There is Knowing in the Wind
Posted by sky | Tags: Buddhism, dualism, interdependence, zen
From the book, The Sun My Heart.Let us amuse ourselves for a moment with a dance, so that we can better understand "knowing". Suppose I say, "I know that it's windy." "I" refers more to my mind than my body, so this sentence really means, "My mind knows that it is windy." Mind is the knower, so really we are saying, "The knower knows that it is windy." "The knower" is the subject, "knows" is the verb, and "it is windy" is the object. But it is funny to say, "The knower knows," isn't it? We imagine that the knower is an entity which exists independently of its object and which resides in our brain making brief excursions into the "outside world" to see what is happening out there. Just as we use a ruler to measure something, we fit our mind to a preconceived model, one that was created by our mind itself. Therefore, what we call "mind" is not pure and true mind. It is enmeshed in concepts. When we say, "I know the wind is blowing," we don't think there is something blowing something else. "Wind" goes with "blowing". If there is no blowing, there is no wind. It is the same with knowing. Mind is the knower; the knower is mind. We are talking about knowing in relation to the wind. "To know" is to know something. Knowing is inseparable from the wind. Wind and knowing are one. We can say, "Wind," and that is enough. The presence of wind indicates the presence of knowing, and the presence of the action of blowing. If we reduce the sentence "I know the wind is blowing" to simply "Wind", we can avoid grammatical mistakes and approach reality. In daily life, we have grown used to a way of thinking and expressing ourselves that is based on the idea that everything is independent of everything else. This way of thinking and speaking makes it difficult to penetrate non-dualistic, non-discriminatory reality, a reality which cannot be contained in concepts.Related: Meditation on Interdependence. Previous Post Next Post