Don't Know Mind: Not Needing to Have Answers & the Wisdom Function ~ Shinzen Young

Shinzen talks about the need to work through the need for meaning and knowing. He talks about the sensations that make not knowing a problem for us, the reasons for doing this, how other spiritual cultures approach and talk about this process, and the means of training ourselves to have equanimity with "don't know".
Filmed in Nov. 2009 at Mt. Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls.
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[@paulgoddard5535]

Thank you Shinzen for balancing out the eastern propensity for anti-knowing and intellectualism. The eating analogy serves it all very well imo. :)

[@lazitazen6882]

I really needed this ❤ Thank you so much ❤

[@BermudaBuddha]

Thank you Shinzen.

[@emil5884]

Brilliant!

[@squamish4244]

As a highly intellectual person and a longtime sufferer of OCD, 'the disease of doubt', Don't Know Mind is a powerful practice for me!

[@nickknowles8402]

YOU GOT THAT RIGHT

[@squamish4244]

@@nickknowles8402 How are you doing now? It's been a very difficult struggle for me.

[@nickknowles8402]

​@@squamish4244 Neverending uncertainty. But I'm managing somehow

[@squamish4244]

@@nickknowles8402 I've been benefitting A LOT from ketamine therapy and neurofeedback. I just started five months ago with the former and in about ten sessions, sheets of terror and layers of conditioning have come off me in waves. And of course underlying terror and fear are what provide the fuel for OCD. Meditating unaided is very difficult for me, because of OCD, and also the back pain I have which is mostly the result of unprocessed trauma trapped in my back, glutes and hamstrings.

[@JazzyDef]

@@nickknowles8402how?

[@ebruistan4210]

🙏💕

[@Raina430]

Thank you for this. I’m not sure about the statement “ I have made friends with my own impending stupidity”. Unless one has a plan for being taken care of in old age, isn’t this a practical problem? And is it inevitable?

[@Ignozi]

What does practising for non-dual awakening look like? Inquiry? Mindfulness meditation?

[@hilariepete]

What is the greek term for it? That you shared?

[@gsalemi1954]

You must ask …who doesn’t know? Is there knowing and not knowing? Which one are you? Always remember don’t know is not two.

[@6Uncles]

So how do you do this? Work through the don't know systematically?

[@rudyarmendariz19]

David Wu thenegativepsychologist.com

[@markbrad123]

Guess you could ask difficult questions and notice the emotional grasping to answers. Then ask questions with no emotional grasping to answers and hence lighten that tangle. A bit bitchy but found this music video useful: kzbin.info/www/bejne/onmzgIalaKuHqs0

[@AntarblueGarneau]

Question: Shinzen is there a causal connection between practice and enlightenment?

[@Firecelebi]

I'm obviously not Shinzen but I'm pretty sure that's definitely the case - there's always a chance that you could spontaneously become enlightened, and occasionally it happens to people who don't even know what it is, but the more you practice and the more your practice matures, the more likely it gets. I'm pretty sure the Mahayana Buddhist view, in the most general sense, is that you're really always enlightened, and you "become enlightened" when you notice that fact. A good practice leads your mind into a state where you're more and more likely to have this realization.

[@cutyoursoul4398]

They are related but the absolute (enlightment) is not related to anything other than itself (which means it's not related to anything at all = absolute)

[@QED_]

Whoa. This is uncharacteristically (for Shinzen) negative in affect. It's his Buddhist predisposition to think that Reality is Nothing . . . taken too far. "Not knowing" . . . doesn't mean you can't know ANYTHING. It only means you never know EVERYTHING. Sheesh -- don't get discouraged (!) Some things you know. Some you don't. But you can always come to know what you don't already. Reality is willing to be known by us. The "desire to know" . . . is an invitation to it.

[@squamish4244]

He means not knowing in the sense of not needing to have answers in the compounded world, exchanging it for the deeper kind of knowing, that of what reality is. Ultimately, answers provided in the world fall short of what is required to attain deep inner peace.

[@catojohansen870]

Brilliant!