks, these four splendors. What for? The splendor of the moon, the splendor of the sun, the splendor of fire and the splendor of wisdom. Of these four splendors, this is the best: the splendor of wisdom. There are, O monks, these four radiances…  these four lights… these four lusters… these four sources of illumination… of these four sources of illumination, this is the best: illumination by wisdom.

The Buddha

Prajna is our own innate and intuitive wisdom. Pema Chodron wrote that it is “the fundamental aspect of your being — this prajna, or Buddha nature, basic goodness.” It is prajna that moves us to do something good and kind and to avoid the mean. It is also the deep understanding that we are all interconnected. Thich Nhat Hanh says this is the “highest kind of understanding, free from all knowledge, concepts, ideas, and views.” 

One morning after begging for my food— looking down at one more meal I hadn’t worked for, hadn’t paid for, hadn’t earned.

A life of debts I could never repay pushing in on all sides like the weight of the sea.

I blinked, and a tear fell into my bowl.

Would it always feel like this?

Just as the moon rises up from the bottom of the sea, handful of rice lifted itself from the bottom of my bowl.

And my heart rose with it. I wish I could tell you how it tasted—

that first bite of food as a free woman.