Robert Thurman, "Wisdom"

Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:  

1. Choose one important term from Thurman's essay, such as "nirvana," "nothingness," "emptiness," "enlightenment," "meditation," "compassion," "ignorance," "self," "happiness," and "freedom." Then, by tracing Thurman's use of the term throughout the chapter, offer your own explanation of its meaning. Definitions for all of these terms may be found in a dictionary but here you are being asked to explain the meaning of the term as Thurman uses it. You might even contrast Thurman's use of the term to more commonplace understandings. "Ignorance," for example, has a special significance in the context of Buddhist thought. How does it differ from "ignorance" as we normally define it?  

2. Instead of discussing the soul, Thurman focuses on the mind. How is "mind" different from "soul"? What are some of the broader implications of Thurman's attention to the mind instead of the soul? If the mind is transformed, can the essence of the person remain somehow immune to change? Conversely, if a person's mental habits and perceptions remain unchanged, is it possible to imagine that the essence of the person has still been altered somehow? We might ordinarily think of each person as endowed with an individual soul, but is the mind individualized in the same way? Where is the mind located, according to Thurman? Is it the same as the brain?  

3. Thurman speaks about "enlightenment" instead of "redemption" or "salvation." How does "enlightenment" differ from "salvation"? What are the differences between Thurman's emphasis on the experience of "selflessness" and the famous Greek dictum, "Know thyself"? Could selflessness qualify as a form of self-knowledge? Could it qualify as a form of redemption or salvation?  

Questions for Writing:  

1. Buddhism is often studied on the college level in courses offered by philosophy and religion departments. Judging from Thurman's account, however, would you say that Buddhism can best be defined as a philosophy? Would you say that Buddhism might best be defined as a religion? Or, judging from Thurman's account, would you say that Buddhism has some elements in common with science, which is based on empirical observation? Would you say that it is in some ways closer to a science than to a religion or a philosophy?  

2. What are the social and political implications of Thurman's argument? How would the cultivation of "wisdom" as he describes it affect people in a competitive, consumption-oriented society like our own? Is Thurman's brand of meditation compatible with democracy and the idea that all of us are equal? How might the cultivation of wisdom influence the current political climate? Would the climate become less adversarial? Less driven by rigid ideology? Or would people who cultivate wisdom simply wash their hands of politics?  

Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:  

1. In "When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday," Martha Stout describes forms of "divided" or "dissociated" consciousness that are produced by severely traumatic events. One of Stout's patients, whom she calls "Julia," becomes so dissociated from the here and now that whole days never get recorded in Julia's memory. After rereading Stout's analysis of dissociation, decide whether or not the form of meditation that Thurman describes might help someone like Julia. Is it possible that meditation as Thurman describes it could actually produce dissociation in healthy people? What aspects of meditation might be most helpful to people like Julia? Is it possible that dissociation is actually more widespread than most people even realize? Is trauma really necessary to produce severely divided consciousness, or do certain features of contemporary life help to produce it-television, commercial radio, video games, and movies?  

2. In what ways is reading like the practice of meditation? To explore this question, draw primarily on Azar Nafisi's chapter from Reading Lolita in Tehran. At a key moment in her account, Nafisi makes this observation:

Whoever we were-and it was not really important what religion we belonged to, whether we wished to wear the veil or not, whether we absorbed certain religious norms or not-we had become the figment of someone else's dreams. A stern ayatollah, a self-proclaimed philosopher-king, had come to rule our land.

How, according to Nafisi, can the reading of fiction help us throw off the veils-literal and virtual-that others have imposed on us? Does reading as she describes involve its own form of mental cultivation, comparable in some ways to the meditational practice Thurman describes? Does reading allow Nafisi and her students to experience a form of "selflessness"? How can we tell the difference between the veils imposed on us and the persons we really are? Is it possible that "selflessness" allows us to create an identity of our own?

More Thurman assignments...