Tarthang
Tulku
When we
look around the world that we inhabit, we discover individual entities
interacting in various ways. We set about determining their nature and
characteristics, making divisions and organizing into territories. We classify
and make categories; we refine our initial stands into theories, rules of
thumb, and philosophies. We project our views out into reality, juxtaposing
our opinions and interpretations to establish certainties.
We have
already explored the underlying mechanisms and structures that sustain these
ways of knowing. In terms of how we know, however, the fundamental structure
relates to the position that we take up in regard to the world that we observe
and make use of. We are 'bystanders' to reality. We stand outside the flow of
what is happening, struggling to make sense of it.
As
bystanders, we start from a position of not-knowing and never really advance
beyond it. Situated at a distance from what needs to be known, we cannot
wholly bridge the gap. Our knowledge is limited accordingly. It is like
designing a dress for someone we have never seen, based on descriptions and
rumors. We use our best imagination, formulate our best hypotheses, make our
best comparisons, and hope that the dress fits. What more can we do?
Once our
fabrications are put in place, we make new experience accord with them and act
on the basis of the values and certainties they proclaim. We act to make our
views conclusive: to establish truth, reality, and the absolute. We force the
multiple dimensionality of what arises into the mold of what we have already
claimed and proclaimed. We let our ideas define our experience and give
character and characteristics accordingly. Perhaps appearance itself could
lead the mind to knowledge, but that is not our way; instead, we make what
appears follow the lead of the bystander mind.
This
juxtaposition of what we hold to be true proceeds without interruption. Even
though we are constantly asking what is new, we base our lives on what is old
and established - on fixed ideas and principles and positions. We embody
whatever subjective views are foremost in our minds and interpret meaning and
value accordingly; we pursue the course they set and look for further modes of
projection. Starting as bystanders, we become 'bias-standers', maintaining our
particular version of reality above all else.
Structure
of Not Knowing
These
patterns hinder our efforts at clarity and obstruct our attempts to deal with
our difficulties. In every field of knowledge, we subordinate experience to
the governing concepts and models, or else let previous outcomes and future
expectations pull us away from the present. We insist on structures of
dichotomy that turn away from the complexity of the multidimensional: heaven
and hell, sacred and profane, right and wrong, happiness and suffering, truth
and falsity, hope and fear.
Active at the
root of our knowing, such patterns undermine our efforts to discover a
different way of knowledge. Insight is soon integrated with the established,
while intuition leaves intact the positions that shape conventional knowledge.
We may cultivate sensitivity to the flow of feelings or energy within and
around us, but our experience still lacks penetrating clarity. Our spontaneous
actions must be harmonized with the code of ethics in operation; our demands
for justice advance one claim in opposition to another. Our declaration of
rights confirms the existence of wrongs; our struggles for peace assure
conflict and frustration; our calls for reform prove that someone else is in
control. Each question becomes a claim, each claim a battle, each battle a
question of power. Reform and revolution metamorphose through time until they
stand revealed as a recycling of the status quo.
Most
important of all, this way of knowing undermines our conscious efforts to go
beyond it. When we attempt to understand the workings of mind and awareness,
we use the very patterns under investigation as the fundamental tools for
inquiry. When we discover indications that a higher or more encompassing
knowledge is in operation, we refer them to a source situated in the realm of
the absolute, making them inaccessible to direct experience and investigation.
Visionary knowledge is swept aside or reduced to routine, subverted by the
structures of dichotomy. Knowledge that responds to deeper rhythms and
possibilities falls by the wayside.
As an
indication of how pervasive these patterns are, it should be noted that they
apply with full force to the present discussion. Certain ways of knowing are
designated as inadequate, with the implication that they should be discarded
or replaced; certain values are assigned, inviting a particular response that
will induce a particular course of conduct. We start from the established and
seem obliged to move within its confines.
Bound to a
list of dichotomies that could be extended indefinitely, we can never truly be
'in the right'. Whatever choice we make, we conform to a knowledge thought out
for us in advance. To play our role, we must discard a part of what we are or
might be, what we know or could know.
In this
way of knowing, we accept that our own thoughts and own mind as such do not
have intrinsic value; do not carry knowledge. It is positions that
we affirm as right or wrong: not the telling of the story but its outcome.
Not-knowing is elevated to a fundamental principle, the original position from
which each of us must start. Since this is so, we are in the wrong until
proven to be in the right. Our pain, our confusion, our agitation all confirm
our own shortcomings. Perhaps we can seek refuge in something beyond
ourselves, but this means giving up on our own capacities. Or perhaps there is
no refuge, and then our situation is truly hopeless.
As long as we
are bound to the patterns of the bystander, it is difficult to imagine how
this way of being could ever change. For instance, suppose we resolve to
overcome our sense of being separate from our own experience and our
surrounding world. Now there is something we must do; something we must obtain
or become. We have to collect or improve or accumulate, to make better or
reject or temporize. Without meaning to, we perpetuate an orientation that
assures continued separation. The models we adopt rely on derivations based on
'from' and 'to' that inevitably restrict the knowledge available 'here' and
'now'. The change we pursue will come too late.
In all this,
we have no choice. It seems we must go step by step: learning, applying,
improving, and at last attaining the goal. We grow in this way; we build in
this way; we worship in this way. From the outset we are outsiders; repeatedly
taking stands, we affirm that we are bystanders. We have no other way to be.
Knowledge into
Knowledge
Somehow
we have taken on a thankless and unrewarding job. Convinced that it is up to
us to be the founders of knowledge in the universe, we have felt obliged to
assert our claims to knowledge, even when we know on a deeper level that they
are unfounded. Not knowing directly, we have felt compelled to guess and to
pretend, fooling ourselves as well as others. Cut off from our embodiment in
space and time, we have nonetheless appointed ourselves spokespersons for time
and space and knowledge. Aware of our limitations, we have decided to insist
on the small portion of knowledge that we can claim as our own, even if this
means accepting as inevitable the endless not-knowing that surrounds it.
Yet these
prodigious efforts are not needed. The job we carry out exists only in our
description of it. We do not need to speak for time and space, for if we know
how to listen, time and space speak for themselves. We do not have to proclaim
our portion, because we are already inseparably related to the whole.
When we
discover that this is so, a tremendous burden is lifted from our shoulders. We
can stand up straight, stretch, and take a deep breath. With the very first
step we take, we can let go of the knowledge that we possess and merge with a
knowledge that transcends all positions. We can embody this knowledge in ways
that are concrete and specific, showing time, space, and knowledge in
operation.
In laying
down the burden of bystander knowledge, we lose nothing of value. 'My'
knowledge and positions form a part of the emerging whole, and so remain
available. That is the beauty and freedom of knowledge: It rejects nothing and
encompasses all manifestations.
Knowledge
frees appearance from the claims of truth and transmits the beauty of the
true. Whatever qualities manifest beautify knowledge; whoever acts with
clarity is a bearer of knowledge. Although we act on the basis of our
limitations; although we make false interpretations and enact a restricted
understanding, knowledge continues to be available. We can turn away from
knowledge, but we cannot injure or confine it. The limits on our own
comprehension are not limits on universal knowledgeability.
Key to Knowledge
How can
we know that knowledge is directly available? Must we accept it on faith? Must
we give credence to certain parts of our experience while rejecting the
significance of others? What is the basis for making this distinction? How can
we trust the knowledge that tells us to do so?
The answer in
a sense is simple: We can learn to listen to knowledge in all its
manifestations, from the most practical to the most sublime. As we grow accustomed
to hearing the voice of knowledge within appearance, issues of trust and
confidence will clarify themselves. An inner dynamic enacted by knowledge
itself will point the way to knowledgeability.
Let us take a
concrete example. Centuries ago the idea of property was little developed, and
trade was conducted informally or in the context of other interactions, based
on little more than agreement that certain goods had value. Starting with
something as simple as a handful of salt or a string of beads, trade gradually
expanded. Merchants developed their own concern and ways of life, and evolved
their own way of seeing the world and attempting to protect their interests.
From these beginnings, the whole system of finance took form, and in time the
science of economics, the law of corporations, and many other disciplines as
well. Today no
branch of human
knowledge is wholly unaffected by these forms of understanding.
From similar
humble beginnings, the great domains of knowing have likely taken form:
philosophy and psychology and religion and science - each making its own
contributions to the welfare of human beings, each embodying different
manifestations of knowledge. In fact, knowledge appears in all our projections
and interpretations, all the structures we adopt and the views we espouse.
Even the study of what we value as knowledge at different times and in
different circumstances is a source of knowledge.
We could
understand this circumstance as demonstrating only what is self-evident:
Whatever we learn is knowledge. But there is more at stake than that. From the
point of view of knowledge, we can put it this way: Knowledge is
knowable. In the particulars of what presents itself, knowledge makes
itself available: not as object for a bystander, not as some thing to
be known by some body, but as the intrinsic-knowledgeability of
the whole. The usual structures of language do not easily accommodate such
availability, independent of subject and object, but we can speak of
knowingness and knowability; we can refer to knowledgeability. We can also put
in this way: Within every appearance, we are already in contact with the Body
of Knowledge.
It may be
difficult to discover the boundless availability of knowledge, for our own
efforts to accumulate knowledge can only proceed little by little, in a
process that goes on endlessly. This is especially true today,
when knowledge is
structured so that it constantly proliferates. As the facts available to be
known expand exponentially, the interconnections that could lead us back to
the whole are buried or forgotten. Yet knowledge by nature invites knowledge,
and knowledge accumulates accordingly, in a natural progression that signals
the presence of the Body of Knowledge.
Once we give
up our insistence on owning knowledge, we recognize that when we receive,
achieve, seek, or inquire, this is knowledge. Soon we notice
that results and achievements come without depending on our efforts. As we
learn to see through our own limits, we discover that we have the capacity for
inspiring vision and creative imagination in ourselves and others. Some who
have seen this dynamic at work have called it love or truth; others have
spoken instead of wisdom or beauty or blessing. It does not matter: Labels do
not confine knowledge, nor do words bring it to a halt.
We can also
discover the availability of knowledge in the ways that knowledge manifests
through time. There are times when new knowledge emerges unexpectedly, times
when it plays a vital role in an era of expansion and discovery, and other
times when it seems to lose its vitality and value. The same knowledge may be
used quite differently as circumstances alter, or may grow and change, taking
different forms in response to different conditions. If we study the history
of these changes - how we use knowledge and make it available, how we educate
ourselves and others - we traverse a field of knowledge that reveals the Body
of Knowledge in action.
Birth
of Wisdom
Although
there is no original tracing of knowledge source that it must conform to -
the Body of Knowledge can manifest with more or less refinement, in ways that
are more or less comprehensive. We can become skilled in facilitating
knowledge accordingly. For example, we can learn to feed knowledge back into
itself, developing greater complexity. Such a re-dividing becomes dynamic
creation: a progressive revealing of the Body of Knowledge.
As we come to
understand its unique quality, knowledge shines forth. What we know becomes
the carrier for knowledge, dynamically stimulating and inviting a knowledge
that is more than global. The ultimate outcome is the birth of wisdom.
To let
knowledge arrive at wisdom, we can set aside all judging. We can abandon our
attempts to capture appearance by dividing and classifying. We know too well
what it is like to stand outside, the self-appointed spokesperson, proclaiming
and announcing and attempting to pronounce into being, and we know that this
is not the path to wisdom.
The active
alternative to these approaches is to invite and embody knowledge by turning
inward toward time and space. Our being 'in' time, space, and knowledge can
become the subtleties 'of' time and space and knowledge. We can connect with
ourselves: our body, our time, our experience, and our embodiment.
Cultivating
knowledge in this way, we need not develop precise definitions of the terms
that we use: not even the terms 'time' and 'space' and 'knowledge'. Although
this is our usual way of knowing, the quest for such clarity can actually
undermine inquiry. Our definitions can pluck knowledge prematurely off the
vine, preventing it from ripening into wisdom.
Once we can
let go of our concern with reporting back every step of our progress, we have
the opportunity to invite a deepening knowledge. As we extend and advance and
elaborate, innovate and sustain and crystallize, we activate the inward,
indeterminate knowledge of eknosis. It is like suddenly learning how to fly:
Before we advanced in a mechanical way; now we can soar and float and sweep
and swoop.
Knowledge is
the giver of wings and the worker of wonders; the magician who performs feats
so astounding we have never imagined them. The profound contributions that
have come through knowledge in the past can be matched today. There are
countless pathways: Inquiry and meditation, art, philosophy, experiment, and
prayer. Access is there if we ask for it.
Knowledge
works its magic even now, in offering us the mysterious gift of knowledge.
Until now we have known this and not known it. We have made efforts without
certainty of success; have experienced advances and setbacks; have sought
guidance or asked for blessings. Now we can look ahead with newfound
confidence, for we know the great secret: Knowledge gives us the key to
knowledge.
Dynamics
of Time and Space
Mindfire