The Importance of Human Wisdom

The Importance of Human Wisdom

The ancient Tao wisdom from China -- the wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient sage who was the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching on human wisdom -- provides a blueprint for nourishing human wisdom: an empty mind with reverse thinking, mindfulness for clarity thinking, living in the present with no expectations of the future, no picking and choosing, accepting and embracing everything that comes in the natural cycle of change—what goes up must always come down. True human wisdom is the ability to understand that how the mind works and how human attachments are formed.

Why is human wisdom so important in the art of living well? The mind is responsible for thinking, and hence what we do and how we live our lives. Our thinking comes from our thoughts, which derive from our perceptions based on our five senses. Our thoughts then become our memories, stored in our subconscious minds. These subconscious  memories affect our many life choices and decisions either positively or negatives, producing many experiences that become our assumptions and predictions that further change the way we think. In short, our life experiences become the raw materials with which we form not only our realities but also our ego-selves.

One of the essentials of Tao wisdom is living in the present moment. Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind said at the end: “Tomorrow is another day.”

Yes, tomorrow is another day, but that day may or may never come. Fortunately or unfortunately, we always choose to believe that it will come. Fortunately in that it may give us hope and expectation; unfortunately in that it may divorce ourselves from the realities of life, making us less grateful of the present or less thankful of what we already have 

Living in the now is exemplary of the consciousness of being, which holds the key to understanding human wisdom. Today is now, and mindfulness of the present is the realization not only that tomorrow is another day but also that it may never come. This mental consciousness makes us aware that we must be constantly asking ourselves mind-searching questions about what we need to know now; what we need to love now; what we need to be grateful for now. In short, today provides the compass and roadmap for our life journey, which may abruptly end tomorrow.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau