Know What?

“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.  

― Pema Chödrön

 

"I vow to live a life of Not-knowing, 

giving up fixed ideas about myself and the universe."

-- The First Tenet of the Zen Peacemakers

 

 

The Summer of '62

 

" I know not, your majesty." -- Bodhidharma

Over the years, the assumption that I absolutely understand what is going on, and know exactly what to do about it, has tripped me up -- a lot.  

 

Even worse, the assumption that I know exactly what is going on and what someone else should to do about it, has wrecked havoc.

 

Assumptions, especially the one's buried in our subconscious belief structures, can cause a lot of unnecessary suffering.

 

My first boss, Charlie Winchester, foreman of the maintenance department at a small factory in a small town north of Chicago, had, perhaps, a less delicate way of making the point.  The memory brings a smile and warm glow to my heart.

In the summer of 1962, I was able to get a relatively good paying union job at the factory where my dad worked.  At that point in my life, I was drawn to become a public school teacher.  So, it was time.  

 

I couldn't rely on family wealth.  I had to start saving money for the college education that would, perhaps, propel me up a notch in social status, if not in income.  

 
Charlie was a kind and able mentor.  His spirit pervaded the maintenance crew.  During the seven summers I worked there, I was well supported by a small team of guys willing to show "the kid" the ropes.  They taught me a lot about how things work -- on many levels.

One particular lesson emerged when Charlie came around the corner to find me standing in front of a piece of production machinery.  I'd been trusted to replace the belt that connected it's electric motor to the drill assembly.  I assumed it would be a simple repair. 

 

It wasn't.

Belching smoke, the entire machine was lurching erratically and making threatening noises.  As soon as I saw him, I began to explain what I had done and why.  Interrupting me mid-sentence, he walked past me to shut the machine down. (Duh!) 

 

Then, with the ever-present cigar stub clenched in his smile,  Charlie took a pencil and a small spiral bound notepad from the plastic pencil holder that always rode in his front shirt pocket.  He opened the pad to a blank page, and then, in large, capital letters, he wrote the word "ASSUME."

"You know what happens when you assume?" he asked.
(READ MORE) 
I don't need to go into the details of his lecture here (he was actually quite gentle with me considering the circumstances), but to illustrate the points he was making, Charlie grinned and added two strategic slashes, leaving me staring at the piece of paper.  It read: 

ASS/U/ME

Although Charlie's delivery may seem a bit rough around the edges for some of my spiritually minded friends, his was a profound Teaching.  Its depth continues to amaze me.  

 

The Spring of '25

 

And here I sit at the computer, almost 63 years down the road. I just came through a challenging encounter with a loved one.  It's clear that subterranean assumptions and preconceptions can still prevent me from seeing what is right in front of my nose.  Thankfully, these days I usually don't get too far afield before I remember -- or am reminded -- to take a few conscious breaths, relax -- and get real.  

Today, not so much.

 

The on-going challenge is clear.  At the deepest levels, certain assumptions become embedded in the clusters of thoughts and emotions that form the individuated point of view that is commonly known as the ego.  Part of this subconscious process is the formation of a perceptual screen which filters our experience.  

 

Without Practice, most of us don't see Reality as it is much of the time. We see reality as we believe it to be. 

 

Then, as if that wasn't enough, the perceptual screen even filters out data that doesn't confirm what we already"believe" to be true.  If someone or something appears to directly challenge the belief systems that create our sense of identity, fear and anger often emerge as the ego's defensive reaction.  

This, of course, has enormous -- and quite destructive -- consequences.  We find ourselves suffering, wrapped up in unnecessary inner debates, or tangled up in arguments with others.  Oftentimes, these never get to the core issues involved.

 

On a collective level this leads to the wars. 

The Mind of Not-Knowing

The first of the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers, an organization of socially engaged Buddhists founded by Roshi Bernie Glassman and others is:

 

"I vow to live a life of Not-knowing, 

giving up fixed ideas about myself and the universe."

To many folks who are swirled up in the mainstream of contemporary society, an intention to not know may seem quite strange.  After all, we've been raised in a system that rewards status, power and influence to "experts"who claim to know.  Yet, no matter where we end up in that pecking order, each of us may have a great deal of ego invested in "knowing."

 

This operates as a subconscious security blanket. With our head underneath those blankets, we seek the comfort of fixed ideas about who we are, who "they" are, and how things are.  In a culture steeped in "scientific materialism," we have been conditioned to think and feel that we are seeing and responding to an objective reality "out there. " It exits and operates independently from us.  

 

Deeply conditioned by the shared assumptions of a modern capitalist society, many also come to believe that our task in life is to decide what we want to acquire to make us happy and go for it -- while defending ourselves from others.  We are taught to believe that if we are successful enough in doing this we will no longer suffer. 

Guess again.

Through the ages, the avatars, seers, sages and saints of all traditions have made a point to look at the world created by a prevailing system of belief and proclaim "it ain't that way at all!"  

Although the concepts used varied, these seekers of wisdom pointed to a dimension of experience that transcended the "conventional" reality of their societies.  Oftentimes, they had to confront the religious authorities of their day.  Some suffered for it.

I consider myself lucky to have come of age in the late 60's and early '70's. It was a time when a lot of us caught the tidal wave of a worldwide Spiritual Awakening. Immersed in the collective consciousness that emerged, many of us surfed our way into personal and collective mystical experiences -- with or without drugs.  

 

The bottom line?  We discovered that there is a spiritual plane of existence.  It exists as the ground of our being in each and every moment.  There, the Teachings of Buddha (and Jesus and many others) make perfect sense.

And yet -- here's where Practice comes in -- I came to realize that "knowing" that we are all One and that Love IS the Answer, doesn't quite cut it.  As a young, working class, white male who grew up in the midst of highly dysfunctional family, foster homes, and chaos, I wasn't able to consistently be the kind and considerate human being that I aspired to be. 

 

In fact, clinging to the subterranean belief structures that preceded, and resulted from, my own "peak" experience led to all sorts of side-effects; arrogance, self-righteousness, and closed mindedness perhaps being three of the most obnoxious.  As time moved on, it became more and more obvious.  If I wanted to live my life with some semblance of care, compassion and correctness, I had to make a serious commitment.  It was going to take a lot of time and effort.

 

It would take Practice.    

Although I hadn't completely realized it at the time, the Practice that emerged over the past 55 years wasn't about taking a magic carpet ride to ecstatic states.  Although there may be moments of grandeur and bliss, it was a much more involved.  

 

To deepen a Connection to the Sacred, I would have to dive into the nether realms of my own subconscious.  I would have to explore the assumptions that formed the framework of my own conditioned belief structures.  Some of those I readily recognized.  Other patterns of thought and feeling had always operated beneath the level of conscious awareness.  

 

Without Practice, my ego's conditioned point of view would continue to freeze the world I lived in, separating me from aspects of myself, from others, and from the One Love that exists at the Heart of Being.
 
Just Sitting Still Helps

The development and maintenance of a regular meditation practice continues to be essential. Over time, I've deepened and more consistently sustained an awareness of a vast and spacious quality of consciousness that exists within and beyond the constraints of our conditioned patterns.  There, I've had the opportunity to gaze at the essentially fluid nature of all experience as it dances through infinity.   

 

This was a bit unsettling at first because the thrust of our ego conditioning is to "nail down" a fixed reality. We cling to the assumption that we are fixed entities,  separate from everyone and everything else.  

 

We aren't.

Another, perhaps more daunting, aspect of the Practice is the process of taking a deep look at the darker, "unacceptable" aspects of ourselves.  These deeply conditioned patterns have most often been reflexively denied or repressed.  Layers of fear often shield them from view.

Both on the meditation cushion and elsewhere, it takes a commitment to look at ourselves in the mirror of mindfulness and open awareness.  This isn't easy. It can be difficult to face ourselves honestly.  It takes the cultivation of deep kindness and compassion toward ourselves to acknowledge -- and embrace -- the "ghosties and ghoulies" of our subconscious mind, the gnarlier aspects of our own conditioned personalities.  

 

As many of us have learned, an attempt to just go for the gold and cling to the more miraculous aspects of who we are, doesn't really cut it.   This spiritual bypassing doesn't seem to work.  Even the "realm of the gods" is impermanent.  If we can't face and embrace the shadows, it's hard to sustain the Light.

 
The Heart of Practice

 

The Heart of Practice emerges as we open to the entire gamut of the human condition as it appears within our own experience.  With Practice, we are able to embrace each moment with full attention, greater concentration, and open curiosity.  We learn to expand the gaze of our awareness to include the spaciousness that emerges beyond the tunnel vision of our thoughts. 

 

When we are truly Present, we are able to discern the difference between knowing and thinking that we know.  We don't cling to being right. We are able to Not Know more readily.  In the vast, luminous, spacious awareness that emerges, we are able to sense the energies of the situation more clearly.  Other realms of guidance become more readily available.  

Moment-to-moment, letting go of thinking that we know what is going on, we are able to be Present with an open heart and a clear mind.  Engaging life wholeheartedly, we can see what, if anything, needs to be done.

 

Life gets a lot more interesting when that happens. 

It just takes Practice.