Give Up Knowing

We can be so certain about something, and yet be completely wrong.
Which do you think is worse: being certain or being wrong?

Traveling is a humbling experience. I’m too certain and too wrong. Things that were true in yesterday’s culture are irrelevant or false today. Every day I run the risk of insulting someone or being exploited. Bumbling around a new place, I feel the curiosity, embarrassment, and helplessness of a child. Having stretched identity and common sense to the breaking point, I finally decided the problem was not being wrong, but being too certain. Below I share my painful yet productive journey to confront certainty. Moving from “right and wrong” to “I don’t know,” we can reclaim our unlimited human potential.

Opposites exact

A culture often defines itself by naming certain things “right” and other things “wrong.” Many traditions critique this simplifying tendency of human culture (and mind) to find opposites. In Taoism, everything is thought to contain its opposite, as visualized by the yin-yang. Great success contains the seed of its own destruction, like former celebrities now embroiled in scandal. Dramatic failure allows for rebirth, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Hinduism and Buddhism claim opposites are actually locked in a funny self-perpetuating game, called duality, where each side continually empowers the other. It’s like a game of checkers, where black ideas and red ideas seem to be competing. Instead of caring who wins, they both just want to keep playing. “Non-duality,” or releasing opposition, is the path to freedom. To release opposition, we first need to figure out who’s playing the game and why.

Convincing others

Practicing debate in high school, I mastered arguing both sides of any argument. In college, armed with a little knowledge from the social sciences, I self-righteously aimed to topple every system I could see: discrimination, class, moral absolutism, my family dynamic, anything. My college roommates remember me as ready to argue with them about anything, enjoying the sport of it all. Fifteen years later, as a product manager, I mastered the art of making hard decisions while keeping everyone happy. I had to say “no” to every good idea but one. In fact I used the same debate skills from high school, adding in emotional quotient, or even manipulation. I believed there was a right way of thinking. If I just listened to enough smart people and used my analytical brain, I could find the right way and convince everyone.

Thought police

I entered spirituality with a similar pursuit of right and wrong. I felt that if I just read enough about truth and practiced thinking correctly, I’d find success in spirituality just as I had in the business world. Like many spiritual “seekers”, I rode on this bus for many years, until I met the driver.

In Cutting Through, Chogyam Trungpa calls this phase of spiritual development the creation of a “spiritual ego.” We could call it the “thought police.” Most of us have one. We believe we “should” think some things and “shouldn’t” think other things. In college, I learned I should think “liberal” or “logical” thoughts. At work, I learned to think “team” or “profit” thoughts. In my spiritual life, I learned to think “kind” or “spiritual” thoughts. I sat up straight while meditating, and enjoyed when I got compliments. As much as I had argued in the past, I held my tongue, even when I had something useful to say. I silently judged people for being “less spiritual” than me. If I just meditated enough, and had good thoughts, I was sure I would find liberation.

Duality boomerangs

All the while, my spiritual ego had been invisibly running the show, like a skilled project manager quietly orchestrating my every thought. When I first glimpsed my spiritual ego, I was nauseous and disillusioned. I felt totally played. In the place of my previous identities, debater and manager, I had created a new self-perpetuating identity: yogi. The yogi’s method was exactly the same. It named things “good” and “bad”, so I could focus anxious attention outward instead of inward. Creating good not only creates bad. It also creates an ego that stands in the way of self-knowledge, a thought policeman. When we create opposites, we are actually creating our own biased version of the world itself. Nisargadatta suggests:

The mind and the world are not separate. Do understand that what you think to be the world is your own mind. (I Am That, 97)

Hate the game, yo

I began to realize that my every thought was playing this tired game:

This is RIGHT
That is WRONG
and by the way, you need ME here to know if it’s RIGHT or WRONG

At first, I imagined I could just get rid of these thoughts. I practiced meditation and found blissful states of mind with less thoughts. But try as I might, I always came screeching back to normality, the place of thoughts. I realized there was no use in trying to maintain bliss. And even though it felt like a wonderful escape, a bliss state is analogous to any thought:

“I am in bliss world” creates
“That’s NOT bliss world” along with
“Phew, it’s a good thing I’M here to recognize whether it’s bliss world or not”

We inevitably come to the point, as seekers, when we must shed our biased lenses and impermanent costumes. We want to stop policing our thoughts. We want to experience our limitless potential. Nisargadatta advises us simply:

Remember the instruction: whatever you come across — go beyond. (56)

It’s not that there are good thoughts to be cultivated, and others to be rejected. All thoughts are equally bound in duality. This understanding was my salvation, and prompted my thought policeman’s slow demise.

End knowing

But how is it possible to be liberated when we can’t turn off our thoughts? Are there any useful thoughts? Nisargadatta’s quote inspired me:

You believe you know the world and yourself — but it is only your ignorance that makes you say: I know. Begin with the admission that you do not know and start from there.” (I Am That, 76)

When I read this, I wondered if it could be useful to think “I don’t know.” If normal thoughts create a thought policeman, perhaps “I don’t know” could take away his police badge. If I could interrupt my certainty enough, maybe I could admit my fundamental ignorance. Like all spiritual tools, I knew “I don’t know” would only be useful temporarily, but I decided to give it a try.

I’ve been repeating this mantra for the last six months, sometimes dozens of times daily, amidst the constant vagueness of travel: when I’m not sure where I’m sleeping tonight, when I might have said something embarrassing in a foreign language, when the train is missing, when I’m tempted to argue with someone, or when I am taking my calling too seriously. During any stream of thoughts, I simply insert “I don’t know.”

The mantra terrifies our inner project manager, who wants to force our dynamic world into a dependable box. But saying the mantra is also a relief. There’s no need to be right any more. There’s no need to police what’s right any more. We are more understanding. We treat our loved ones better. Giving up knowing, we illuminate the multidimensional world in front of us, a world that could never be reduced to a simple checkerboard. We stop squinting and see the world as it actually is. Our learning quickens. For the recovering spiritual seeker, there is no other way forward. Releasing project manager, thought policeman, and countless checkers, we regain an incredible lightness of being. On the other side of knowing lies our wildest human potential.

Quotes for Reflection

Ego is very professional, overwhelmingly efficient in its way. When we think that we are working on the forward-moving process of attempting to empty ourselves out, we find ourselves going backward, trying to secure ourselves, filling ourselves up. And this confusion continues and intensifies until we finally discover that we are totally lost, that we have lost our ground, that there is no starting point or middle or end because our mind has been so overwhelmed by our own defense mechanisms. (Trungpa, Chogyam. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, p. 56, Kindle edition)

Earlier I was so sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel that I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that ‘I do not know’ is the only true statement the mind can make. (I Am That, 78)

All depends on you. It is by your consent that the world exists. Withdraw your belief in its reality and it will dissolve like a dream.” (I Am That, 87)

My followers have no dispute with anyone. (Buddha)