As a ripple of many beautiful encounters, few of us have been hosting a 9-month Laddership Circle with 7 high school seniors from the K-12 girls' school at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas.

This month, the theme was on wisdom, and we were amazed by some of the insights that these teenagers presenced! I don't know what I was doing at 17, but probably not spending a Saturday night in a circle of sharing on wisdom! :)

Here's few excerpts from their reflections:

"I realized that wisdom also does not fall into one archetype, it comes in all different forms and sometimes it is a gentle nudge in the side and other times it hits you like a brick, but each time we should embrace the gift we have been given and impart it on others as well."

"People who embody wisdom are not necessary positive, but forward thinking. They do not dwell in the stress of a situation and instead hone this stress into a progressive mindset to solve the problem."

"Wisdom is about awareness and knowing how to appreciate, whether it is your senses or your external environment. Wisdom is also about symbiosis; humans, animals, and nature must have a mutual and harmonious cycle of giving to one another. They are also cognizant of all the outer and internal forces that allow us to live our lives smoothly every day. People with wisdom also have the patience to take things slow. In the modern world we are always in a rush to do things, but wise people know how to take a step back, reflect, as the article we read puts it, “Here you have watches. There, we have time." But my question is: how can you be like Moussa Ag Assarid, to stop rushing and to take things slow, when society and your duties requires you to rush and not to take things slow?"

"In the middle of our hallway, we have a statue of Confucius. While he is a physical embodiment of Wisdom, I find that I learn more wisdom through the people who interact with the statue then the statue itself. Most students, no matter what they're doing, will often stop and pause to respect and honor Confucius through a quick bow. I think that this is wisdom because it teaches us that there is something greater than us in the physical places around us, and when we take time to reflect on it, we are developing our inherent wisdom. The statue might be made from wood or some unknown material, but it helps us center our wisdom and nurture it in our everyday lives. Wisdom is not only restricted to a specific time or person, but rather it is a mundane thing that if we only take the time to notice, we can find our lives abundantly interspersed with it."

"I personally think that wisdom is way much more important than knowledge. We obtain knowledge by reading books and studying, however, wisdom is gained when we cultivate or when we encounter challenges. Wisdom is a life-long learning."