{"id":294,"date":"2010-12-11T07:05:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-11T07:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/?p=294"},"modified":"2011-01-07T12:33:11","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T17:33:11","slug":"knowing-in-the-midst-of-the-not-knowing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"Knowing in the Midst of the Not Knowing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunny Greetings!\u00a0 Welcome to Wellnessandspirituality.net where\u00a0we love to talk about—<\/strong> You guessed it—Wellness and Spirituality, which of course, means the Entire Universe!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you ever had an intense longing to\u00a0be Enlightened according to the Buddhist definition of the word?\u00a0If you’ve studied Buddhism, you’ve learned the term “Enlightenment,” which is, according to Wikipedia, “a unique experience which partially or wholly transforms an individual from his or her previous state in samsara.<\/em>[1]<\/em><\/a><\/sup> Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, is said to have achieved full enlightenment, known as perfect <\/em>Buddhahood<\/em><\/a>. In many Buddhist traditions, reaching full enlightenment is equivalent in meaning to reaching <\/em>Nirvana<\/em><\/a>. <\/em> Attaining Buddhahood is the ultimate goal of <\/em>Buddhism<\/em><\/a>.” <\/em>But Buddhist teachings are rife with\u00a0an emphasis on not\u00a0“wanting” anything, to cultivate non-attachment to the nth degree, and if you do,\u00a0maybe you’ll reach Enlightennment. So here we are stuck in an paradoxical predicament. \u00a0We want something alot but to get it, we shouldn’t want it!\u00a0 Hahaha!<\/p>\n

Spiritual “truth” so often takes on the nature of paradox–which is a statement that contradicts itself. “The meek shall inherit the Earth” may be considered something of a paradox,\u00a0because it runs counter-intuitive to the general order of human experience\u00a0that “the strong survive” or “might makes right.” Indeed, spiritual wisdom makes good use of contradition or paradox.\u00a0 It tends to set common sense on its head.<\/p>\n

The Tao Te Ching\u00a0is chock full of \u00a0paradox and contradiction. One of my favorites:\u00a0“Those who don’t know, talk.\u00a0 Those who don’t talk, know.” OMG. If this is the case, is the human race doomed to listen to fools?<\/p>\n

All this being said,\u00a0\u00a0today I’m sharing a poem\u00a0that\u00a0describes an experience I had in which I stood smack dab in the middle of a profound paradox, titled In the Middle.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Middle<\/em><\/p>\n

Standing in the Middle of Not Knowing is Knowing.
\nStanding in the Middle of Not Knowing is Knowing
\nStanding in the Middle of Not Knowing is Knowing.<\/em><\/p>\n

How’s that for a ZEN truth? Or a Tao Teaching.<\/em><\/p>\n

That struck me as I stood naked and
\nrain drenched
\nBeneath broiling clouds and lightening streaks
\nI knew God was all around, all about
\nBut yet I could not say where God was
\nExcept EVERYWHERE.
\nAnd it was a Great Mystery, the ineffable,
\nTo stand in the middle of the Not Knowing and Know.<\/em><\/p>\n

The great nuclear physicist Niehls Bohr\u00a0said: “How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.” I’ll second that motion!<\/p>\n

I am, yours truly, Elizabeth Richie\/Du’Tsu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunny Greetings!\u00a0 Welcome to Wellnessandspirituality.net where\u00a0we love to talk about— You guessed it—Wellness and Spirituality, which of course, means the Entire Universe! Have you ever had an intense longing to\u00a0be Enlightened according to the Buddhist definition of the word?\u00a0If you’ve studied Buddhism, you’ve learned the term “Enlightenment,” which is, according to Wikipedia, “a unique experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[52,140,6],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wellness-and-spirituality","tag-paradox","tag-wellness-and-spirituality","tag-wellnessandspirituality-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}