Question

Wise Reflection, contemplation, you sometimes mention, is using the thought processes in a skilful way. As I look at my way of skilful reflection, there is indeed a certain amount of discursive thinking, by means of logic. On the other hand, there are times of deep reflection by using more an emotional, intuitive qualities of the heart for developing wisdom. Could you please talk about the different ways of wise reflection, and the role/function of citta/heart mind in this process.

Answer

If I understand this correctly, I think what this person is talking about is when the reflection has actually linked up with our wisdom and we are receiving more the results of our reflection. And this is quite in line with what Wise Reflection is, the means to these things, to the Compassion and Wisdom that lie there. We have to have a means to get to these understandings, so this is Wise Reflection. They are two different facets of the same thing. As the thought processes become more skilful, and we're going deeper, and perhaps obstacles are being taken away, or we're starting to understand what the thought processes are trying to get us to understand, then it takes on a different quality, in the sense that we do connect with something that we finally understand in a deeper way. But it took that process of wise reflection, preparing the soil, so that then we connect more with this understanding, and then understand.

I think that is what this person may mean, if not, they can talk to us about it in the interviews. But usually the Wise Reflection will be reflecting about a subject, and will be trying to bring up ways of looking at this subject, and we keep doing this. And at some point, it is almost like there is a revelation, we do understand deeply. And a very deep response can come to these particular reflections or questions that we have dropped in to the mind. Then it does take on a different process, it almost seems effortless at that moment, where the understanding seems to unfold. But it did depend on our efforts to reflect skillfully using discursive thinking. But it may be that there is still contemplation on a subtle level, and that we are not aware of these subtle types of contemplation, and so we talk about it and we explain it in a different way. Or use different words for it.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.