I just found this handy list of concise definitions of each paramita on Rigpa Wiki, an invaluable online source of information on Buddhist terms and categories. If you click on the first link above, you’ll see that the definition of wisdom (Skt. prajna, Tib. sherab, literally “highest knowledge”) in the context of the six paramitas is “the perfect discrimination of all phenomena, all knowable things.” It is sometimes called the paramita of discriminating awareness or wisdom-knowledge to distinguish it from the other kind of wisdom (Tib. yeshe), primordial wisdom, also known as timeless awareness, our fundamental, innate wisdom nature that we gradually awaken to on the path of practicing the six paramitas.

Everyone has this innate primordial wisdom-awareness; the point of the path is to learn to recognize, access, and spontaneously operate from it, as the Buddha did. An essential stage of that process is acquiring the wisdom of discriminating awareness, also known as “the wisdom that recognizes emptiness,” which is the true nature of all phenomena. The paramita of wisdom is the perfection of the realization of emptiness in our own direct experience. When it is perfected, we reach the first bhumi, or official bodhisattva level, which is the third of the five stages of the path to buddhahood, known as “the path of seeing.” If you’d like to know more about the five paths and the ten bodhisattva levels, Rigpa Wiki has those too! (Gampopa and Ringu Tulku have more detailed explanations.) When we attain the path of seeing, that is, when we come to directly see things as they really are — their empty aspect — there are still 9 bodhisattva levels of increasing refinement to go, but it’s the beginning of living from our innate wisdom (yeshe).

All this nerdy preamble is essential infrastructure for those who wish to attain awakening to the true nature of ourselves and everything that happens to us. You can read much better explanations of the wisdom paramita in the books linked above, among other sources, and I highly recommend them for all practitioners. Here I’ll limit myself to a concise, bare-bones outline of the main points:

How to practice the wisdom paramita: Wisdom has three aspects in Mahayana Buddhism: 1) worldly wisdom, the kind of mundane knowledge we are already used to acquiring; 2) lesser spiritual wisdom, what we understand through dharma study, reflection, and meditation; and 3) higher spiritual wisdom, which Ringu Tulku Rinpoche defines as the full understanding of emptiness. All three types of wisdom are important on the path, but Rinpoche advises that “we should assiduously [work] to gain that ultimate understanding” (the third one).

As to how to actually practice, on page 126 of Path to Buddhahood, Rinpoche says, “We won’t be able to see things in a fresh and new way immediately. We’ll first have to do some preliminaries, which means we’ll have to exercise, tame, and train our mind so that it becomes relaxed, clearer, and quieter. We have to get rid of the hectic and tumultuous confusion, the turmoil and heavy smog that covers our mind. This can be done only through meditation, and this is why we need to meditate.”

We are all familar by now with the path of meditation in the Kagyu Mahamudra tradition: we begin with shamatha meditation to train our mind to come to rest, with or without an object, without getting completely caught up in distraction. This means that whenever we find ourselves distracted into involvement in a momentary perception or thought, we recognize it as mere distraction and gently, nonjudgmentally allow our attention to settle again. Once we have some stability with this process, we can then gradually begin to look at the actual nature of our mind using the techniques of vipashyana meditation, such as looking for the mind that is meditating and where that might be located, and whether it has color or shape. What we find (or fail to find) through this process is the empty aspect, or unfindability, of the mind itself.

How does the paramita of wisdom apply to the other five paramitas? The first four paramitas of generosity, ethical conduct, patience, and joyful diligence need to be practiced in order to implement the Buddha’s first two instructions on awakening: 1) refrain from actions that cause harm and 2) engage in virtue all we can. As a result, we will become a very kind person and accumulate maximum positive karma and minimum negative karma. And that is a wonderful accomplishment that will benefit us and others tremendously.

But to actually awaken, to free ourselves once and for all from suffering and, beyond that, from being stuck in samsara, we also need to practice the Buddha’s third and final instruction: tame our own mind utterly. This is done through the sequence explained above: shamatha meditation to stabilize the mind (fifth paramita) and then vipashyana meditation to realize the wisdom of the emptiness of all phenomena, including the paramitas. The way wisdom is customarily explained with regard to the paramitas, taking the first one, generosity, as an example, is that in ultimate reality, the way things truly exist, there is no independently existing giver, receiver, or act of generosity; likewise with the other paramitas.

Through consistent study, reflection, and practice over time, we can arrive at a pretty solid intellectual understanding of emptiness. And that is very beneficial and worth pursuing. However, in order to reach full awakening, we also need to join it with our day-to-day experience through practice in order to eventually gain stable, direct realization of emptiness and attain the path of seeing (explained in paragraph 2 above). The good news: we can all do it! because the Buddha taught that the way things really are is nothing other than our own innate, true nature waiting to be realized. The bad news: it will only happen if we 1) really believe it’s possible, and then 2) only if we both maintain a resolute intention and follow through with consistent formal and informal practice. Like everything worthwhile, uncovering our own true nature requires effort, and samsara is full of alluring distractions, but is there really any better use of this precious, fleeting human life?

You Can Do It! From three-year retreat, 2008

(Indiana Jones and) The Quest for the Wish-Fulfilling Gem!

For more on the six paramitas: 37 practices six paramitas overview

Guru Vajradhara Tai Situ Rinpoche on the six paramitas (videos)

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche on the six paramitas (video)