Three kinds of wisdom

Received Wisdom (suta-mayā paññā), Intellectual Wisdom (cintā-mayā paññā), and Experiential Wisdom (bhāvanā-mayā paññā). 

The literal meaning of the phrase suta-mayā paññā is “heard wisdom”—wisdom learned from others, by reading books or listening to sermons or lectures, for example. This is another person's wisdom which one decides to adopt as one's own. The acceptance maybe out of ignorance. For example, people who have grown up in a community with a certain ideology, a system of beliefs, religious or otherwise, may accept without questioning the ideology of the community. Or the acceptance may be out of craving. Leaders of the community may declare that accepting the established ideology, the traditional beliefs, will guarantee a wonderful future; perhaps they claim that all believers will attain heaven after death. Naturally the bliss of heaven is very attractive, and so willingly one accepts. Or the acceptance may be out of fear. Leaders may see that people have doubts and questions about the ideology of the community, so they warn them to conform to the commonly held beliefs, threatening them with terrible punishment in the future if they do not conform, perhaps claiming that all unbelievers will go to hell after death. Naturally, people do not want to go to hell, so they swallow their doubts and adopt the beliefs of the community. Whether it is accepted out of blind faith, out of craving, or out of fear, received wisdom is not one's own wisdom, not something experienced for oneself. It is borrowed wisdom.
The second type of wisdom (cintā-mayā paññā) is intellectual understanding. After reading or hearing a certain teaching, one considers it and examines whether it is really rational, beneficial, and practical. And if it is satisfying at the intellectual level, one accepts it as true. Still this is not one's own insight, but only an intellectualization of the wisdom one has heard.

The third type of wisdom (bhāvanā-mayā paññā). is that which arises out of one's own experience, out of personal realization of truth. This is the wisdom that one lives, real wisdom that will bring about a change in one's life by changing the very nature of the mind.

In worldly matters, experiential wisdom may not always be necessary or advisable. It is sufficient to accept the warnings of others that fire is dangerous, or to confirm the fact by deductive reasoning. It is foolhardy to insist on plunging oneself into fire before accepting that it burns. In Dhamma, however, the wisdom that comes of experience is essential, since only this enables us to become free from conditioning.

Wisdom acquired through listening to others and wisdom acquired through intellectual investigation are helpful if they inspire and guide us to advance to the third type of paññā, experiential wisdom. But if we remain satisfied simply to accept received wisdom without questioning, it becomes a form of bondage, a barrier to the attainment of experiential understanding. By the same token, if we remain content merely to contemplate truth, to investigate and understand it intellectually, but make no effort to experience it directly, then all our intellectual understanding becomes a bondage instead of an aid to liberation. ~