Philosophical Sayings About Worldly Matter (XXVI)

A person grows wiser by learning from the setbacks he suffered. True knowledge comes from one’s own experience. Secondhand experience is worth little.

(This is a translation of H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III Wan Ko Yeshe Norbu’s philosophical sayings about worldly matters originally written in Chinese.)

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Below is not an official translation, just for reference.

A person grows wiser by learning from the setbacks he suffered. True knowledge comes from one’s own experience. Secondhand experience is worth little. On the road of life, how can we understand the truth or understand the true meaning of self-realm? The point of doing this is not only what you hear and see. In addition to watching and listening, you must be good at finding experience and lessons in countless failures. Only after verification by practice and internal review of failures can you understand everything and gain the truth.

Therefore, you must experience things yourself to honestly know. You must practice it yourself to experience the true essence instead of listening to what others say. Therefore, only through personal experience, seeing with our own eyes, and gained from our own practice, can we understand the principle and its truth.