Experience

Experience of the world is useful to the solitary or would-be hermit because it allows the person to draw conclusions, contrasts, and confirmations. Experience is the best form of instruction because it is the most convincing. If feelings are evoked, the entire self learns, even the body. To be aware of something in the abstract, however persuasive or logical, is never as good as experiencing the good and rightness of a thing, what some Buddhists call — for lack of a better term — the “wholesomeness” of a thing. Confidence comes from this deep-seated knowledge, not from cerebral or social sources, or from authority or habit.