I don't know

[PClark1]

Good evening,

It has been just over a month since I started sitting daily. I just finished my evening meditation and I feel somewhat sad. I realized that the certainty that I've had toward a lot of my world views has slipped away, replaced by what feels like a chasm of uncertainty, toward everything, really. In the past two weeks, I feel like I've used the phrase "I don't know " more than I ever have in my adult life. The strange thing is that I feel very comforted by this uncertainty. It's like I see a path of discovery where before there was only the obstacle of my dogmatic views of the world.

The only thing that I'm certain of is that I don't know a damned thing and I hope I never feel like I do again.

Is this normal?

Gassho

Paul
Sat today in joy of uncertainty

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[Myogan]

I almost want to say congratulations! Personally it took me 3-4 years to get the don't know mind.
You have emptied your cup.

A master was trying to explain something to a student. Now this student was not a brand new student, but a senior student who had learned many things. He had knowledge and experience aplenty to draw upon. But each time the master tried to explain something new to the student, the student kept trying to hold it up against his own notions of the way the world is and how it ought be, and he was unable to see the lessons in what the master was trying to teach him.
Finally, the master poured a full serving of tea into his own cup, and into the cup of the student. Then he told the student he wanted to give to him some of the tea from his own cup. He began pouring tea from his cup into the student's cup, but the student's cup was already full, and all the tea from the master's cup spilled out over the cup onto the surface below.
The student said, "Master, you can't pour anything into my cup until I empty it to make room for what you are trying to give me.", and the master replied "Yes I know." "And I can't give you any new thoughts or ideas or perspectives on life's lessons until you clear out some thoughts that are already teeming in your mind to make room for what I have to teach you." Then the master paused for a brief moment, meeting the student's eyes with his own knowing look and calmly but sternly said: " If you truly seek understanding, then first, empty your cup!"
The student pondered for a moment with a look of absolute bewilderment. Then a look of enlightenment came over him, followed by a smile, and a look of receptiveness. The master started to explain again, and this time the student saw what the master was trying to say.

Gassho
Sat

[Kyotai]

Thank you for sharing. That is similar to my experience, well into my practice. Keep sitting

Gassho, Kyotai
ST

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[Jundo]

Hi Paul,

I think in Zen, "I don't know" is a very cherished phrase.

But it is a kind of being at home and comfortable with "I don't know", rather than a confused "I don't know" or a jaded "I don't care." It is also an "I don't know" that can often provide a very clear kind of "Knowing."

The Korean Son Teacher Seung Sahn practiced Rinzai Koan Introspection, and used to tell his student to keep this Koan before them ...

So I ask you: what are you? You don’t know; there is only “I don’t know.” Always keep this don’t know mind. When this don’t know mind becomes clear, then you will understand. ... So throw away all opinions, all likes and dislikes, and only keep the mind that doesn’t know. This is very important. Don’t know mind is the mind that cuts off all thinking. When all thinking has been cut off, you become empty mind. This is before thinking. Your before thinking mind, my before thinking mind, all people’s before thinking minds are the same. This is your substance. Your substance, my substance, and the substance of the whole universe become one. So the tree, the mountain, the cloud and you become one. Then I ask you: Are the mountain and you the same or different? ... Just don't know.

Our Shikantaza Way approach is a little different, but the point is the same. Sometimes a very subtle yet clear "Knowing" comes precisely from this "don't know" ... especially when the "I" with all its wants and demands and judgments and dissatisfactions, and the divisions of "knower and known" is left aside. There is a freedom as so many of our assumptions, prejudices and narrow ways of seeing are left aside.

What is a good example of "I don't know"? Perhaps allowing life to bring tomorrow whatever it brings tomorrow would be a good "I don't know". Will tomorrow rain or be sunny, sick or healthy, life or death, up or down?! Yippee! I don't know, just here for the ride. Sometimes I compare this to the trust of a new born baby in its crib which just experiences the world without yet knowing the names for things and the ins and outs of how things work, not even yet a clear sense of "I" and not "I", but there is some kind of simple trust and gratitude and wonder just to be here.

I once wrote to someone who asked some "BIG questions" ...

You mention, as examples of some big questions, "what happens when we die", "whether there is a God and a 'Divine Plan'", "Why were we born, for what purpose" and the like. ...

Our Practice provides some very specific (and wonderful) answers to some 'big questions'. For example, Buddhism provides very clear guidance for and understanding of the origins of human suffering in this life. The "Four Noble Truths". for example, provide a formula that effectively describes the sickness and provides the medicine for its treatment or cure. ...

Our Practice provides some very wonderful answers to other 'big questions' by instructing us to drop the questions as meaningless. Some questions are as pointless as our asking 'how many angels can gather on the head of a pin' or 'what color are the rabbits that live on the moon'. An example of such a question may be "where do we 'go' when we die, and where did we 'come from' before we were born" ... Hand in hand with that, many questions we regularly ask may just be phrased poorly, biased by our narrow, anthropocentric human understanding. An example of that may be "why do 'bad things' happen in the world". When we change the way the question is asked, answers begin to present themselves ... Hitting the "reset button' on so many of our misguided questions are what most of those old Koans are on about, by the way.

Sometimes Zen provides answers by allowing us to encounter the world in new perspectives, and non-perspective, and topsy-turvy ways unlike our usual "common sense" ways of encountering ourself and the world (not two, by the way). ... We realize that we are intimately every grain of sand, star in the sky and blade of grass on the shore as much as we are each hair on our own heads or our own eyes ... and yet we also are not. We can know all this with crystal clarity too.

... And sometimes, Buddhism provides no answer to some 'big questions' (although that may be a kind of 'answer' too!). One such question may be whether or not there is actually a 'God' in the Judeo-Christian sense (and whether, for example, Jesus was 'His Son'). To such questions, our Zen Practice allows us to believe what we wish, or to take no stand at all.

Sometimes, when "I" want to "know something" we divide the world into pieces of "I" and the "somethings" searched for. But by being at home and present in just dropping the question, a kind of clarity and wholeness presents itself. Sometimes, for example, we might search for "our true self" or "god" or "buddha" somewhere distant, yet by simply resting and putting the question aside ... just chop wood and fetch water, Knowing not Knowing.

So, my response for today on whether Zen provides answers: Sometimes YES! Sometimes NO! Sometimes MAYBE! Sometimes FOR SURE! Sometimes WHO CARES!? Sometimes WHAT QUESTION?!?!

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?71-Jundo-Tackles-the-BIG-Questions

Anyway, what do I know?

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Seishin]

Thanks for sharing you experience Paul, that sounds like a good place to be. I've been sitting daily for the last 8 months and have yet to sense this don't know mind, although being aware of its existence/non existence through the lessons here and other sources. Guess I'll know when I don't know but will continue sitting with no expectations and after I know that I don't will keep on sitting. Or maybe I won't........I don't know.

[Ugrok]

Hello !

I can totally relate. Sometimes in practice you discover that, for example, you are not what you think you are. Then inevitably the questions come : what am i ? Am i these sensations i feel in my body ? This voice i hear in my head churning thoughts ? Am i what i see or hear ? What is all this ? Every certainty you have about the world falls.

This can be very unsettling at first, and i know it still happens to me from time to time. You discover that you cannot, with your thinking mind, answer anything. But the thinking mind can be stubborn and try, tirelessly, to answer these questions, when in fact it cannot. You cannot "really know" about anything with thinking. For example, if i ask you what is an apple, you may try to define it with language, but in the end, you can't know and say what it "really" is. It can be quite difficult for a bit. Then after a while, you drop all of this. And well, an apple is an apple, that's it. This is when it becomes great to "not know" ; you don't have to try to figure anything out, it is just as it is.

Beware though ; saying "i don't know" can also be a kind of a trap, because it's just another truth that you make up to reassure yourself. In fact, you don't even know that you don't know ! Hahaha ! I think this is what Seung Sahn points : your thinking mind just kinda stops.

Gassho,
Ugrok
Sat today

[Anka]

Another favorite quote from ZM Seung Sahn (I'm going to paraphrase).

"I don't teach mindfulness, or zen, or even buddhism. I only teach don't know."

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[Jishin]

I don't know

Hi Paul,

You know now that you don't know. This means that the learning possibilities are endless. Now discover the world moment by moment, unbiased and do the right thing. Congratulations!

IMG_0779.JPG

[emoji4]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[PClark1]

Thank you all for your input. I don't know if this state is here to stay, in fact I still catch myself trying to rationalize things and stack them up to my long held world views. The main difference is that I keep finding that my long-term certainty isn't the solid foundation that I have always viewed it to be.

I guess I'm just going to let it ride and see where it goes.

Thank you, again, for all of your encouragement.

Gassho

Paul

Sat today






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[Anka]

Hi Paul,

When life is crazy and monkey mind takes hold I simply ask myself "What am I?". It is such a simple question but we honestly have no clue were we came from and what our purpose is. It assists in getting close to this don't know mind again.

Sat
James

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[Ugrok]

Thank you all for your input. I don't know if this state is here to stay, in fact I still catch myself trying to rationalize things and stack them up to my long held world views. The main difference is that I keep finding that my long-term certainty isn't the solid foundation that I have always viewed it to be.

I guess I'm just going to let it ride and see where it goes.
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Don't worry, you even don't have to toss away everything that you believe. You will just see it for what it is : a belief. Which doesn't make it bad or wrong or untrustworthy or anything.

Gassho,
Uggy
Sat today

[Jundo]

Another favorite quote from ZM Seung Sahn (I'm going to paraphrase).

"I don't teach mindfulness, or zen, or even buddhism. I only teach don't know."

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Yeah yeah yeah. But then who is that looking over his shoulder?



And what is all the incense and candles and stuff?

A Koan

Gassho, J

SatToday

[RichardH]

Following from what Jundo is saying, in my experience all my existential questions are settled, not "answered" but settled-at-their-root, when I-don't-know loses its drawing, sucking, quality, and settles into a peaceful and even I-don't-know. I don't know, but I have no question. "Just chop wood and fetch water". At the same time my relative curiosity is more alive than ever (What is under the ice of Enceladus?! What was daily life like in classical Roman times? How will technology change how we live in the coming decades?) .....there is just no shadow of existential insecurity.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[Mp]

Hey Paul,

Knowing nothing and everything at the same time is a good thing. =) When sitting there is nothing to find, nothing to be answered ... so sometimes when we get up off the cushion that state of mind continues. So congrats for knowing nothing, it's all good.

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[Meian]

"I don't know" is my common answer to my family and others, and it drives them nuts Everyone wants answers, and I like not having them about the future, as I prefer to deal with the now, what is right in front of me. I always have plans, but I plan on contingencies, not set in stone. What I have learned from my life experience is that *anything* can change in a single moment, and that all things change. I still worry sometimes, but worrying is really a waste of time and energy.

When I start getting caught up in the rabbit's chase of the "what if" game - often Jundo's words come to mind of "chop wood and fetch water" (as Daizan also quoted above). Maybe Jundo did not originally say that, I don't know, but I often see him saying that. TreeLeaf in general has so much "down-home wisdom" that I cherish. It reminds me that no matter what is going on, the basics of life must still go on, and to stop worrying on the extraneous things. Focus on the now, and do what needs doing now.

That's my take on it. I don't know either, and I like not knowing - because I don't need to know, and I feel very peaceful about it. And so I sit with that

Gassho
Kim
s/t