Written on May 15, 2008 by Tom Stine
There is nothing better than to know that you don’t know.
Not knowing, yet thinking you know—
This is sickness.
Only when you are sick of being sick
Can you be cured.
The sage’s not being sick
Is because he is sick of sickness.
Therefore he is not sick.
All of our thoughts are conditioned. We all are thinking exactly along the lines we are conditioned to think. Programmed like a computer. Anybody who thinks they are actually choosing of their own free will the line of thinking that they have is completely deluded by their thinking.
Behind most spiritual practices is the belief that you have to get someplace you’re not- a destination called realization or enlightenment. But realization isn’t someplace else; it’s the naturally occurring human state. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s who we all are. Spiritual practices also set up many pictures of what this state looks like. For example, when I described how much fear was present, people told me the fear meant that something must be wrong, because fear was an indication that I wasn’t in the proper state. But fear is just what it is, and it’s there too in the vastness of who we are.
In spiritual life there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.
Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?
We always want someone else to change so that we will feel good. But has it ever struck you that even if your wife changes or your husband changes, what does that do to you? You’re just as vulnerable as before; you’re just as idiotic as before; you’re just as asleep as before. You are the one who needs to change, who needs to take medicine. You keep insisting, “I feel good because the world is right.” Wrong! The world is right because I feel good. That’s what all the mystics are saying.
on May 15th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
You know, I like this quote. I often find that I know I don’t know. But, then I stumble, and think I know consciousness only to realize again that I don’t know what I think I know.
on May 16th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Tom
I like this post. I have become an expert on knowing as much as I thought I knew. Just knowing this has freed me up. Does that make sense to you?
Mark’s last blog post..Justa hoping for some good Karma!
on May 16th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I meant to say “on not knowing as much as I thought I knew” Just a little different take isn’t it?
Mark’s last blog post..Justa hoping for some good Karma!
on May 16th, 2008 at 11:26 am
@Mr. Morrissey Hi Thomas. I agree. You know, of all the things that we can say we know or not know, consciousness if one that, well, seems to fit in the notion of “mystery.” How to know it? I mean, we ARE it, but how to know oneself? I can be it, but know it? Not so sure.
@Mark It makes complete sense. What you are doing is being honest. You don’t know. You don’t know a fraction of what you thought you knew. What a relief! No need to pretend that you have all the answers.
on May 18th, 2008 at 4:11 am
Ooh, Mark! I think the first sentence is just as important. It is wonderful.
I have become an expert on knowing as much as I thought I knew.
That is the perfect sentence. Forget about not knowing as much as you thought.
This is a subject I like to explore on my own. There are many things to be found there.
If you meditate on that sentence, wonderful things could happen. Or not.
It will be just as wonderful either way. Haha.
Takuin Minamoto’s last blog post..Questions on Sitting
on May 19th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Wonderful quote Tom. Hard for the mind to break out of the sanctuary of the known though eh!?
Cheers,
Anmol
Anmol Mehta | Mastery of Meditation’s last blog post..The Key to Natural Healing
on May 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
@Anmol Thanks. I love reading the Tao Te Ching. The wisdom is incredible. Yes, it is hard for the mind to break out. Best to just leave the mind to its dance.