The Joy of Being Surprised

“I take my time. I want to be myself. I don’t deny myself in the here and now. This is our practice—we call it aimlessness. We don’t put a goal in front of ourselves and run after it constantly. If we do, we’ll be running all our life and never be happy. Happiness is possible only when you stop running and cherish the present moment and who you are. Who you are is already a wonder; you don’t need to be someone else. You are a wonder of life.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power.

“Attachment to views, attachment to ideas, attachment to perceptions are the biggest obstacle to the truth” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power.

“Knowing is a veneer our minds create and lay over the landscape like a painter’s drop cloth set upon a forest floor. Its uniformity protects us from the pine needles and beetles, but it also obscures them, as well as the soft moss, fragrant soil and teeming complexity of nature’s bed.” ~Gregory Kramer, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom.
Don’t Know Mind.

In the Zen tradition, there is a state of mind called, Don’t Know Mind, or Beginner’s Mind. Perhaps the most quoted teacher of Beginner’s Mind is Shunryu Suzuki who wrote:

Our “original mind” includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginners mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few. (Suzuki)

It is this place of resilience and responsiveness that is part of don’t know mind. Practicing don’t know mind, can be a profound release from falling into certainty and projections about the future formed from attaching to the self (papañca).

Most of us take great efforts to protect ourselves from the feeling of uncertainty or confusion. It is part of our evolutionary neurobiology to seek certainty. We want to know if the world is safe, if there will be challenges. We want to prepare for the snowstorm, the heat wave, the layoff (fill in the blank) and find out all the details to keep ourselves alive, thriving, and as free of suffering as possible. We go to great lengths to ensure that we are not uncomfortable or inconvenienced. The irony of living on Earth, is that if we look deeply and honestly, despite all our efforts to control and conduct, anything can happen, and it usually does. The habit to control and resist the inevitable impermanence of this moment can cause more suffering than actually surrendering to what is beneath it, confusion, fear, uncertainty, resistance or judgement.

To get comfortable with releasing into this moment of potential, Thich Nhat Hanh advises us to ask, “Am I sure?” and if the answer is yes, ask again.  What would it feel like to take a vacation from certainty and relax into this moment of not knowing what will happen next. For most of us, the first experience will be far from relaxing. It can be terrifying to release our tightly gripped future and open to the possibilities. With familiarity, we can relax enough to note, that despite the grasping and planning, events unfold in their own way, without our consent.

This release into unknowing, is what founded of Insight Dialogue, Gregory Kramer, speaks about as Trusting Emergence:

As you let go of plans, you are perched on the edge of possibility. Let the reminder to Trust Emergence arouse curiosity. What is happening now? …Attune to the unfolding moment and let your mind become pliable; let it move with experience. You can’t predict what someone will say, what will happen tomorrow…Dwell in the moment lightly, with patience…Let all plans fall away. Ride the moment. Locate the wisdom in not knowing. This leaves you open to anything, and not fearing change. Trust Emergence. (Kramer)

Beneath the openness, there is a trust in the ability to be with what is arising. There is a relaxing into this moment and believing that we are fully capable of bearing this reality. We are not small and fearful, but heirs to innate goodness and untested strength. As Kramer puts it, relaxing into trust is an exploration of our “habits of distrust.” We can release habitual protections and trust our responses, our ability to be with whatever arises with compassion. This is freedom from the futility of defending against the inevitability of change. Trust that you are enough for your life.

May we all be strong; may we all be at ease and may we all trust ourselves,

Celia