In a recent workshop I attended, the teacher invited us into an “I don’t know” meditation. For ten minutes, eyes closed, repeating slowly out loud, “I don’t know.” To every sensation, thought, emotion feeling, any passing awareness – I don’t know. At first it felt weird and uncomfortable to me. Then I felt tension release in my body, a relaxing into the unknown, the flow.
It’s something I continue to play with when I have a lot of thoughts and discomfort.
Do I need to advertise Inner Freedom for people to find me? I don’t know.
Will anyone find what we’re sharing useful and fun? I don’t know.
What will I make for dinner? I don’t know.
I feel really anxious and uncomfortable. I don’t know.
What do I need to do about X problem? I don’t know.
My foot feels kind of weird. I don’t know.
After resting in I don’t know, it struck me that this is where the horses, and nature, exist. Without concept, plan, or judgment of their experience of living. Perhaps that is part of the reason their presence feels so spacious to us. I don’t know.
Recently I saw in Chapter 71 of Lau-tzu’s “Tao Te Ching” the following phrase:
“Not-knowing is true knowledge.
Presuming to know is a disease.”
What a radical statement! Somehow it feels to me that in our culture we’ve been conditioned to believe something is really wrong with us if we don’t know, and instead the value is on knowing as much as possible, analyzing, figuring it all out.
The other half of this simple “I don’t know” meditation, which speaks to the heart of Inner Freedom, is “I am aware.” I don’t know, and I am aware. Alive, open to the unknown, the flow, aware. Just like the horses.