Joshu meets Wittgenstein: Beyond Knowing, Into Being | Shōyōroku 57

So it's a wonderful bright and sunny Saturday morning, so we'll jump right in. The philosophy of knowing is often referred to as epistemology. It's a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, with the scope and limits of knowledge. The truth elucidated by a science dedicated to testing and fathoming the limited nature of knowledge, just its existence, we would think, would be enough to break us of a dependence on knowing. Right?

By definition, the epistemological path is a very limited path. Although we consider it broad, we dwell on that road all of the time. But despite all of our advances in testing and fathoming the boundaries of knowledge, we remain deeply dependent on this act of knowing such that it really becomes our only way of being. One might think that understanding the limitations epistemology brings would liberate us from this dependence, but it doesn't.

The sickness of our Western mind lies in the continued elevation of knowing as the pinnacle of human experience. When we do this, we bypass a more direct engagement with life that really is our cosmic inheritance. That's the pearl of great price that's always present with us. So in Tractatus, Wittgenstein argues that the limits of knowing are tied to the limits of language. He stated famously:

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."

And certainly, when we dwell in the discursive mind, that's a true statement, isn't it? In this, Wittgenstein argues that language constrains our capacity for understanding. We can only meaningfully discuss what can be expressed in logical propositions. Metaphysical or spiritual truth, those matters that lie beyond the reach of language, cannot be adequately captured by words. They are ineffable.

So instead, they have to just show themselves. Wittgenstein concluded the Tractatus, the treatise on logic and reason, with his striking insight:

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

And in that pregnant silence is the birth of awakening. Many years later, in his Philosophical Investigations, he refined this view and noted:

"For a large class of cases, though not all, in which we employ the word meaning, they can be defined thus: The meaning of a word is its use in language."

This reminds us of how slippery our words can be. Because words are the building blocks of our thoughts, they are used as bricks in that prison that confines us in the discursive mind. Doomed to never actually breathe the fresh air of just being present, we cling to the narratives we read from them. We convince ourselves they reflect the truth, but we never actually witness the truth directly.

Even in pop culture, this need to know dominates. In 1978, Tom Petty sang:

"Well, the talk on the street says you might be going solo.
A good friend of mine saw you leaving by the back door.
I need to know, I need to know.
If you think you're gonna leave, then you better say so."

-Tom Petty, “I Need to Know”

I'll save you all from singing the song, but you get the point. Petty's desperation to know mirrors our epistemological hunger. But often, like Petty, we already have the answer. It's right in front of us, yet we just fail to see it because of our clinging to this expression in the limited realm of knowledge, in the limited realm of knowing.

When I came to Zen practice many years ago, it was out of a sort of desperation. I was in my early thirties, I had made vice president, I’d done everything I’d set out to do. I was using all the right drugs, hanging out with all the fancy people, and I found myself more miserable than I’d ever been. And I couldn’t put one and one together. I couldn’t understand why.

So I sauntered into a Zen center because I had studied a lot of Christianity and thought that I had plumbed the depths of what I could know through it. I thought maybe this Zen thing will teach me something else, and then I’ll be able to have the final building block, the final knowing that’ll help me put the puzzle together and release myself from all this struggle and strife. Little did I know, sixteen years later, that number one, I wasn’t ever walking out the door, and number two, it wasn’t about needing to know. It didn’t belong to the realm of knowing.

There’s a case in the Shōyōroku, also known as the Book of Equanimity. It’s the 57th case, called “Genyo’s One Thing.” The case is:

Venerable Genyo asked Jōshū, "When there is not one thing, what then?"
Jōshū replied, "Throw it away."
Genyo said, "With not one thing, what is there to throw away?"
Jōshū remarked, "Then carry it off."

Having encountered Jōshū’s razor-like ability to cut through the illusions of knowing, you would think the monks would leave off, but they don’t. The desire to know is so insidious that it drives our spiritual inquiries without us being aware. We’re led down this primrose path of the mind road only to see it’s a bridge leading nowhere.

Venerable Genyo asked Jōshū, "When there is not one thing, what then?" What’s he looking for? Some way of apprehending the Dharmakāya, the vast reality body, conceptually? He wants to go to the ocean with a jar and capture it and say, "I’ve captured the ocean’s essence here in this jar." Ever try it? You’ll wind up with a lot of smelly seawater. It’s not going to work.

The teachings put us on a path to come in full contact with our lives—the joys, the sorrows, the hopes, and the dreams—but experientially, not conceptually. We can’t accept the facsimile of our lives as the real thing. As Dōgen would famously say, "You can’t eat a picture of a rice cake." It’s not going to nourish you, and yet, we still try. See people trying to pick out pieces of canvas from their teeth.

What is the one? The one beyond the idea of the one? Where is this monk trying to get to? Perhaps he’s up against this Wittgenstein wall where you can’t go past. You have to remain silent to get past. But Jōshū’s wisdom lies in the simplicity of the one directive: throw it away. Throw it away. This is prajñā. This is the wisdom that arises before knowing.

What we seek is already here, fresh and vibrant in this moment. There’s no need to rummage through the storehouse consciousness or through the attic of our minds for something to compare it to. You’re not going to find it there. But Genyo, like many of us, isn’t ready to let go. He says, "Look, with not one thing, what is there to throw away?" Still clinging to the hope that he can penetrate this item conceptually, he remains trapped in the logic of knowing, unable to release his grip on the search for meaning. Jōshū meets him where he is and says, "Okay, have it your way, and carry it off."

How many of us are carrying this load right now? It’s heavy. I make a joke when people come to retreat that they leave all their karmic backpacks on the front porch. After a weekend of practice, everyone’s feeling lighter, more present. Problems that seemed intractable now have faded off into some place where they’re just ideas about problems. The problem is when they walk out on the porch, they go, "Oh, there’s my backpack," and they want to put it back on. No. Leave it there.

Jōshū can only point to the situation in the hopes of the monk truly experiencing this epistemic conundrum. He says, "Then carry it off." It reminds me of when Jesus Christ says in Matthew 6:

"Verily, they have received their reward."

What he’s talking about refers to folks who make a big deal about their alms, about their charitable giving. Well, if you make a big deal about it, if you feel like you’re pretty impressive, then I guess that’s the only reward you’re going to get.

If you’ve distilled all of your lived experience into some idea of it, then that’s your reward. You painted a painting of a rice cake and you’re clinging to it like it’s going to be nourishing. It’s not going to be very tasty, but you can do that if you want. If you think you’ve done something good, you’ve missed it. If you cling to an idea of spiritual attainment, the best you can hope for is that idea. It’s a pretty hollow victory.

Don’t get me wrong; knowing isn’t all bad. You can use it to get directions to the Zen center. We use it to put a man on the moon. You can use it to predict how long it’s going to take you to get to work in the morning so your boss doesn’t yell at you. But in terms of living your life, experiencing love, and knowing just what to do moment by moment, how to actualize compassion, you’re going to have to drop all that and just show up.

To truly live, truly appreciate the gift of this moment, we have to throw it away. All our ideas about right, wrong, good, bad, how things should be, even our ideas of how things are—and just experience it directly. Success and failure just don’t function here. When we do this, when we’re able to put that all down, then we meet life where it’s at. We’re on the bleeding edge of our conscious reality. We’re nourished not by our idea of how things should be but by our direct experience of things as they are.

Can you do this? Can you loosen your grip just a little bit? Can you put down just for a moment that weight of the preconceived notions of who you are, who you think you should be, or what it means to be successful? I think you’ll find that when you put those things down, you can find the world opening up before you.

Look, the plate of life is set. You just need to sit down to the meal that’s offered and savor it fully. It’s not always the tastiest experience, I promise, but it’s the best and most nourishing one you have. By letting go in this way, we can awaken to what compassion truly is and embody it. We can see clearly the struggles we face. We can see the struggles that are faced by those we call “other.” And in this clarity, we can begin to ease suffering, not as an act of knowing but as an act of being.

When this happens, we don’t just know the one. We become the one. The world is vast and wide, folks, and the dance is always ongoing. The question is, will you join it? Will you open to it? It takes practice, but this pearl of infinite value is always right here for you. So many special things are present, so many little wonders in every moment. Look past your idea of where you think they are and witness them right here, now.