On Not Knowing

Not knowing can be one of the most difficult things we humans ever experience. Whether we’re awaiting the results of a serious medical test, a college acceptance letter, or news of a possible layoff at our place of employment, we’ve likely all experienced some potentially life-changing form of it. And what could be worse than a loved one going missing during a natural disaster or because of possible foul play? Not knowing can be utterly traumatic.

Much more innocuous forms of not knowing can be pretty uncomfortable as well. We’ve all been in situations at work, school, or out in the community where we’re expected to have something approximating “expert level” knowledge about whatever it is we happen to be working on. How do you feel when asked a good, pertinent, and perhaps even obvious question to which you do not know the answer? Personally, my gut tightens up just a little bit. I start feeling like a schoolboy once again, sitting uncomfortably as the teacher looks past all the raised hands almost pleading to be called on, trying to ferret out someone who doesn’t know. Apparently I learned the lesson well; always know.

In Zen, however, the lesson is quite the opposite. So-called “don’t know mind” is actually something to be cultivated. I was first introduced to don’t know mind by a Korean Zen (Seon) teacher who pointed me to Seung Sahn’s The Compass of Zen for elaboration. Now I realize its presence in the very earliest Zen writings. For instance, the first patriarch, Bodhidharma, was once asked by Emperor Wu: “Who is this that stands before me?” “I don’t know,” Bodhidharma is famously purported to have replied. Indeed! You can make quite a name for yourself in this world answering questions like a good schoolboy, but don’t pretend to know that which is most basic to your existence. Who are you? Why are you here? Where will you go when you die? “Why is there something instead of nothing? In Zen, don’t know mind is the gateway to great wisdom.     

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this subtle expectation that we know, given the reality that there is so much that is unknowable. I actually built a little shrine in my backyard to this don’t know state of being. Now, every time I look out the back windows I’m reminded that I don’t know. I simply do not know.

Alright, that probably sounds just a little bit crazy! Allow me to explain. We had a warm spell in December of this past year – warm enough that I was feeling industrious enough to work outside preparing the vegetable garden for the arrival of spring. I spread out some compost and began spading it into the soil so that it would be nicely decomposed come springtime. I was really enjoying the work, until I got to the last corner that is. A strange sort of squeak pierced the bubble of my garden-work samadhi. To my horror, I’d just sunk my spade into the very spot that a toad had chosen for its winter hibernation. He pulled one leg free from the surrounding earth as if to push himself out of the dirt and hop away. Apparently, though, his other leg was still held tightly in place by the soil that I’d just compacted with my spade. I got down on my knees to inspect more closely the damage that I’d wrought. It was then that I noticed him slowly opening and closing his mouth – causing bubbles of blood to form around the edges.

My mind raced. I thought about how the toad had been peacefully resting in its cool, dark, winter quarters before being thrust unceremoniously back into the daylight by this strange intruder now standing over him. I thought about how he was almost certainly going to die an agonizing death from whatever internal injuries I’d just caused him. I cursed my industriousness – mindless busyness, it was – frenetic fumbling about in the darkness. I thought about climate change and how everything is out of kilter now, with some animals thinking it’s time for winter hibernation and others thinking it’s a good time to work the soil. The birds don’t know which direction to fly off to, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. It’s a sign of the suffering yet to come, I concluded – suffering on a scale as yet unimagined.

I began thinking that the most compassionate thing to do might be to deal the poor toad a swift death blow with my spade in order to bring its needless suffering to an end. And I thought about how I should have known. I should have known that toads would be hibernating and that this was not a good time to be spading. I should have known that the unseasonable warmth would have everything out of kilter. I should have known.

I was just a split second away from dealing that toad a coup de grâce when something convinced me to reconsider. Was I certain that the toad was going to die? Was I certain that he was suffering? I wasn’t. And so, to the extent that a human is able to communicate with a toad, I tried to figure out what it was that he really needed right then and there. I looked for signs as to whether he was suffering or not. To the contrary, there was calm in his eyes, certainly more than was in mine, I’m sure. And after his initial attempt to get away, he was no longer even struggling. He didn’t even seem to be afraid. Perhaps he even recognized me from our interactions over the summer when I’d moved him from one place where I was working to another where I was not. He must have been in some kind of pain, given the fact that I’d drawn blood, but the suffering in the situation was mine. The toad wasn’t worried about his future, or the future of the planet. The toad wasn’t in a quandary about what to do next. The toad wasn’t filled with self-blame for having made such a poor choice of places in which to hibernate. No, such suffering was all mine; such suffering lies in the realm of our human existence.

I realized then that my quickness to assume that a mercy killing was warranted was related more to my desire to alleviate my own suffering, to wrap the entire incident into a neat little package and know that it was over, than it was to be of assistance to the toad. I began to wonder whether perhaps the blood that I’d seen was not indicative of a mortal internal injury at all. Maybe it was just a “flesh wound,” so to speak, one that would heal over the course of the winter and be as good as new by spring. I didn’t know.

So I tried to think about what a toad in such a predicament would need in order to make it through the winter. I eased the dirt back into place, being mindful not to put too much pressure on his body. I figured that I’d end up suffocating him if I buried him without adequate ventilation. After all, he wouldn’t have the opportunity anymore to create his own air hole. So I covered him with leaves, and I covered the leaves with a rag in order to keep them in place. I held the rag in place with some stones, and I tried to leave enough spaces between the stones so that he’d be able to find a way out when it was time for him to do so.

It’s been over four months now that that little pile of earth, leaves, fabric, and stones has been a shrine – a shrine to not knowing. I don’t know whether that toad is alive or dead. I don’t know whether I should have dealt him a death blow or not. I don’t know whether I ended up killing him by burying him alive even after my spade had managed to spare him. I don’t know whether digging in the garden in December is the wrong thing to do or not. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that this state of not knowing – and how we respond to it or behave when we’re in it – is perhaps at the very core of what it means to be human.

 

The images on this page were created by the author. The raw images are photographs of huge coils of rusting reinforcing steel taken in the bright sunlight of a clear autumn day. Developed images were then copied and pieced together into something resembling mirror images of each other. These composite images were then scanned into a digital format and manipulated with Adobe Photoshop. There, now you know!

Copyright 2011 and 2022 by Mark Robert Frank