I think it’s clear in the readings that the term ‘not-knowing’ is at least in one sense being used to refer to the unknown that surrounds the known, but what I sometimes get fuzzy in my understanding is, is ‘not-knowing’ also being applied to a knowing that is not owned by the one who knows, that is by a self trying to posses knowledge as a ‘thing’? I think I know the answer to this but I’m not sure.
David
About David Filippone
David Filippone has been a student of Tarthang Tulku’s Time, Space, Knowledge (TSK) vision for over twenty-five years. For the past fourteen years, he has studied TSK and Full Presence Mindfulness with Jack Petranker, director of the Center for Creative Inquiry (CCI). He also participated in programs offered by Carolyn Pasternak of the Odiyan Center. David curated the CCI Facebook page for five years, which is often TSK-focused, and he currently serves on the CCI Board of Directors.
The CCI Facebook page can be found at the following link...
https://www.facebook.com/CenterforCreativeInquiry/
Thanks for engaging the question Michael and Christopher. I’ve been thinking about what you’ve both said.
The question arose for me when I was doing the exercise of observing moments begin and end, while looking out over the contours of the field behind my house, and I saw how I ‘came-out’ of simply being present to the experience, and I reflected on it, which ended a moment and began the next. I then released the frozen perspective and resumed observing in open presence. The kind of knowing that’s going on when the self is NOT ‘coming-out’ and ‘freezing’ time — what is that? Is it a knowing that is not owned by the one who knows? I think so. Then I realized that knowing was available because of the open future, and the open future was unknown. That was the connection that was puzzling me. Then I found this quote:
“If you go closely into full awareness without preserving a realm of messages or concepts, you can conduct openness. In openness, the root of not-knowing as a limit on knowledge proves hollow. Openness itself becomes the source of knowledge, and knowledge connects with a pure, awakened awareness that does not belong to the subjective realm.” DTS p.249
Best wishes,
David
Christopher, perhaps wisely, says, “I have no logical understanding of this . . “, but let me hazard a logical interpretation: If Knowledge is everywhere, as TSK tells us, then when we speak of unknowing we are speaking of our own posture or lack of openness to this universal knowability. Unknowing doesn’t surrond the knowing but surronds us, in the sense that our stiffness and inability to relax with the unfamiliar causes us to radiate the familiar outward. These images then bounce back and seem to confirm what we have already decided should be there. It’s as if a sonar device, claiming to probe beneath the surface, returned images–not of the ocean depths but–the expectations of the operator. –Michael
A contemplation in response to your wonderful question: Without an ‘owner’ of my knowing… knowing is all there is, uncarved. But what kind of knowing is this? I’m ‘sensing’ this omnidirectionally, and this (inner) sensing dissolves into a kind of unknowing knowing – unknowing because it is without reflection, which would normally be depended on more than the immediate presencing.
I have no logical understanding of this, but the next thing I see is that I really don’t know anything, while I am percipient in a holistic way. Thanks David.