the profound isn't profound

[cattasalla]

Buddhist teachings--especially Mahāyāna ones, it seems to me--can often center around some sort of "profound" experience. The experience of emptiness, of interdependence, of seeing reality as it really is. And this is regarded as "wisdom". But these experiences are meaningless if they don't get reflected in our actions. They're really not much different from just getting high for the sake of getting high. Wisdom involves seeing reality-as-it-is, but it also involves using that insight to guide our actions so that we are acting to help and not harm ourself and others. Wisdom should enable us to clearly see what is most helpful and most harmful, and take those actions. The most profound teachings of the Buddha are not the lofty philosophical ones, but the ones about how to conduct ourselves in our day-to-day lives, how to recognize our unwholesome and unskillful habits and change them for the better.