The Five Wisdoms I: Working with Difficult Emotions

The fundamental premise of Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism is that we are primordially pure and that we innately possess all the wisdom and compassion of an awakened being. Because we do not yet recognize this, we experience the energy of these awakened qualities in an obscured way. Rather than experiencing wisdom, we experience difficult emotions as we are tossed about by the challenges in our life.

The teaching of the Five Wisdoms is a way for us to understand our potential and recognize the wisdom that lies dormant within each emotion. We learn that when we liberate the contracted energy of emotions, we experience boundless clarity, spaciousness, equanimity, discernment, and capacity to act.

When difficult emotions arise, we are actually experiencing the energy of awakened qualities, but in an obscured way. Rather than experiencing the energy openly and directly, as awakened wisdom and compassion, we contract immediately around the sense of self and other, and instead experience the energy as an emotional reaction such as anger, jealousy or clinging, as we are tossed about by the challenges in our life.

Once we learn to open to the wisdom in the energy, rather than stay in the contracted state, we can use our strong negative emotions as a gateway into realizing our innate wisdom and compassion.