In this Dharma talk, Lisa Kring explores wisdom (paññā) as the practice of meeting each moment with clarity, discernment, and compassion rather than habitual reactivity. She shows how mindfulness allows us to see things as they truly are, respond with greater skill, and cultivate the two wings of Buddhist practice—wisdom and compassion—so that even life’s most difficult moments become opportunities for freedom.
The Buddha said,
The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops into habit.
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings.
As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.
Perhaps that’s why it’s so wise and skillful to explore the mind stream. Wisdom is one of the paramis, or perfections, the qualities we cultivate on the Buddhist path. The other paramis include generosity, ethical conduct, renunciation, energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, goodwill, and equanimity.
I like to think of them like spices that sit on the kitchen counter. They’re not tucked away in a cabinet—they’re always within reach. As life unfolds, we’re continually seasoning each moment with the qualities that are needed. It’s an active, living practice.
I like to frame wisdom as understanding how to be skillful in each moment. I love the language of skillful and unskillful because it feels so much more spacious than right and wrong, good and bad. The question becomes: How can I best meet this moment? How can I respond, rather than habitually reacting? Practice invites us to step off the wheel of suffering, and a big part of that is stepping off the wheel of conditioned, automatic reactivity.
The Pali word for wisdom is paññā, often translated as insight. This kind of wisdom isn’t primarily about intellect, IQ, or book learning. Those things can support it, but insight is something different. Insight happens in direct experience. It arises when we’re present enough, mindful enough, and the hindrances have settled enough that we can simply see things as they really are. It allows us to see clearly: “This is how things are. So how can I be with this without making it worse?”
That is where skillfulness begins. It doesn’t mean approving of difficult circumstances or becoming passive. It means recognizing reality and asking: “How can I liberate myself and others in this moment? How can I meet this with more skill?” So often we become entangled in trying to control or change reality before we’ve even allowed ourselves to fully meet it. We get so busy resisting what is that we lose the ability to respond wisely.
I’ve always appreciated the image of practice as a bird with two wings. One wing is wisdom. Wisdom lands us in reality. It helps us stop resisting, controlling, and pushing away. It allows us to say, “Okay… this is what’s here.” Sometimes that’s sobering, and sometimes it’s painful. That’s why the other wing is compassion. As wisdom deepens, the heart naturally begins to open. Alongside clear seeing comes kindness, understanding, and deep compassion. When wisdom and compassion develop together, practice begins to fly. It’s then that we begin to experience a deeper kind of freedom in our lives.
One simple example of this happened to me in Los Angeles. I came back to my car one day and found a parking enforcement officer writing me a ticket. My immediate impulse was to rush over and protest. “Come on—I was only gone for a minute!” I could feel the reaction rising before I even spoke…but then mindfulness kicked in. I noticed the surge of reactivity. I stopped, took a breath, and felt my feet on the ground. I became present.
And then I looked at the parking enforcement officer for the first time. I really saw him. His whole body was closed. He wasn’t looking at me, or really listening. And suddenly there was this moment of insight: Oh my goodness. This is what he does for a living. People must be arguing with him all day long.
I could see that he was suffering. In that moment, everything changed. I wasn’t trying to convince him anymore, or caught in my own story. I simply saw another human being. This is what discernment looks like in operation. I stepped back and felt such compassion for him. I dropped the whole thing. I simply said, “All right, give me the ticket.”
He never looked at me. It was heartbreaking. As I got into my car and drove away, I found myself wishing him well. This is how the two wings of practice operate. Wisdom sees clearly: He’s suffering, he’s not going to listen to anything I say. And then the heart naturally opens. That’s skillfulness.
These moments don’t happen only in meditation. They happen in grocery stores, parking lots, conversations with family members. This is where the rubber meets the road. Wisdom becomes something we live.
I often think of something attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.: “Be kind, because everyone is fighting their own inner battles.” Whether or not we know someone’s story, it’s wise to remember that everyone is carrying something. That understanding changes the way we meet one another—and ourselves.
When we’re truly present, there is a moment of freedom from the habitual momentum of the conditioned mind. In that freedom there is clarity, compassion, and wisdom. From that place, we’re able to respond to life with discernment rather than habit. That’s the real promise of mindfulness — not controlling our thoughts, but no longer being controlled by them.
Thank you for reading,
Lisa Kring
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