I once overheard a conversation between a couple of friends about how to know what medications to take. They were musing about how in an ideal world there would be a council of elders who would be the custodians of that sort of knowledge and if you were sick you'd go to them and they'd tell you. The assumption seemed to be that there was some innate wisdom required and somehow this council would know what to do - better than trained...
It's a word that I tend to not use. It seems to me like a word that can mean a great many different things depending on who's saying it and the context. It seems like a word that can be spoken by one person, who has a meaning in mind, and received by another who interprets it as meaning something entirely different. It can mean living in a cave for 10 years or appreciating the beauty of a rainbow. Or almost anything in between. Wikipedia is...
Talking to friend last week, she insisted that Buddhism is not a religion. She's a Tibetan Buddhist and certainly knows more than I do, but I wasn't convinced. I listened to a recording of Letting Go of God by Julia Sweeney a couple of years ago. Julia Sweeney was brought up Catholic and the monologue (and stage show and book) chronicle her journey from being a believer to being an atheist. It's very funny and moving and very worth a listen...