Don't Know Mind

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so thank you alan
you're an addiction
today i want to talk about not knowing or also called don't know mind
and i was reminded of this teaching again during the hot soup ah i was sitting in the seven days to shame in december and on the sixth day at this point i'm very open and quite vulnerable after so much sitting
the heard a conversation in the community room
oh a m and immediately thought it was maybe about me and i was thrown into quite a turmoil turmoil i was just an old emotional ancient feeling of being left out not notice to you know like i was
hi to and i think just been so open and available i was quite thrown off my balance
and oh before going to sleep that night i did ah
kind of recognize that this was not a present moment thing that this had to do with something very old
and i was able to sleep and the next morning i just recognize i had just made up this entire story about it then i actually didn't know what their conversation was about and it made me think of the not knowing mind
and i was gonna get this talk had marge but the set that i'm sorry that i was due to talk is the first therapy we closed down because of a pandemic but as i looked again and when it in when i got my new day i saw that the talk is still very active
and ripe for me to go particularly may be even more so given what we've been going through the last four months with the pandemic and social justice uprising it really made remind me so much how we don't know
so i got to thinking about where does this knowing mind come from
and that the water you know there's the mind that we have the knowing mind the not the not knowing mine and then there is of course the mind that has to function in the world and the relative world's we're not talking about that we have to have known a around you have to do our work
we have to take her right shoulder in our family was society so we we have that and we need that live in this world is relative world so this system another kind of knowing mind that blocks the not knowing mine
the first saw piece of that i saw was emotions so clearly love that i felt during real hot soup that that was strong emotions just can grab us can grab me that was so sadness and loss and fear but anger even border
it all of those emotions can get in the way
and then there's his whole other exam and unexamined categories like my beliefs my strongly held beliefs and and all the ideas and preconceptions i might have for my judgments myself and others that i just clinging to
and there's my prejudices and discriminations that i think i've really been showing up now
oh and then there's by strong preferences for my likes and dislikes and all those dear things that have held on to so long i don't wanna give up
that are in the way
and my point of view and i so love comparing myself to another
from a lot of opinions and fixed ideas
of course a big one is my self centeredness or i'm thinking about me me me that can't really let anything else in just about me
in a particularly strong one for me is my comparative mine comparing myself to others and even to myself and i read somewhere that the buddha said that this is the last thing to drop away comparative my
mine
so there's a lot of expectations and i'm wondering where where did these come from where do all these expectations of myself and others come from
and of course was were familiar with those attachments
the things i really don't want to change and then there's the versions of things i just want to push away
and really this is not even an entire list is just the things that i came up with it
did i right grab onto
nice try to look and see will where do all these things come from
this knowing mine
while some of this from my family just the way i grew up your so vulnerable and impressionable
and those beliefs
are so ingrained
takes a while to really examine them and see what maybe this isn't so real maybe this isn't my experience anymore
and that experienced my experiences a child for example the exit via but happened to me and rojas hot that's from a very old time but i could see there was still energy there
still something i'm getting caught in
or maybe i believe someone
i love doing this or rather doing research just always a hearing someone else belief and then i'll take that went on as my own not even examining it
am most definitely the stories i tell myself and i i don't know where they come from i can just wave a story
and so
any of these things to iraq just one believe because it's gonna like an onion i on feel that belief and then there's another one and another willing another one underneath it so it's it's quite dense
and some other a big aspect for me of the snowing mind
are things like well i don't want to feel stupid don't want to appeared like i don't know
in my mind i'm thinking well i should know
i need to know
so i guess i'll have to pretend i know moved just look as though i do know
and chris i don't wanna lose control so i've gotta claim to this
but is so silly because we really like fooling myself as as as though i had some control of our lot my life
given similar things that have happened
to all of us
and then another set control about
really wanted to know the answers
one in that certain key i don't know what that is just it's just our human nature i think just wanted to know
in all this is really coming from my head it's up here all the sinking feeling
and then i gotta look and see all of things that i'm adding to it
yeah we hear that phrasings in don't add anything
some of this the consequences to knowing all of this is full of course it closes my mind now
and i get very narrow and shrunk malicious like television you can only see so much with those all those barriers really in the way it's very narrow shrunk
and because fixed you get i can really get entrenched in that
no
nothing else can come in
now i wanna talk about that's the knowing mind let's talk about i wanna talk about not knowing
and first i'm gonna read this call on proud of the book of serenity ah which is a translation by thomas cleary
and this is dee x nearness
case twenty
so disha on asked fi on where are you going
and fiat and said around on pilgrimage
these young said what is the purpose of pilgrimage
vi on said
i don't know
and d zhang said
not knowing his nearness
nearest not knowing his nearest
i'm gonna i'm gonna read another a translation j i particularly like
and of course again in case twenty and leave the translation by yamato one
so here they have different names so different language and gives chinese or japanese but de song is key so you'll get you get the feel of it jizo asked hogan where are you going
i am wandering at random
and she's so said
what do you think of wandering
logan said i don't know
jesus said not knowing his most intimate
not that hogan was suddenly enlightened
so what one is what is that is nearest not knowing his nearest in this translation not knowing his most intimate
not knowing
some i'm manage your name
what that was like
for fire on his his saw
his enlightenment
he was just wandering and i think in that moment when he was told that not knowing his most intimate he must have been so right there just feeling his sandals and
his feet in his sandals and maybe hit the robe against his skin and what was around him
the trees or flowers insects but he was awake and not cluttered in his mind
it is it's really like a newborn
we were observed a newborn
hum
they're just they're they're not thinking
there are they are just present
with all their senses they want a taste they want to feel they're hearing you're smelling
this looking around like just a new and at is a newborn
expressing
the unknown the not knowing mine
not thinking
and suzuki roshi as we know called this beginner's mind always returning to bigger smile he said it's beginner's mind is wide open
an accepting and allowing the vast rounds of possibilities
and that's where our zen practice really begins with his i don't know
right there in our was in
an we're opening up
i don't know
yeah this this teaching is so practical to
the practical teaching because you can always fall back on it is right there nothing to figure out just throw up whatever's been going on and then you can just engage in the next moment
with a clear uncluttered mine just open
to see what is next
and it it's ground and right here in reality
ah because really in reality we don't know what's gonna happen next we've all had that experience now recently
the two things i mentioned the pandemic
the social uprising
we don't know
what you gonna lose someone in an instant we just don't know
so in in we've become very intimate you know it's most intimate practice because we're getting intimate with our breath
you know we're returning to her bras
time and again
becoming intimate
which really is our our most precious gift is our breath
we'd always returned to it until our very last breath
can you become intimate with that
my yoga teacher told me that she's been seen now to caught the dalai lama on facebook i guess the last few fridays
and she said that he is teaching
about pranayama which is rough practice
which is like warriors with us what we do but he's encouraging people not just cause he's talking to the public on facebook so it's like practicing read all the time and i know that some people were doing that explored in it bc c
as i saw some of those emails
but it is something
we can always return to
washington this time when we feel the strasser
whatever things are being brought up for you being close dinner
not being able to see your family
it return to that breath which is so intimate
kind of just going back down to our very core
and
the breath is our home is the home base
always be there
whoso then our real home
so wanna talk about another teacher that talks about he calls it don't know mind can be a different slant on it
and his name is suing song he was a koreans and teacher from the quand own school of sad and he had a crew
back east
and i read it perused a few of his books and what every where every talk he gave every letter he wrote to his students we always ended with only don't know just go straight
only don't know just go string he said
if you don't understand just go straight
don't know
try try for ten thousand years
soon get enlightened and save all beings from suffering

and he's also said which i particularly like is
don't know mine is your most precious gift your most precious treasure actually he said it is your most treasured most important treasure
most important treasure
and i know often we want to know but really like just wouldn't be very exciting or rather boring if we knew what was gonna happen in the next moment we try i try to predict it
and
i'm after time i'm reminded oh guess it didn't turn out the way i thought it was i was planning it
i had a dream that really reminded me over
southern song
this was a couple months ago when i was looking at his teachings
am i was i was returning from berkeley it was in my car and it was pitch black no lights no stars no lives on the bridge no lights in my car
and there were cars behind me and they they didn't have lights on so it was black and never been in such blackness
iran has been on the or failed bridge you know sometimes it goes high and then it goes low and one day with climate change
that water is gonna rise up to the bridge for sure
and in my dream it was it was right next to the bridge and course and there's only one narrow lane so if i even just made just a little tour adjusted
slight not even an inch one way or the other way i would die because i would go into the bay
and i would die
at least in my dream
well this brought up so much fear i was so afraid that i woke up
was that frightening and i
and i thought about some songs teaching
just don't know don't know mine just go straight
and

oh
that would just go straight
don't know what does that mean just go straight while you know sometimes history doesn't feel so straight can be a little wobbly
shaky and certainly uncertain
new economy veer off to one side of the other side

and
certainly can feel very uncertain and full of doubt
when i'm when i'm in that dar nu just kept i couldn't see not to see anything that you know what's the next step
scary
i think the important thing was okay as such a rosy reminds us just start take the next step you if you don't even if i don't know just taking that next step
this is lily what buddha did
he left the palace that wonderful comfortable luxurious lie his family his child asthma
why he left it see the zone dissatisfaction wander all those years or i'm assuming it was years trying all those different practices
and
i had to give up and just sit down under the bodhi tree and
see what happens that everything all those beliefs and all those ideas while those practices
let him go and then let markham a come in untapped tempt him with all his strong held beliefs and attachments
finally let go at of of at all
so that he could really just see how clearly clearly how things really are
nossa bodhi dharma
a dorm or when he was in front of the emperor wu who asked him who stands before me
he said i don't know
the some some teachers just make this their practice is kind of snap it's all in our practice but said the domain practice like bernie's bernie glassman
who who started the peacemaker order
one of the things that they live by as they say live in the state of unknowing were not known that's one thing a bow
penetrate we say calls a bowing to predict he calls it bowing to penetrate the unknown
in another tenant is bearing witness who is i could have to have the not knowing mind in order to bear witness
really be present better get everything out of that knowing mine to really be present
sony talk a little bit about the ways that i am
working and cultivating this don't know mine
first of all
with great humility
no so many times i'm just brought to my knees when i think i know something turns out to be so wrong
i thought i was gonna have the life i had been planning and suddenly my husband died everything changed in that one instant
so
it's a lot of humility
and second thing is if there is something i think i know enough often i'm not quite sure the really good practice to just ask myself is this true
oh
can i verify this
or am i making this up this my story
so asking those questions just stepping back and maybe just maybe there's something here some bias or discrimination i have not seen
they're not to be so certain
and this
not knowing really requires deep listening like bernie glassman tough bell bearing witness not listening i mean i'm sorry deep listening
ah
because it
can't really hear someone listen that deeply or mine is cutter was our own
beliefs etc those things i mentioned all of those things ah have to drop all that
and even then
never gonna be able to know completely what that person's experiences may be had a similar experiences but you can have a really know everything they've gone through
you know
i'm always surprised when
no i might be talking to one of my siblings and we'll be talking about something that happened to us to us as children and you will describe their experience and it's so different than mine
it all these years i think you don't you don't remember that like
and just so surprised that will of course they have their own experience
when a different place
in the family
i like this i read about gil from onstage was one of sojourn students was he he has a practice where he says that after every thought he adds i don't know
so he does make me ask myself who really how much do i really know about this life
so last time that to talk about is what what what do i rely on to live in this don't know mine
course first and foremost is awesome because that is the place of intimacy not knowing his most intimates it intimate with the breath returning over and over to our breath watching those thoughts come and go
salon is studying the self being that ways was very intimate
is it seems like the kind of just keep moving in in in
deeper
and
second thing is have to have great trust a great faith jury talked about the great faith it takes
in this practice twisting first of all ourselves
and then that trust is really trusting
bigger mind
mobutu buddha mind
and trusting our intuition now my intuition is really more down in my heart yours might be further down but it's not in my head that's the thinking part and the intuition can only come through for me when i don't know when i'm unblock
locked
and
it's the only way this deeper wisdom
can come through and that takes trust
in faith
this one teacher bones song to see practices at mtk he said
the biggest wisdom
comes from not knowing because if you admit to
you don't know then you willing to look
when you know you can't look right
another thing i rely on of course my bow on my intention
commitment to help can help others
the bow to come back to not knowing none of this is really helps with the attitude my attitude of course my attitude
because of knowing that's a certain stance on going to be taking i can't let it and you'll sand but when i'm not knowing my attitude is much more open and available for trash
and i can be honest with myself
did some freedom to gate opens up freedom
and i can't ask underestimate
how
much greater courage it takes
really takes courage
do this practice and live in not no way
gosh you have to be willing to be vulnerable have to be willing to be vulnerable
an course i gotta be willing to be intimate with my fears and by
sorrows
the being overwhelmed
the question or that all those things maybe i want to keep at bay but only ways it can move to this not merely intimate space
so yesterday i was looking around my clutter on my desk the little piles when i just saw this piece of paper shift and this must have been a call on a writ i wrote i i don't know how long ago but that will here it is still here he says hell am i practicing right this
moment
yeah know that that that says it all just bring me back right here to this moment fresh drop whatever is going on with a hit was another story her dream book
let's bring myself to not knowing
so really this practice of not knowing is our basic practice in in nausea and which is letting go
letting go letting go when we let go
we don't know
so we take pratt we take refuge in the three treasures buddha dharma sangha now like to add i'm taking refuge in not knowing mine
this is quite comforting
the cyclical and i'll stop that and see if there's any questions or comments
i thank you carol to sovereign
a comment about questions and there's two ways to ask questions the first as to enter the question of shoutbox at the bottom of her screen and off for that the carol the second way is to raise round by clicking on the pound the participants
i caught the bottom of your scream and and want to hear from as many voices as possible so have ask a question we ask you limit yourself to one follow up questions just to keep things moving along thank you thank you on ross to have a question
or comment

hi carol thank you so much for your talk you i really appreciated that dream that you shared about going over the bridge and just your comment a moment ago about keeping your on questions or issues at bay
and you made a reference of going off to the side perhaps in the bay and died in that fear and fear so just a highlight the dream and that comment that you may they really go together just go straight they so much and have a great day me to thank you ross yes
yeah to have a question
hi carol i thank you so much for your talk i found a very inspiring am
and as what to say i enjoy practicing with you very much
me too when you were talking about beginner's mind it brought up a couple of things for me quickly one is that
philippa have that experience when i've traveled abroad gone to a new country for the first time it's sort of
it changes your mental state because everything is so new and you don't know so many things and i feel like that's been a glimpse of maybe the power of that not knowing mind which i find more it's more difficult to access it when you're in your usual routine and space even though everything is different all the time
looks the same are you decide it's the same so that came up and that i thought about suzuki roshi coming in bringing so the zen practice to americans and how i would just guess that must have been a very powerful thing for him because he was leaving his context and entering a new one
and am
so thinking of those two instances where changing your place and contacts so much can spark this newness of experience freshness of perspective this not knowing mind how do we
get that freshness and total openness when we're not changing our contacts not going somewhere else and we're just hear that
that's my question
no
thank you ben
well i know what health me as nature
when i'm just getting who you know imploded
everything i don't even notice things you know
and noticed this piece of paper for years things get all but for me getting out into nature and just taking a walk and looking around take some coffee or concentration to just not see things
it takes effort it takes effort
but
ah
in practice
particularly maybe in in one's home with same things and just to stop notice could develop a practice to may be while cooking in one thing where am i gonna really just be here present
then
watch yourself chopping examined the beautiful fruit or vegetables and grains
the so much beauty but never takes a lot of effort to let go of for me that thinking mind i'm thinking of the next thing
it reminds me of you know dogan saying he would take know where to gamble you just have your your room and it's all in your room don't have to hit the dusty trails but even in travelers could to fresh up the mind but now we're not doing that so how can how can how can i freshen
at my mind here
so if you can find a practice that might help
she's me carol we have a question in a chat box some and what role the feelings play in not know any mind
well i feel like so many your feelings feelings or emotions
we want to have those as humans who gonna feel and but i do
but i don't want to get stuck there
i think that's what happens if we hold on to feeling whether it be sad news her even happiness it's the clanging
it stops the not knowing mine
and so we just have to let that emotion pass on it took me awhile to get over that emotions sometimes they cling a little more sad or happy
but
com
we don't want to get stuck in that fixed position
hope that helps you in
ah on to have a question
it's i wish it was questioned it's more of a comment just to say i was really taken by your first story a story of overhearing a conversation during sushi and then carrying that with you and you asked where does it come from
ah you in and then
i'm mean i feel like not knowing as the enlightened side but if anyone just plugging the class that's about to come up which is gonna actually investigate ah the deceptive way that we think we know
and in in more detail actually in buddhist psychological detail how that knowing arises and how it works ah and that gives that gives us a practice
hopefully to let go of that and enter into the not knowing which is really more the awakened state so i really liked the balance that you are that you are striking there
yeah i recently care of some that our group in that and that right
oh rich levels of consciousness
i can do it all over again and again
was where you're welcome to
taxi i wish i could that monday nights not good for me ah
ah thank you rosanne
ah soo su moon the question or comment or kind of both yeah thank you so much for this really wonderful talk am i so appreciate your honesty and sincerity and that that first i want to refer to your first story to rich and particular
i appreciated because i myself should have that experience
quite a few times where i can get a completely out on a limb with some misunderstanding and thinking
that somebody's mad at me or something like that
and
and then it later you were saying how one of the one of the things we can rely on which i really believe this to restart our good intentions and and our intuition and a so i'm just curious about the balance between thinking you know what somebody meant when they said something to
you and trusting your your intuition and your good intentions and it's definitely two different things but how how do you know that and how did you know in your story i was i was impressed that you woke up the next morning in session i guess any real
pleased that you had made the whole thing up well in my experience i sometimes don't realize i made the whole thing up and i even have to go to say to somebody i'm i'm really sorry i said that thing i hope i didn't get into observed why are you talking about the person says so i don't always get there by myself but you
did and i am interested in how you how you were able to do that
will actually i didn't get there all by myself i did go to seal an
senior student that evening you know actually just said i was stirred up yeah got a little clarity but i think just sitting with something well yeah it just maybe going through that is this true
how do i know this is true or am i making it up and then it just happened immediately especially if they're gone emotion attached to it or song song bringing in have some no knowledge
does going back to that put on i don't have that expectation i gotta figure this out right now
some of those things are crudity deep in this by
but may take peeling a few layers
yeah sometimes star or never meant grab take them expressing their they give very much
dean you have a question
yes carol thank you
so uncertainty and unknowing is with us all the time but with covered nine teams it some become i think with a lot of people it's become much more clear to us or we were witnessing much more regularly because of you know it
what happens so i'm sorry there's these two squirrels chasing each other and and a little noisy
so what i'm i'm wondering about his i know that with me uncertainty visits me constantly because i'm living with someone with dementia and every day something new happens she either figures out how to get the can opener out open a channel
tomatoes or she does something that she's never done so i haven't all the time but how is there a
a way that when that knowing knowing what we don't know goes away or that we forget that everything is uncertain to sort of
bring it back really easily and quickly
because when you said to someone well when you're chopping you know just chopping and that feels like a sort of a global suggestion and i have to remind myself you're just chopping so just chop and i'm wondering if there's anything that you have found which
ah is more of like a of a just a phrase or a moment that pumps you back into the uncertainty and the acceptance of the uncertainty
don't even make sense
ah
well i artists
this letting go and recognizing i really don't know it
when it's gonna be different for everyone would they draw upon
and
i have to say is right and really helps just sitting down ha
was coming back to to my breath you know some time can just calm the mind
and
it all is this thing during this period and i understand your
to which are doing was really moment to moment what you're dealing with with your mom
and
i don't have that experience so i i can just imagine and like attempts to go being tested every moment just having to let go and me being your case you have to just if you can step outside and just
reason come back fresh i know can always do that because
if required
being around a hundred percent
you know humor is good too
use an action you are actually you know something you seven very beginning as you just and you said this several times as we really don't know and that struck me because i thought if my mom and goes and does something she's never done and oh this is the new thing for this hour
it's sort of like instead of my mind going to oh what's gonna happen next and oh what can i expect ness is is i just wrote it down as we really don't know and i guess that's the thing for me that's the phrases every time i have this idea of supposition or
whatever it's like you really don't know
so thank you thanks for this be in the topic now maybe it maybe can just find some way to laugh at yourself laugh at your mom does delight enough the moment if you can not only we do we spend some time joking so or least i i make up the jokes one of the things i do is
when she does she forgets my name or maybe who i am and i'll explain to her i'm your daughter oh i have a daughter and then i'll say you have four kids and all and she'll say i have four kids and i say every time now for kids but i'm the best one so we get a laugh that's my big one
now so thank you very much carol
here it's good
nick along in the interest for time looks like we have time for one more question
okay wrong your question
yeah hi curl
you grew up my understanding is you grow up in a large catholic family
yes or
okay so i don't know what your or was when you were a kid that way but was are some shift in the way your belief system that you can remember some incremental shift
in which believed and growing up with a strong catholic faith faith in your whole family and social life
can you remember what that shift felt like and how are you navigated the
well i think in my case it was it it was a gradual shift
but can you remember what anything about what it felt like
on
it was kind of amazing to think that what i thought i would i believed or my lai
really didn't have much bearing for me
really wasn't true for me any longer and was narrow
it was pretty narrow
and then i also saw to it was based on a child's
impression in innocence vulnerability
it was just a gradual thing that there are there this isn't the only way to see things and also that it was find him i just had to loose myself up at it to why a long time for me to let go of those beliefs
foley
third images out of my mind so
you know just felt like free all the time more and more let go just free or free or free or as
thank you thank you ron
conversation simply oh i didn't know you were here let's live on picture in the loop
am
i'd appreciate you the dialogue between you and indeed i've i've gotten some really great dialogue and reminded me of know erosion in japan are a great teacher ah contemporary of his practices to keep keep all his
streets off guard
so that didn't never knew what he was gonna do next which is sort of like musashi the great such person know that nobody ever knew it he was gonna do next everybody was under guard and attentive without thinking anything so they can be okay
one to our same themselves
so ah ah
did your mother is a great teacher grids and to jerk what a great opportunity
thank you sir