The idea of knowledge is funny to me. Not so much knowledge in the practical sense in which I know my name and that Johnny Thunders kicks ass, but the idea that one can know for sure. It’s perverse. It seems to be impossible. Of course If it truly is impossible to know, then it’s impossible to know it’s impossible in the first place. On the other hand, I’ve yet to encounter any forever-knowledge, or meet anyone with a cogent explanation of theirs, so I feel pretty confidant that it isn’t there - but that’s as far as I can go without magical thinking. I also feel pretty confidant I should stop at stop signs. It’s the same type of “knowledge” in both situations.

The quagmire raised by trying to figure out if you can know anything for certain is wonderfully illustrative of the core of Zen. We have a tool; the rational mind. Just as you can’t use a spatula to unscrew a tiny hex screw, it seems that you can’t use the rational mind to discover ultimate truths. When you do, it’s usually not pretty.

Let’s take one of the philosophical positions of Buddhism and see if it’s an Ultimate Truth.

“All things are impermanent"

Now, there is wisdom in recognizing and appreciating the impermanence of things. Nobody’s saying that isn’t the case. That seems a rather useful bit of practical knowledge and worthwhile worldly advice.

On the other hand, if I am going to say that "All is impermanent” forever and ever, in all situations, all the time, full stop, Amen - then I have now left the world of logic and entered the world of irrational religion. Not that that is necessarily bad, but it should be understood for what it is.

Here’s some reasons why:

In order to say the above statement about impermanence was true, you’d have to know. To know, you’d have to verify. That means you’d have to test every “thing” in the universe for impermanence. If the universe is infinite, you’d never get to the end to be able to make the claim.

But then, even if you somehow did that, the fact remains that you did so through a certain type of perception. What if that perception is flawed and things you can’t even perceive invalidate the truth you think you found?

A common response to this, is that it’s impossible to conceive of a world where all the things are not impermanent. My response to that is, the fact that we can’t think of it cogently does not equal it being impossible. Human logic and language is contrived, created. It could, and probably does, have fundamental errors. Much like how our perception is fundamentally limited and thus has an undetectable possibility to be incomplete. We have no way to verify that our base level of apprehension is complete enough to be able to make claims about the universe.

This is all a huge quagmire, and it results in a knot of confusion. If you walk around spending your whole life trying to know in this way, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get a pretty big knot going and it starts to hurt and you suddenly start to be interested in this weird Zen stuff. This is the pain of trying to use a tool for something it fundamentally cannot do. Try working on your computer using a monster truck. Not very effective and certainly painful to the computer.

In Zen, the business we are about, is the business of meeting again for the first time the world before the mind minds it. We are looking to experience the truth that is already here before we make any claims, buy into any assumptions, or create anything to be fooled by. We are looking to meet and rejoin the reality that is already here, present and fully manifest, right in front of you right now. They call it “the suchness”. That’s pretty great. Just look, and you will see it. You’re never apart from it, but all this thought bullshit covers it up when you take it seriously. It gets tiring. Instead of using the “Way of thought” we are accessing the “Way of being itself.” I don’t know, I don’t know if I even can, and I don’t know that I don’t know; I throw up my hands. What’s left? Just what is, undefined.

As Master Bankei says: