This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video See for Yourself: Experiencing Wisdom in Life with Kim Allen (1 of 4). It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

See for Yourself: Experiencing Wisdom in Life (1 of 4) - Kim Allen

The following talk was given by Kim Allen at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on February 27, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

See for Yourself: Experiencing Wisdom in Life (1 of 4)

Welcome everyone to our class on wisdom called See for Yourself. I want to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining. It doesn't matter how much you know or don't know about wisdom, and it doesn't matter who you are or what your background is in meditation. This class covers all the different bases. You're welcome here. All aspects of you are welcome here. Please just bring yourself.

I'll say a little bit at the beginning about the course overall. We have four sessions. Each one will be 90 minutes, like this one tonight. I'll give some teachings, we'll have time for Q&A, and we'll also do some meditation each week. One of the things we'll learn about wisdom is that it has multiple different dimensions. It includes learning things intellectually, through reflection, and experientially. The meditation is actually part of the teaching in and of itself.

At the end of each class, I will give a suggestion for something practical that you might try in your own practice between now and the next class. It's up to you to engage with that, but it adds another little piece if you're able to. At the beginning of the next three classes, I'll make space for you to ask questions or share any experiences related to your practice over the last week.

You likely received a link to a Google Drive that has some resources in it. In particular, there are some sutta excerpts—quotes from the teachings of the Buddha—that relate to each week's topic. Most are from the suttas, but a few are from more modern sources. They aren't strictly a textbook for the course that we'll read and explain line by line. Rather, they're a supplement. I invite you to soak in them or contemplate them between classes. I hope you'll come to see them not only as intellectual information to take in, but as a contemplative guide. Ask yourself: What is this pointing to in my experience? What happens in me when I relate to this quote? You'll start to see that there are deeper dimensions than just the words. This is part of wisdom, too: starting to be able to feel things directly and discern the meaning of something in our own experience in the moment.

Because it's the first class, I'll have to talk a little bit more tonight than I usually like to do. I'm not a big lecture kind of teacher, although I do like to explain things. The other weeks will be more participatory with more questions.

What is Wisdom?

Wisdom can seem large or far off, but the Buddhist teachings make it clear that we all have the faculty of wisdom. We not only have the capability, but some degree of it is already operating in our lives. However, it may not be well-developed yet. One of the aims of the course is learning how we can develop it through contemplation and practice.

The deeper forms of wisdom come from seeing things for ourselves in our own experience. That's why I called the course See for Yourself. Yet, it helps to be guided toward what to look for. If I were to send you out into the streets of San Francisco—having never been in a city before—and said, "See for yourself," you'd probably observe a lot. But it would have been helpful if I had given you a guidebook about what to look out for so you could learn in a more organized and thorough way. In these four sessions, I hope to convey some of the key qualities of wisdom, the ways it manifests, and the practices that help strengthen it.

Wisdom is meant to be practical; it's something we can apply. The texts speak about a wise person, portraying wisdom not as an abstract idea or theoretical concept, but focusing on how wise people behave.

The Pali word that is usually translated as wisdom is paññā¹. Another common and helpful translation is "discernment." It's a skillful kind of discrimination or distinction between things. Soon after the time of the Buddha, there started to be different schools that taught his teachings with different emphases. One of the groups of schools that eventually evolved into the Theravada tradition (which we practice here) was called the Vibhajjavadins², which translates to "those who make distinctions."

If you can't make distinctions that are spiritually useful, you cannot walk the path. We make distinctions all day. Our perceptual system distinguishes what objects are out there. We distinguish coffee from tea from milk. We choose what clothing to put on. We make choices about our safety while driving, and we make big decisions about relationships, work, and life. But here, I didn't say just any distinction. I said spiritually useful distinctions.

What is spiritually useful is nuanced, but at a broad level, choices about chocolate or vanilla are not spiritually useful. The distinctions that matter are ethical distinctions and choices that lead toward the end of dukkha³. Those are the spiritually useful distinctions, and those are the ones in the realm of wisdom.

Wise distinctions can happen conceptually and experientially, and both matter. It's often popular in spiritual teachings to say, "Your thinking mind doesn't matter at all; throw it out." While awakening involves things deeper than logic, conceptual wisdom still has a place. It helps us clearly understand the teachings of the Buddha and how they show up in our life. Experiential wisdom comes from actually trying out what you've heard conceptually in your practice or in your life. We do that by trial and error. We should have some humility and understand that it's okay to conclude, "I tried this out, and it didn't work. That was not wise."

To give a concrete example: you can read books about backpacking, mountaineering, and survival skills. You can talk with people who have lived in caves for months. Before you go out and do any of those things, it's pretty smart to read those books and talk to people about it. That conceptual wisdom is important. But eventually, you have to go out and do it yourself.

Wisdom as an Orientation

Wisdom has a conceptual side, a reflective side, and an experiential side. It can look different at different times and includes various qualities. To capture all of that, I like to say that wisdom is an orientation that we bring to our experience.

If we're in California and we want to get to Oregon, we generally need to be oriented North. It doesn't mean every single moment along the journey you are going due North, but your general orientation is moving in the right direction. Similarly, there are orientations to life that are more likely to lead to peace, ease, and insight than other orientations. If we walk through the world looking for problems, looking for people to blame, and looking for reasons why the world is terrible, we'll find all those things and probably be miserable. Other orientations involve less suffering and are more in line with a holistic reality.

One of the foundational forms of wisdom we will focus on today is called "wise view," "right view," or "skillful understanding." This is the first step on the Eightfold Path. When I say "right view," I don't mean right in a black-and-white sense of "good and pure" versus "bad and terrible." The Pali word translated as right is sammā, which means something closer to "appropriate." If you want to drive in a nail, a hammer is the appropriate tool. A feather is not. So, "right" means asking: What is the appropriate view or understanding if we have the aim of walking the path?

The most basic form of wise view is the view that actions have consequences. In particular, some intentional actions lead toward well-being, peace, or freedom, while others lead away from those things. There is wholesome and unwholesome action, and we have some choice in doing them. If you don't believe that, it's very hard to walk this path.

Notice how empowering that is. It says there is a beneficial direction to go, and we have some ability to head that way. The monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu (often known as Than Geoff)⁴ was once asked what a Buddhist has to believe. He knew they were looking for religious dogmas, but he thought about it carefully and replied, "You have to believe in cause and effect."

That idea is beautifully encapsulated in the first two stanzas of the Dhammapada⁵: "All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox. All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a peaceful mind, and happiness follows like a never-departing shadow."

Do you think that's generally true? I don't know if anyone but a Buddha could know that is true 100% of the time. But when I reflect on this for myself, I accept it as certainly something I can see in my own experience broadly over time. I know from practicing that if I act as if it were true, my life goes better. Dukkha decreases in the form of internal stress and struggle.

When we act with a corrupted mind, we call that unskillful or unwholesome (akusala⁶). When the mind is peaceful and our actions are harmonious and tending toward happiness, we call that skillful or wholesome (kusala). To walk the path, we follow the breadcrumbs of what is wholesome from moment to moment.

Wise view isn't one single view that can be written down with a check box. It's a perspective, notion, or understanding that helps us walk the path. Whatever leads us to more skillfulness and less suffering is the right view in this moment. Wisdom is the ability to differentiate the wholesome from the unwholesome.

The Buddha is very encouraging about our ability to do this. In the Anguttara Nikaya⁷, he says: "Practitioners, give up the unskillful. It is possible to give up the unskillful. If it wasn't possible, I wouldn't say give up the unskillful. But it is possible, and so I say give it up. Furthermore, if giving up the unskillful would lead to harm and suffering, I would not say give it up. But because giving up the unskillful leads to welfare and happiness, I say give it up."

He then says the converse: "Develop the skillful. It is possible to develop the skillful... because it leads only onward to welfare and happiness, I say develop the skillful." He has a lot of confidence in us.

The Iterative Nature of Wisdom

Even to understand what right view would be in a given moment, we have to have some wisdom. Wisdom is reflexive and iterative. We use whatever amount of wisdom we have right now to discern as much wholesomeness as we can, and then we move into that wholesomeness as best as we can. When we do that, we gain a new perspective and the ability to see more. From that new perspective, we again assess the direction that leads away from suffering and move towards it. We refine and refine.

The amount of wisdom you have is always enough to take the next step on the path. At the beginning of my practice, I worried that I didn't have enough wisdom to choose the right teacher or do the practices correctly. But you have enough to take the next step. By taking that step, you'll gain a little bit more, and then you'll have enough to take the step after that.

Kamma (Karma)

I would be remiss not to mention the term karma (Sanskrit) or kamma (Pali)⁸. It is an overused and misused word in modern English, so take some care with it. Kamma literally means "action." It comes from the verb karoti, which means to do or to make. There is one sutta where kamma is equated with intention. But broadly, it is most correct to think of kamma as the flow of actions and results. The Pali word for "result" is vipāka⁹. Kamma-vipāka is the flow of actions and results in our life.

What we're going to experience in the future is shaped by our actions now. This is essentially about taking responsibility for our own mind and heart. There is a wonderful chanting of the four brahmaviharas¹⁰ that touches on equanimity: "Whatever I do, for better or for worse, the result of that will be my home." Where do you want to live in the future?

This doesn't mean we have 100% control, and it doesn't mean everything bad that happens to you is your fault due to some bad decision in the past. That is an extreme view. It's more like we're on a stream in a boat. We have a paddle, but we don't have control of the river. We have some choice, and those choices can lead to our well-being and support our path to liberation.

Having that view—that our actions have a say in shaping our mind and heart for goodness and happiness—is the beginning of wisdom.

Guided Meditation

In a practical, in-the-moment sense, we tend to detect unwholesomeness as tension in our body or mind. There are other sources of tension, but a surprising percentage of tension in our body is due to the influence of our own mind. A great way to meditate is to notice the ways in which the body is restricted or tight, ways in which the breath is not flowing freely, or ways the mind is getting stuck, narrow, or dark. Then, without a lot of fuss, invite a softening.

We might be tempted to command ourselves to "relax," but I find that command tends to make the mind more tense. I prefer "soften" or "inviting ease."

Let's go ahead and sit. If you need to move to a spot for sitting, you can do that now. Settle in. I invite you to close your eyes if that's okay for you. Bring your attention inward. Sometimes looking at a screen makes us lean forward. I encourage you to make sure you're sitting back in a balanced posture, right on top of your sit bones. Allow your energy to come back and down.

Pay some attention to the posture that you're in, feeling the body overall as a whole. Bring the mind into the present moment. Let the mind sit in its inspiration for learning about the path, for meditating, or simply your sincere interest in this topic. Right there, that is something wholesome. You've already made a wise choice for wholesomeness by undertaking the process of meditation. Can you appreciate that degree of wisdom operating already?

Sense the groundedness of where you're sitting. Feel the weight of your body. Notice the specific contact points—your bottom, your legs, or feet. Feel that groundedness and let yourself be supported.

We'll start with an initial invitation to the body to soften. Sense the muscles of the face and the scalp. Sense the eyes and the eye sockets, and invite some softening. Release the jaw. Soften down through the throat and the collarbones. Let the shoulder joints soften down the arms. Take some care with the position of your arms so they're not pulling on your neck. Soften down through the chest area, the upper back, and the heart area.

Always just be inviting. If anything remains tense, it's okay. We just bow to it and move on.

Soften down into the belly. Simultaneously release the muscles of the belly and the low back so they both fall away from the lower spine. Take care that the spine is well-balanced and straight. As we soften the upper body, we can let the spine orient so we're holding our weight on the bones, not so much with the muscles. Soften down into the hips, legs, knees, ankles, and feet.

Begin without a sense of bracing against the present moment. If there are parts that are sore or achy today, that's okay too. We can have mental ease about any lack of ease in the body. The body is doing the best it can.

As the body becomes more still, naturally tune into the motions of the breath. Feel the sensations of breathing in and breathing out. At first, you may feel the breath as a physical breath—the lungs expanding and contracting, the flow of air through the nasal passages. Then, we might soften the mind from that literal breath and sense the breath more as a flow of energy. Does it flow beyond just the lungs to touch other areas of the body? Sit with that rhythm.

On each out-breath, we can invite release of any tension that might be there. On each in-breath, we can avoid creating new tension. You may notice some habitually tense areas—a spot of density or contraction. See if the breath energy can pass through it or around it in a simple way. It's not a project; it's just noticing the body as it is.

Begin to sense into the mind or the mental space. It's a different dimension than the body, yet one that feels similar. It can feel open, soft, and at ease, or it can have spots of tension or contraction. Breathe through the mental space in a gentle way.

One of the wise choices we make in meditation is to incline toward ease, openness, and flow—but without demanding it, without making tension wrong and ease right. Incline toward a softening, and let that process help the body slowly untangle.

[Silence for meditation]

Reflections on Tension and Ease

Practicing on the cushion with tension and ease helps us to do that in daily life as well. The simple practice of noticing tension and ease is deeper than most people realize. The body has a huge amount of information in it, and it's highly skillful to let a fraction of your attention monitor what's going on physically. Is there contraction? Is there tightness? Is resistance building up? And if so, what is that about?

A fair amount of contraction can be due to unskillful mind states like fear, anger, envy, or desire. The body adopts a set of tensions around those states. Noticing this gives us a clue about our mind state before we take action based on it, preventing suffering from following us like the wagon wheel follows the ox.

For a few years, one of my daily life practices was to notice what was happening in my mind based on the surfaces I was physically touching. I was shocked at how often I was bracing against what I was touching, even in nominally easeful situations like eating a meal where my arms were subtly pushing against the table. It was deeply humbling. So I started practicing relaxing my body whenever I noticed this. I learned so much about my mind and body. I still habitually notice if there's tension in the way I sit or in the things I touch. Awakening doesn't mean you never have any physical tension again, but we can at least stop creating it through our own mental gripping and clinging.

Q&A

Emma: I have a question about skillful and unskillful, especially with this last sit. I had a procedure done on my shoulder, and I was in a lot of discomfort and pain. I could feel all this tension on the other side of my body from trying to make up for this pain. At one point, I was getting frustrated and thought, "Oh my god, I need to just move." It made me wonder: would the skillful thing be to continue sitting and observe this frustration, or would the more skillful thing be to just move and do something else?

Kim Allen: What did you do?

Emma: I did a combo. I took a break for about 5 minutes, changed how I was positioned, and went back to it. But the frustration kind of maintained the whole time.

Kim Allen: That sounds perfectly skillful to me. You noticed what was going on in the body and mind, and you found a way through it that didn't involve pushing yourself in a potentially harmful way. You've had a procedure done, so you shouldn't stress that shoulder. On the other hand, it probably was useful to sit with it a little bit and discover those patterns—to recognize, "Oh yeah, there is a price for all this compensation I'm doing." That might just be how it is. When we're in pain, we compensate with the other side, and you need to take care of that too. It's fine to move. You don't have to grit your teeth and stay in meditation forever.

This is analogous to what happens in the mind. We have a trauma or hurt in our past that leaves a mark on our mind, much like a mark on our body. We compensate for it with other parts of our mind, orienting around it and creating a system that holds itself in place. A lot of what we're doing on the path is untangling that system.

Katherine: I had one observation and one question. During the sit, my body seemed fine, but when you said to direct the breath to the mind and look for obstructions, I realized I'm having a life dilemma right now. My mind was peaceful, but this thing was there. Breathing through it was amazing. It helped clear things and became much calmer.

My question is about wise view. I'm in the Eightfold Path program now. When you used Thanissaro Bhikkhu's example of cause and effect as the main thing—was that just a basic starting point? It seems there's so much more to wise view, like the Three Characteristics and everything else in Buddhism.

Kim Allen: What we've named so far in terms of the acceptance of karma is what allows you to take the first step on the path. When somebody says, "Notice your breath and soften the body," you have to have some sense that doing so will lead in a good direction and that you can make choices. From there, everything else can unfold. We can develop the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, and we can see the Three Characteristics. But it has to be founded on this basic wise understanding of causes, conditions, effects, and our ability to choose. That is where it starts.

Samantha: The way you answered Emma's question started to get at mine. I know my particular body issues and where I might have pain related to them. But how do you discern the nuances of what might be just a physical body pain versus what might be speaking to an underlying mental condition? Do you have any guidance for teasing that out without going too far down an analytical rabbit hole?

Kim Allen: In that case, being analytical won't get you very far. Instead, use the process of passing the breath close to that body tension. Over time, if it's caused by mental clinging, it will reveal itself. If it's purely physical, you'll start to understand its characteristic signature.

Sometimes, when we sit down, the mind sets up habits of "checking." We check the three places we know we should check because we expect pain there. That is a limiting habit. Sometimes we need to disrupt that and deliberately not check those habitual spots to see how things evolve without our preconceived ideas. So, instead of telling you how to analyze it, I'll tell you that you shouldn't try to do it. That is the only way to truly make that discernment.

Questioner: The other day, I was having a bad morning. I live with my sister, and we weren't in a big argument or anything, but I was just grumpy. I found myself thinking, "I don't like anything about her. I don't like the way she walks, looks, or talks. I don't like the way she smokes." Then I caught myself and thought, "Whoa. What's going on here?" All this judgment and ill will was coming up. I could feel my body contracting. So I decided to start thinking about things I like about her. I remembered nice things she did, and I started relaxing. But within a few minutes, I went right back to hating on her. I played around with it, shifting back and forth between loving her and hating her. My body would contract and release accordingly. It was surprising to see how my mind was creating the whole situation. It wasn't based on what she was doing. Is it okay to just "fake reality" to make myself live in a great world?

Kim Allen: There is deep discernment in what you said: "My mind was creating these different situations." You noticed that in one scenario your body was contracted, and in the other, less so. Because it didn't have anything to do with her—she is exactly who she is in her fullness and complexity—the world you choose to live in has a big effect on you, and you have a choice in that. You were in a bad mood, and your mind drifted toward ill will, but you had the mindfulness to change it. This perfectly shows how discernment works.

To your question about "faking reality"—that's a more subtle question. When we have ill will, there is an antidote called goodwill (mettā), where we deliberately think about a person's good qualities. You were using that to get yourself out of the quicksand. But in the long run, we want true mettā, which is unconditional love. You love your sister regardless of her qualities. To bring in the fullness of wisdom, you would see all of reality and be okay with it. You were moving in the right direction, which is worth celebrating, even if it wasn't the final endpoint of unconditioned love.

KR: During the meditation, I immediately switched to my current practice, which is the Mahasi method¹¹, focusing on the breath and the belly. So I was probably lost for 95% of what you were saying. I just wanted to report that.

Kim Allen: Sometimes our mind has strong habits from what we've cultivated in meditation. If that kind of meditation is working for you right now, you don't need to bring in other things. Eventually, a sign of maturity in practice is the ability to do different things in our meditation. But the Mahasi style will actually highlight tensions as well. You just aren't allowed to pursue them through investigation. It's doing the same function—helping you notice where you're bumping up against reality by requiring you to stay with the same object. It untangles the mind; it's just a slightly different method for doing so.

Expanding on Wise View: Doubt and the Four Noble Truths

There are a few more things to fill in regarding this basic notion of wisdom and distinguishing the skillful from the unskillful.

The first is about doubt. In the suttas, doubt is one of the hindrances and one of the fetters of the mind. In vernacular English, doubt usually just means uncertainty ("I doubt my car will start"). But the hindrance of doubt specifically refers to not being clear on what is wholesome and unwholesome. This makes doubt the exact opposite of wisdom.

A mind that has overcome doubt is equated with understanding skillful qualities. When we are stuck in doubt, we aren't clear on what direction we're supposed to be going. People often think doubt is countered by faith, but I would say it requires a specific form of wisdom called investigation. We check it out: I'm doubtful as to what is skillful, so I'm going to try something. If it leads to more suffering, my doubt is cured—I now know that was the wrong direction. Doubt is countered by wisdom, and through trial and error, we discern the skillful direction to go.

Secondly, there are actually two forms of wise view. The first is karma and cause-and-effect. The second, deeper form is seeing in terms of the Four Noble Truths¹²: understanding that there is dukkha, understanding that it arises from craving, understanding that it can cease, and understanding that there is a path of practice that leads to its cessation.

Orienting around the Four Noble Truths is completely different than orienting around getting what we want, fixing the world, or judging others. Philip Moffett once said, "The Four Noble Truths is not just a summary guideline, a creed, or a statement of philosophy, but it is an actual practice of insight and realization in and of itself. It's a teaching on how to live wisely."

What we did in the meditation today was a practice of the Four Noble Truths. We opened the mind to where there was tension or dukkha, and we invited the easing of that. The bottom line is always the same: Are our unwholesome states decreasing, and are our wholesome states increasing? That is how you know you are moving in the right direction.

For the next two weeks, we're going to look at particular versions of how we can apply our wise view to advance the path, specifically exploring the Three Characteristics and Conditionality. In our final session, we'll talk about how wisdom and compassion—mind and heart—are not separate.

Practice for the Week

Have a look at the Week 1 readings in the drive. For your practical exercise this week, think of a sticky or challenging place in your life right now. We are always in some kind of transition or dilemma.

Instead of trying to "solve the problem," step back and consider it carefully through the lens of what is skillful and unskillful. This is not about deciding what to do, but looking at how you are relating to the situation. For example, relating to a dilemma with the thought, "I'm going to fail if I don't get this right," is an unskillful view. A skillful view might be asking, "What am I contributing to making this challenging?"

Get clear about what are skillful and unskillful ways of relating to your situation, and see if you can shift your relationship to it so that your approach becomes more skillful.

May our skillful engagement with the dharma tonight benefit ourselves and others in deep and surprising ways that ripple out and bring benefit beyond our sphere. May all beings be happy, peaceful, and free. Have a wonderful week of practice.