Tricycle Daily Dharma August 6, 2012
All-encompassing Mindfulness
"If ‘mindfulness’ is to create genuine change in our society, it must involve being mindful of more than just our own need for comfort, good health, or serenity.
It must entail being mindful of the social and economic forces that allow some to prosper while others struggle, forces that promote and perpetuate certain behaviors and thought patterns while discouraging or suppressing others." ...
"Wisdom is not necessarily synonymous with comfort, or better health, or even happiness. If Wisdom 2.0 (a conference) had addressed the sometimes painful conflict between technological growth and human needs, it would have been forced to challenge its attendees, its speakers—and yes, its corporate sponsors. It could be argued that this, and not feel-good sessions for acquisitive millionaires, is the work of wisdom.
Philosophers like Mortimer Adler, along with later thinkers like the economist Kenneth Boulding, created a simple hierarchy, known as DIKW, that was applied to early thinking about computer technology. It stood for Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom, with data at the lowest rung on the ladder and wisdom at the highest. Each of these rungs is important.
But data and information are not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom."
- Richard Eskow, “Buying Wisdom"