Michael Paulson and James F. Smith of the The Boston Globe report on the Dalai Lama’s visit to Cambridge:
After the Dalai Lama slipped off his shoes, crammed his crossed legs into a too-narrow chair, and unceremoniously blew his nose, the world’s most revered and honored Buddhist monk offered a bit of wisdom for the sages: Being smart doesn’t make you happy.
This is a great reminder for both brilliant practitioners and wannabe brilliant practitioners. Still we should be careful. It’s important that we not get anti-intellectual about our practice. Dopey, for all his charm, wasn’t necessarily an enlightened dwarf. At least that’s what I was once told by a rather highly regarded Dharma teacher some years back.
The mind, as well as the ego, afterall, are both divine manifestations of the Infinite. It’s in the getting caught by our minds, brilliant or otherwise, that we find problems. Seeing the mind as a tool rather than getting tooled by the mind takes us to the heart of awakening.