There is a place, a place of unknowing. I’ve been there. The problem is, how do I get there?
Letting Go of Knowing
I need to let go of knowing, of thinking I know; of insisting that I “understand” something in order to position myself in a familiar place. By understanding something I’ve already boxed it in, given it a context of meaning. Closed its possibilities. Most of myself resists unknowing. It rubs against the grain of my ego and in my case, my personality.
My personality believes that I’m not a quick wit. It compensates by asking questions to find a way to line things up for me to grasp and put them into a box with a label, so I can “understand.” But that kind of understanding isn’t real, it’s just a way of feeling good about myself.
Approaching Not Knowing
Lately I’ve been called to take another approach. The approach of not knowing, of not asking questions. So, I am interested in learning how to enter that place of openness. A place I recognize and know the taste of through Movements. How do I find that place when I’m not in a movements class?
First, I need to want to be there, in that space, enough to remember during my day. In those moments of remembering this wish, perhaps I can remember the taste of that quiet, still, unknowing that I’ve experienced before. Maybe when a question or a comment arises in me, I can use that as a reminding factor to enter that unknowing instead of responding. Maybe by not responding, I can buy a longer moment to go deeper into the stillness and openness of unknowing.
Being There
If I can practice unknowing in myself, perhaps I can include others. What if I practice “not knowing” what someone else thinks? Or what their motivation is? Or what they mean? What if I can remain in my place of quiet, open, unknowing and see what happens? What if I could spend more of my time being there, unknowing—with them?
In morning exercise last Saturday we were guided to be with that place of being with our nothingness. Strangely I was able to find that place. Going there for a minute in a morning exercise is one thing but it would be difficult to make it into an exercise throughout the day. This may not be what you describe here but is what came to my mind reading it.
Thanks Sam, that is what I am wondering about being able to work with in moments of the day. Although the flavor for me is more centered on that feeling of not knowing and not “trying” to know. It is certainly similar to the sense of our nothingness.