This forum is under the "insight and wisdom" forum so I hope it is the right place to ask:

What is "wisdom practice"

Is it know by other terms?

Are there any on-line resources?


Thanks in advance.

Wisdom
insight 
emptiness
inquiry 
vipassana
openness
Awareness

any practice that involves changing the context of your experience, rather than its contents 

a way of uncovering the process of perception, as opposed to altering the perceived 

Noah D puts it beautifully.  To add further perspective - clearly seeing the process by which is suffering is created, and then combating that delusional process of compulsively feeding the non-existent, ever-grapsing, never-satisfied illusory self.

He puts it beautifully to someone who already knows. I am still clueless. Can  you explain it to a beginner. How do you practice wisdom?

Thanks

In Buddhism, the term "wisdom" generally refers to understanding the difference between habitual perceptions and their relationship to our experience as opposed to a deeper understanding of how our process of perception actually works. Habitual perceptions lead to what Buddhism calls "ignorance." The deeply understood grokking of how perception works is wisdom. Vipassana and any other form of meditational investigation into the nature of perception and experience is a wisdom practice.

Noah was absolutely right on, BTW.

Hope this helps.

I don't really know the technical terms.

I am an engineer not a philosopher. I feel like I understand something if I understand it in practical terms of what you do.

If you said "you watch your thoughts while meditating and when you notice one that makes you angry you do x."
Or "you notice how you feel during the day and when you find something that makes you upset you do y."

At that level I might be able to understand it. Or at least that is the kind of answer I am expecting. Maybe I am looking for an explanation at the wrong level? Is it is a higher order concept that can't be explained in a specific way?

Anyway I think I found some articles I can try to read and them come back here, re read what was posted and if I still don't get it I can ask further.



https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/index-subject.html#w
Wisdom — see Pañña.

Is Panna the right word in pali?

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/index-subject.html#panna
Pañña (discernment, wisdom). See also Paramis; Wise person.
Eye of ~: MN 43
Eight requisite conditions for ~: AN 8.2
Which comes first: concentration or ~?: AN 3.73
Goes hand-in-hand with jhana: Dhp 372
As a treasure: AN 7.6
"Discernment" in The Wings to Awakening (Thanissaro)
"The Lessons of Unawareness" in Inner Strength (Lee)
"Observe and Evaluate" in Inner Strength (Lee)

I also found the first two steps in the 8 fold path are also panna

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/ptf/dhamma/index.html
The Noble Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Dukkha (dukkha nirodha gamini patipada ariya sacca) — The Noble Eightfold Path. The Commentaries group the eight path factors into three divisions:
Discernment (pañña):
1. Right View (samma-ditthi)
Intentional action (kamma)
Admirable friendship (kalyanamittata)
2. Right Resolve (samma-sankappo)



I can also try searching for articles on "discernment".


Thanks

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/8790811#_19_message_8796025

Chris,  I am grateful to you (and the other posters) for trying to help me and I am sorry I am so dense but I saw that post and it just looks like a lot of words to me. I understand each word but I don't understand the sense of how you have put them together. I will have to study it more after I read those articles.

Thanks

I'd recommend reading MCTB to get a systematic overview about what's involved, with the understanding that wisdom practice is the same thing as what it calls insight meditation.  There's a good review from a technically-inclined non-meditator here, although it's missing some of the reasons why you'd want to pursue it in the first place.  A great followup after that is The Mind Illuminated, which has a neuroscience-inspired presentation of how our subjective experience of the world and ourselves is constructed as well as being a good guide to developing concentration.

There's a lot more to get into after that if you're interested in the neurological nuts and bolts of why our minds are like this and how it all plays out in meditation, but those two books will cover much of the ground to get you started.

Okay. Ask away if you have more questions.

One of the times I was something, I was an engineer.  Hopefully that will be helpful in this.

I think of wisdom as something that comes out of good practice.... I guess that's kind of obvious.

I went into my first 10 day retreat completly non-wise.  I sat and practiced 'equanimous awareness of present moment sensations' and was miserable. Over the course of the 10 days, parts of me that were miserable just gave up on the misery. Relatedly, some of my ignorance of how my brain worked was dispelled. Ipso Facto, I was a little wiser after that retreat.

Added: I was not practicing wisdom, I was doing something that made me wiser.

I can't make sense of half of the words or arguements in common Dharma discourse (including "wisdom"). For me terms are often not defined well enough and arguements are not rigorous enough to be useful in an academic or technical sense. Even well-known traditional teachers sometimes make arguements that would be considered poor by the standards of a university student. It can be frustrating but I try to treat these things more as inspiration and pointers for interesting things to explore in my practice. After a rocky start this seems to work for me, and I've been able to make a fair bit of progress and have been able to gradually evolve a framework that makes sense to me.

Edit: want to be clear that I don't think there's anything wrong with using language like that and it isn't meant as a criticism, just that the way some people's minds work (myself included) is naturally somewhat incompatible with that style - but it doesn't necessarily present a major obstacle to good practice if you're willing to let go of the need for well-defined models and take a more try-and-see approach.

I will put this in the context of the 3 trainings of sila, samadhi, prajna.  

For convenience here, I have to prop up an artificial/conceptual duality between "observer & observed."  Of course at the ultimate level there are only intertwining riplets in the ocean & no separate things.

That said - wisdom is the process of metacognition - of understanding observation itself.  In order to properly do this, at some point, the observer & it's process must be fully examined separately from the observed.  The fruits of wisdom are relief from fundamental suffering, which is the subtle types of extra static charge/tension which occur when the observer & it's processes are not fully self-aware at all times & in all ways.  

Morality is the process of changing the observed in some way.  This includes manipulating the world, surrending to the world (at thought/emotion level), acting/behavior, speech, body language, social relationships, etc.  "The world" includes everything that is not the looker & the looking.  Morality is everything, all of life.  When ordinary muggles say "life", they are talking about morality.  There is skillful, unskillful & nuetral morality.

Concentration is the bridge between morality & wisdom.  Concentration is necessary for wisdom, in order to still the waves of the mind enough for the mind to turn back & recognize itself (as mentioned above).  Concentration is necessary for morality, in order to "clear your head" & be able to focus, make good decisions.  At a subtle level of morality, concetration involves allowing ordinary insights into one's psychotherapuetic healing (family of origin, behavior mod, etc), via accessing memories, aligning the subconscious sub minds, etc.

Hope that helps.