Don't Foolish Yourself: Impermanence as the Key to Wisdom

The subtitle of this book is “Impermanence as the Key to Wisdom.” Actually the word “wisdom” occurs only infrequently as in the expression “the arc of evolution leads to the goal of wisdom-compassion non dual” for every sentient being. In days gone by, Catholic universities especially used to feature wisdom as one of the primary goals of their curriculum. Wisdom as a feature of higher education seems to have fallen out of favor. I’m not clear on why that is, except that once upon a time, philosophy & theology used to be enthroned as the Queen of the Sciences. Not beheaded quite, but certainly dethroned, she now serves more like the scullery maid in the Castle of Technology. Whatever the case may be, I’m not talking about “wisdom” as the West has typically understood it. My explication of impermanence is about one of the many folds the universe takes to crease the fabric of its infinitely varied manifestations. I have adopted the spiritual technology of the Buddha to do this. Therefore, my approach is the rather eastern, specifically Tibetan, viewpoint of what “wisdom” means. Nevertheless, I try my best to explain the methodology from the Buddha’s toolkit in terms a contemporary western reader will not find foreign.