Developing a capacity to let go of habitual, routine
forms of knowing is fundamental to mindfulness practice.
In their place, we cultivate a bare attention to
moment-to-moment experience-a kind of open,
present-centered, direct and nonjudgemental awareness.
Paradoxically, this awareness reflects a kind of knowing
that depends on unknowing: on noticing and releasing our
usual tendencies to “know” our experience through
repetitive thoughts. We see and let go, at least
temporarily, of the ways in which we frame our
experiences through familiar personal and cultural
stories concepts, interpretations of the past and
future, and the seemingly nonstop series of comments on
these experiences.
Most beginning meditators learn how hard it is simply to
feel the sensations of the breath, to see a tree or
watch a sunset, or to listen to a friend without an
ongoing mental contemporary. We discover, often with
some surprise, how much of our life seems organised,
dominated and driven by repetitive ideas. (A Stanford
University study once showed that ninety three per cent
of our daily thoughts have occurred previously). At
later stages of our practice, we may begin to be aware
of the emotional and somatic correlates and the deeper
roots of such repetitive thoughts - a varied mix of
fears and anxieties, longings and hopes, painful and
pleasant memories.
I was amazed when I was a student and beginning
meditator to notice how much I was thinking-all the
time! I was particularly surprised to see the extent to
which I rehearsed or planned for an upcoming activity.
When I needed to give a report in a few days, I would go
over my plan numerous times during my forty-five minute
meditation, often duplicating exactly what I had thought
a few minutes earlier.
I also noticed such planning occurring outside of
meditation, in my passing thoughts, sometimes more than
fifty times a day. And this was all in addition to my
“official” time of sitting down to plan the report. it
seemed quite excessive to me, and I was able to tell
myself, with blazing insight, “Well, perhaps ten or
twenty times is quite enough!”
I also discerned that much of the planning seemed
spurred by a desire to control the outcome (and my
experience in general). There seemed to be a fear of
what might happen were I not to exert control in this
way. In mindfulness practice, we thus explore how our
everyday knowing-personal, cultural or
institutional-commonly has a shadow, a “dark side.” We
find that our human quest to know is often fuelled by
fear, greed, hatred and (ironically) delusion.
Our knowing may also guided by love, wonder and awe,
compassion, caring, wisdom or a sense of justice, but we
usually come to know the difference only after we have
learned to suspend our ordinary knowing. Only then can
we return to knowing. We come to see that the problem is
actually not thinking or knowing as such, but rather our
lack of wisdom about these processes. Hence, our
practice of not knowing is actually a journey of
discovery that leads to a new and extraordinary knowing.
While we may often learn how “not to know” through
regular contemplative practice, we may also
intentionally enter into other forms of not
knowing-following weekly, seasonal and cyclical rhythms.
One way is to keep the practice of the sabbath, so that
once a week we let go of newspapers, television, radio,
e-mails and telephones. In our speedy culture, such a
practice has a great impact-slowing us down to listen,
not just on the sabbath day but on the other six days of
the week as well.
We can also follow the seasonal rhythms of death and
rebirth, in which we let go of the old and welcome the
new, particularly through rituals and celebrations. In
these ceremonies, we overcome temporarily the tyranny of
daily life and remember our deeper intentions. Spiritual
retreats can also be understood as a time of entering
into the unknown, of letting go not only of our ordinary
concerns but also of our spiritual expectations,
bringing us renewal and inspiration. We may schedule
such retreats on a regular basis as well as during
period on inactivity when we don’t know what to do, when
we are at crossroads in our lives.
Sometimes there are longer and often difficult periods
when we either choose or somehow are chosen by our life
circumstances to enter a sustained time of not
knowing-of inquiry, listening, exploring and sometimes
confusion. The Buddha himself went off on a six-year
voyage of discovery after he left the palace and his
former life. Carl Jung, following his break with Freud
in 1912, dropped much of the outer structure of his life
for several years. He later wrote: “After the parting of
the ways with Freud, a period of inner uncertainly began
for me. It would be no exaggeration to call it a state
of disorientation. I felt totally suspended in mid-air,
for I had not yet found my own footing.” For the Buddha
and Jung, such periods generated the core insights that
animated their later work.
At several transitional periods in my life, I have
chosen to cultivate not knowing. About eight years ago,
for example, I began a period of over a year in which I
deliberated dropped many of the structures and much of
the business of my life, with the explicit intention of
making space for what was new and deeper, more
authentic, more passionate.
I knew intellectually what would probably surface from
that open time - a deepened commitment to spiritual
practice and spiritually grounded action in the world.
But I knew neither the forms that would emerge nor the
precise steps to take in that direction. I only knew
that I needed to let go, wait and listen.
To begin, I dropped, within the first few months, most
of my obligations. At times it was quite scary (although
also a great privilege) to have so little structure. Yet
over time, particularly with the aid of several long
retreats. I came to feel my core intentions more deeply
and grounded them more firmly through clearing away some
of the inner and outer debris that blocked or obscured
the path of my life.
On a retreat for teenagers led by me friend Diana
Winston, one student commented: “Not knowing is good
enough, but it’s not complete. We have to add, ‘But
keeping going.’ Usually we somehow need to act and keep
going even when we don’t know.”
This suggests some of the dangers or traps of
not-knowing practice. An extended period of not knowing
can often had to fear, confusion and paralysis. Jung,
for example, spoke about the powerful “inner pressure”
of his period of unknowing. While it is important
periodically to take a break from the need to act, it is
also important to know when it is time to return to
action, and able at times to “keep going” even when fear
and confusion are present.
We may also turn not knowing into a fixed view, and thus
(ironically) into another form of knowing. We may
believe that not knowing justifies not acting ethically
or making use of conventional knowledge. We may in this
way conflate “not knowing but keeping going” with
“anything goes”. For instance, some have used teachings
about not knowing as a reason to ignore fundamental
ethical precepts, as when some Japanese Zen teachers and
their students in the first half of the twentieth
century used such teachings to justify militarism and
assassinations.
One Zen-trained assassin commended, “I have no
systematized ideas. I transcend reason and act
completely upon intuition.” Such examples may remind us
that not knowing is not an independent principal.
Rather, it is held by our wisdom and compassion. Our
wisdom may lead us not to know, but it does not lead us
not to care.
අමාවක
පුර අටවක
පසෙලාස්වක
අව
අටවක