The Addiction to Knowing
La adicción a saber
A student reflects on the habitual pull toward intellectual knowing as a refuge, and the teacher shares how the pursuit of truth through the intellect eventually gave way to a different kind of exploration.
The Addiction to Knowing
A student reflects on the habitual pull toward intellectual knowing as a refuge, and the teacher shares how the pursuit of truth through the intellect eventually gave way to a different kind of exploration.
This is one of my favorite topics: knowing. It's one of my biggest pitfalls, and I can't hear about it too much. I find that in a lot of these conversations, it's almost like it's lurking in the background: "Ah, now I get it." It's just this habit. Looking for the ultimate refuge, and my favorite refuge in life has been knowing.
The intellect.
I guess that's it. It's hard for me sometimes to catch it. It's another one that's hard to catch, so it's just helpful to hear about it, to remind me.
The many faces of knowing
There are different forms of knowing. The word "knowing" can refer to different things, and I use it in different ways. One form is the knowing of sound when sound appears: that direct, immediate experiencing. And then there is the knowing of "this is my finger snapping."
The knowing I'm talking about is the one that contracts me, the one I stumble over. It's invisible like air to me.
It's a survival strategy, and it can become an addiction. But because it's so valued in this society, it's not seen as something that's not optimal.
I almost never hear about this the way you talk about it, actually. Even from teachers, because teachers "know," and there's that dogmatic stance. It's so difficult because it seems like it's going to pounce, or it's underlying things without me even knowing it. So it's good that it's brought up.
Assertiveness born of not knowing
My teacher also talked about that a lot.
Did he demonstrate that in the way he behaved? Could you feel that he was in a place of not knowing? Because he sounds to me like if anyone knew, it was him.
That's the paradox. Somebody who's so deep in the wisdom of that, and I've seen this operate in me to some degree: the less I know, the better things get. Especially in the last few years, every form of knowing, intellectually or mentally, is seen very clearly most of the time, or recognized very quickly. But then what comes through is a certain assertiveness that seems like I know. Actually, it's an assertiveness that comes from something that feels more like being in constant free fall: not knowing, taking a risk, going fully with what is appearing. What comes through could feel very assertive, as if I'm coming from a place of knowing, but it's just not-knowing speaking through.
It's beautiful. It's like fearlessness, or not caring about fear. And then you don't need to know. It's just: here it is.
Everything in its right place
There are all forms of learning and knowing that are also welcomed, enjoyed, appreciated, and valued, including intellectual knowing. Everything in its right place.
As long as it's not my refuge. That's the difference.
It was mine as well.
It's a great place to hang out, until it isn't.
It stopped being that for me as a teenager. I was voraciously learning everything I could. My school teachers were giving me university-level books because I was so far beyond what was taught in school. My biology teacher gave me the Cambridge university biology book. My physics teacher gave me the Oxford physics book. These were huge volumes meant for university students, and I was just at home going through them, memorizing everything, while my friends were out having fun. I thought that was the path to well-being, that knowing would give me what I was looking for.
I was obsessively scribbling in notebooks. I would buy empty notebooks and ask the question, "What is truth?" and then try to answer it. I didn't realize it was an obsession at the time, but I filled about fifteen notebooks answering that one question.
There is no truth, only what is real
Until one day I was sitting, and I had started to become very unhappy. I think I already was, but it became the foreground of my experience. I was just miserable. I remember looking out the window at a tree, the tree that was always outside the kitchen window, nothing new, and I was asking, "What is truth?" And I realized: there is no truth. There is only what is real.
That came as the answer to the question. Another thought, right? But it felt like I could no longer trust any expression of truth that could be written down, that could be expressed in thought or in language. And so "what is real" became the exploration. Something really changed there. I started to have openings, and a big bunch of crises, and then I met my teacher.
So there was something around that which was ultimately valuable: that passion, that love for truth. But I was expecting truth to come in the form of a book, something I could memorize. The same with problem solving. I was studying math, and the ability to solve problems was something I was very attached to.
The addiction to final truth
Someone once pointed out to me that for some people, truth is an addiction. And what she was really addressing, which became much more obvious to me later, is that it's the truth that is final: the truth you can write in stone, the resting place. "As long as I understand everything, I'll be okay. I'll be able to avoid all the fear and pain. Life will be good."
That seems to be resonating with you. It doesn't work.