Click Here To Watch The YouTube Video

You Don’t Know What A Single Thing Is

‘Not Knowing’ As The Ground Of Ethical Action

Once upon a time, in some out-of-the-way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.

Friedrich Nietzsche

What Do You Really Know?

What do you know?

What do you know without any doubt whatsoever?

What are you one hundred per cent sure of?

Look around you.

Is that a cup?

Is that a tree?

Is that a door?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

Take the cup. Hold it.

If you don’t have a cup, imagine a cup in your mind’s eye.

Think about, consider, and contemplate everything you know about that cup.

You can describe its colour.

You can describe its shape.

You could describe it at a molecular level.

You could describe it scientifically.

You might describe it as being part of a vast simulation created by artificial intelligence.

You might even describe it spiritually as a being a mere temporary appearance and thus not ultimately real.

However you describe the cup, consider this:

You never know what the cup IS

What it IS

You don’t know where it IS

You don’t know why it IS

You don’t know how it IS

You never know and can never know — what it IS

You could describe the cup till the very end of time and you would never know what the cup IS.

What the cup IS — all together and really IS.

What does this consideration reveal about you?

Indeed: What is a body? What is a mind? What is “you”?

Feel for a moment your inherent & irreducible ignorance.

Feel for a moment this ego-transcending, object-transcending, world-transcending not knowing that is your natural state.

This feeling of Not Knowing is the native intuition of Reality.

This feeling of Not Knowing is the native intuition of the Emptiness that is the Source of every apparent knowing of objects gross or subtle.

Feel the vast & boundless rest of Not Knowing.

We presume ourselves to be knowers.

Instead, one moment’s reflection shows that really we do not know what a single thing IS.

Nothing Is Actually Familiar. It’s All Language Games

We are sure we know because things appear to us as familiar.

Things seem familiar to us because they seem to be repeating.

But nothing is familiar because nothing is ultimately known.

We don’t know what a single thing IS, so repetition is impossible!

Familiarity is an illusion. Perhaps, a necessary illusion but an illusion, nevertheless.

Thus, every moment is, in reality, utterly fresh and new.

Utterly UN-familiar.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said that we exist within nothing but Language Games.

In our attempt to know any object, we can only create descriptions.

Scientific descriptions. Spiritual descriptions. Political descriptions, etc...

These descriptions create their own rules and logic contained within themselves.

Like games.

The rules & logic of the scientific language game are very different from the rules & logic of the spiritual language game.

When one language game makes claims to be superior to another language game to know really What Is — there can only be contradiction and conflict.

Naturally … the rules & logic of the games are different.

No language games can reveal to us what a single thing IS.

The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, pointed out a very similar idea.

Derrida said that no word is ever identical to its referent. Meaning that no word reveals what anything IS.

Instead, the meaning of the word is created in its difference from other words.

The word “dog” does not have meaning because it tells us what a “dog” IS but rather the word “dog” has meaning only because it is different from the word “cat” — and, of course, millions of other words.

Derrida said we can see this very clearly when we try to define any word.

Just for a moment try to define where you are.

You might start with your city. Where is that?

You might say my city is in my country. The Planet. The Solar System. The Universe.

Pretty soon you run out of referents!

Without the referents; without the “language game” of referents, where are you?

You don’t know!

The closest you can come is: You actually have no idea where you are! You are nowhere!

Your apparent “position” in time and space is merely a language game. A game of referents defining other referents — ad infinitum.

The moment you stop the game of referents — you are nowhere!

Try to define ANY object. A “cup” again, for example. The same thing happens:

This “cup” is made of paper. Paper is something made from trees. Trees are made from wood, wood is … this attempt to define a “cup” could go on forever!

Thus, Derrida said that meaning is always being deferred. We can never finally say what the cup or anything else IS.

We cannot know what a single thing IS.

You only seem to know within a particular “language game.”

Binary Thinking As A Strategy To ‘Nail-Down’ Knowing

Finally, Derrida pointed to binary thinking as the way we try to overcome this continual deferment of meaning; this not knowing what anything really IS.

Binary thinking is what we do when we think in opposites, e.g. White/Black, Male/Female, Young/Old, etc.

But we not only think in binary ways to overcome our inherent Not Knowing. We also privilege one term over the other in an attempt to finally & ultimately Know.

We will privilege White over Black, Male over Female, or Young over Old.

We privilege one over the other as one being more Real than the other in a futile attempt to nail down knowing or true meaning.

For example, in Christian mythology, Eve was supposedly made from Adam’s rib.

Adam being the real & true source of the lesser Female. The Male being the true source of humankind.

Derrida’s deconstruction is an attempt to undo binary thinking by seeing through this privileging of one term over the other.

Derrida’s deconstruction is not merely a reversal of these binary terms. It is not now privileging Black over White or Female over Male.

Rather, philosophical deconstruction is the complete undoing of binary thinking altogether!

This undoing of binary thinking leads, says Derrida, using a Greek word, to a state of Aporia.

Aporia is often defined as a conundrum or state of puzzlement.

However, Derrida defines it as undecidability OR Not Knowing.

The cultivation of this field of Not Knowing or Aporia through the deconstruction of binary thinking is a philosophical positive, according to Derrida, as it opens the intellect to radially new notions and ideas.

Derrida’s Aporia points to ways in which the realisation of our natural & inherent ignorance or Not Knowing may help us to live both natural & profoundly ethical lives.

Two Types Of Ethics

Ethics is the philosophical discipline of discovering how to live our best lives — for ourselves and for others.

Westerners tend to live in societies ruled by what is called deontological ethics.

Deontological ethics has been best described by the 18th-century philosopher, Immanuel Kant.

“De” — means “not.”

“Ontological” means “presently existing”

Thus, Kant believed it best to decide our ethics when the ethical situation was not presently existing.

According to Kant, one’s ethics should be decided in retreat from the world — perhaps seated in a quiet room in front of the fire — drawing on all our intellectual, rational, and logical resources.

Once we have rational decided in the quietness of our own room the best ethical action, we then act according to the decision no matter what the situation.

For example, if we have rationally decided in our quietest moment that is it wrong to kill, then no matter what the situation we must not kill.

We would be confident that we have already worked out the best ethical action and so we need to stick strongly to that decision.

Easterners tend to practice a different type of ethics — what is called, Virtue Ethics.

You find this type of ethical understanding in countries like India, Japan, and the countries of Southeast Asia, among others.

Virtue Ethics was also prominent among the ancient Greeks, particularly Aristotle.

Virtue Ethics are not primarily based on rules, like deontological ethics, but on character, the sort of person one demonstrates themselves to be in any situation, particularly ethical situations.

For example:

In the West, if two cars crash into each other the drivers, in most cases, will jump from their cars and argue about who broke the rules.

That is, the rule that was rationally decided before anyone had an accident. In other words, deontological ethics — rules decided before the situation was presently existing.

However, in the East, speaking most generally, if two cars crash into each other, the drivers, for the most part, will not jump from the cars and argue about the rules, but will endeavour to demonstrate the superior character in that stressful situation.

For instance, in Thailand the cultural ideal or superior character to demonstrate in public is a person with very deep “Jai Dee” — that is a person who shows in all situations, even in incredibly stressful ones, that they have a “cool heart,” or lack of reactivity.

This is because in Thai society the Buddhist notion of Anatman or No Self is very important. And, has over many centuries, filtered down into the culture & society.

Therefore, the person who demonstrates a lack of Self or Self-interest through a “cool heart” is showing themselves to be of superior character, or highly ethical.

One can see why displays of anger in Thailand (and many other Eastern countries) are considered the actions of a very lowly-evolved person.

A Third Type Of Ethics Based On Our Inherent ‘Not Knowing’

There is, however, a third type of ethics.

And, it finds its grounding in Not Knowing.

In Taoism ethics are based on natural spontaneity.

For the Taoist there is a very simple formula for ethical action:

Ethical Action = Spontaneous Action

Spontaneous Action = Ethical Action

And spontaneity is based on the RE-cognition of our inherent ignorance or our always-already, natural, and inherent Not Knowing.

For Taoists, there is a deeper mind, a more profound mind, than our thinking minds — and that is the still or silent mind.

A truly silent mind is only made truly possible by the radical insight that we do not know what a single thing IS.

With this insight, the mind no longer has anything to grasp onto or any “thing” ultimately to think about at all!

When the mind falls silent like this and we are required to perform ethically — to act in the best and most appropriate way in any situation that presents itself — we do not need to rely on:

Rules decided rationally in quiet moments — as in deontological ethics.

Nor do we need to:

Demonstrate a cultural or societal ideal — as in virtue ethics.

Rather our lack of mind — our mind made silent by the radical insight into our divine ignorance — empties from us any sense of separate self.

For our sense of separate self is merely a thought. A knowing. An uninspected belief in knowing.

We are emptied of self and thus of self-interest.

Emptied we become full of the Other.

Mindlessly, ignorantly, we realise a deep empathy for the Other.

Our Not Knowing, naturally, effortlessly becomes a love that is truly unconditional.

We realise that the full expression of love is merely self-less attention.

Selfless or Not Knowing attention.

We discover the blissful pleasure in resting deeply in our inherent Not Knowing.

Ultimately, we are relieved of every “thing.”

We act spontaneously.

We realise the always-already prior harmony.

We act ethically.

If you enjoy this and would like to read similar articles about philosophy, science, and spirituality:

Subscribe to: The RADIANT IDEA