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changing every moment -- that an old man who says that 'In my youth I experienced THIS,' is talking about somebody else because he is no more the same.
A little closer wisdom is than knowledge, but not very close. Understanding is non-accumulative, you don't accumulate either others' experiences or your own. You need not accumulate, you grow. Understanding is always fresh, wisdom is a little dusty and old, wisdom is always of the past, your own past. Knowledge is also of the past -- of others' pasts. But what difference does it make finally? Because your own past is as far away from you as others' pasts; you are no more the same. Every moment the river is flowing, says old Heraclitus, you cannot step in the same river twice.
Your own youth -- you cannot step in it twice; you have learnt something from your experience, you carry it. Knowledge can be washed away, wisdom also. They can be brainwashed, completely wiped from your mind. Understanding can never be brainwashed, it is not part of the brain, it is non accumulative. All that is accumulative is accumulated in the brain.
Understanding is of your being, it cannot be washed away -- you cannot brainwash a Buddha; in fact he himself has brainwashed himself completely, he has cleaned his slate himself, how can you clean him? He is non-accumulative, he lives moment to moment. Through living his being grows. If through living your knowledge grows, it is wisdom; if through living your being grows, it is understanding; and if without living your accumulation grows, it is knowledge.
Understanding is the real flowering of being. A man of understanding is mirror.like. A mirror carries nothing. A mirror always lives in the immediate present, whosoever comes before it, it reflects.
You ask me a question. The question can be answered through knowledge, that is, experience of others; the question can be answered through wisdom, experience of my own; the question can be answered through understanding -- then I am just a mirror, I simply respond.
You ask, you come before my mirror, I simply respond. That's why a man of understanding will always be felt contradictory, inconsistent, because
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