The Power of Possibility in the Unknown
Trusting one’s incompetence: the beginning of transformation
Excerpts from a Dharma Talk by Zen Master Dae Gak
Each of us has been trained to avoid appearing ignorant or needing to learn. We are trained early in life not to enter mystery and not knowing, but to pretend that we know, no matter what. Confronted with situations that reveal our basic ignorance, we are threatened and frightened. We engage in all kinds of distraction behaviors from name calling to bluffing. We have learned to fear what we don’t know. We have learned to believe that the status quo must be maintained. Yet it is our basic ignorance that is the wellspring of all creative possibility. It is not the ignorance of mistaken beliefs or opinions, but the ignorance of having no idea at all, no opinion for or against. It is a mind free from right and wrong, picking and choosing.
When we evaluate this life, we stop living it as a vital koan and begin theorizing about it. Most of us live in fear and shame because of our past. We regret the things we have done and carry these regrets and shame into everything we do, or we regret what has happened to us and cannot live beyond our pasts. We have not learned to press the “clear” button on our computer.
Some of us may believe that guilt and shame are necessary for a moral society. We may believe that our basic nature is sinful and must be managed. Some of us may have adopted the opposite point of view that human kind is basically good and just needs more and better understanding. This view maintains that we need only to fix the repressors, and the world will flourish on its own in goodness. Others will argue that we need to reference the past so we don’t make the same mistakes again, that we need to learn from the past, and live our lives like the trajectory correcting on-board computer of a spacecraft soaring toward some distant enlightenment.
But our true life is immediate, without alternative. It requires no theoretical position nor does it require understanding based on our partial memories of the past. Memories and images rise, dwell and fall away without fixing in time. The immediacy of our life is brilliant, outside of time and freshly alive. As humans we have the great gift of being able to follow the way of choiceless awareness. What Zen practice calls “suchness”, “thusness” or “Tathagata”.
The nature of all existence is change. This does not mean change into the familiar, but in spite of the familiar into the unknown. This is the heart essence of practice. This is the bone of practice for us to investigate, to manifest again and again, and make vibrant and brand new, alive.
Transformation is not from something into something else. It is a complete revolution, something brand new, without a referential past, not continuous. It is a leap beyond the past, the manageable, without reference to what was. Transformation is that “one more step at the top of the 100 foot flag pole”.
Our capacity for not knowing is boundless, so our capacity for possibility is also boundless.
Our future is here and now. If we can learn to take care of this moment, the next moment will take care of itself. This is our correct function as human beings. How do we take care of this moment? How do we appreciate this very unfolding moment with great faith, great humility and great compassion? This is the point of practice. It is a gate from nowhere to nowhere. It is the gate to just now where you are sitting reading this. It is the first gate to being a true, compassionate human being.
As friends, finding this point is our gift to our beloved. As parents it is our legacy to our children. As students it is our responsibility to our teachers, and as humans it is our vow to all sentient beings.
It is my boundless hope that all beings will find their original nature, and manifest this, without hesitation, as wisdom and compassion for others.
Trusting one’s incompetence: the beginning of transformation
Excerpts from a Dharma Talk by Zen Master Dae Gak
Each of us has been trained to avoid appearing ignorant or needing to learn. We are trained early in life not to enter mystery and not knowing, but to pretend that we know, no matter what. Confronted with situations that reveal our basic ignorance, we are threatened and frightened. We engage in all kinds of distraction behaviors from name calling to bluffing. We have learned to fear what we don’t know. We have learned to believe that the status quo must be maintained. Yet it is our basic ignorance that is the wellspring of all creative possibility. It is not the ignorance of mistaken beliefs or opinions, but the ignorance of having no idea at all, no opinion for or against. It is a mind free from right and wrong, picking and choosing.
When we evaluate this life, we stop living it as a vital koan and begin theorizing about it. Most of us live in fear and shame because of our past. We regret the things we have done and carry these regrets and shame into everything we do, or we regret what has happened to us and cannot live beyond our pasts. We have not learned to press the “clear” button on our computer.
Some of us may believe that guilt and shame are necessary for a moral society. We may believe that our basic nature is sinful and must be managed. Some of us may have adopted the opposite point of view that human kind is basically good and just needs more and better understanding. This view maintains that we need only to fix the repressors, and the world will flourish on its own in goodness. Others will argue that we need to reference the past so we don’t make the same mistakes again, that we need to learn from the past, and live our lives like the trajectory correcting on-board computer of a spacecraft soaring toward some distant enlightenment.
But our true life is immediate, without alternative. It requires no theoretical position nor does it require understanding based on our partial memories of the past. Memories and images rise, dwell and fall away without fixing in time. The immediacy of our life is brilliant, outside of time and freshly alive. As humans we have the great gift of being able to follow the way of choiceless awareness. What Zen practice calls “suchness”, “thusness” or “Tathagata”.
The nature of all existence is change. This does not mean change into the familiar, but in spite of the familiar into the unknown. This is the heart essence of practice. This is the bone of practice for us to investigate, to manifest again and again, and make vibrant and brand new, alive.
Transformation is not from something into something else. It is a complete revolution, something brand new, without a referential past, not continuous. It is a leap beyond the past, the manageable, without reference to what was. Transformation is that “one more step at the top of the 100 foot flag pole”.
Our capacity for not knowing is boundless, so our capacity for possibility is also boundless.
Our future is here and now. If we can learn to take care of this moment, the next moment will take care of itself. This is our correct function as human beings. How do we take care of this moment? How do we appreciate this very unfolding moment with great faith, great humility and great compassion? This is the point of practice. It is a gate from nowhere to nowhere. It is the gate to just now where you are sitting reading this. It is the first gate to being a true, compassionate human being.
As friends, finding this point is our gift to our beloved. As parents it is our legacy to our children. As students it is our responsibility to our teachers, and as humans it is our vow to all sentient beings.
It is my boundless hope that all beings will find their original nature, and manifest this, without hesitation, as wisdom and compassion for others.