The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So warm greetings and happy to have this next half an hour together for

meditation.

One of the frequent teachings in Zen,

Zen Buddhism being the first Buddhist practice that I engaged in was the idea of not knowing.

There's even a saying that not knowing is most intimate.

I think it means that if you don't know,

then you can really see clearly what's there.

You can know what's there in a closer way,

fuller way. But as soon as you have, way, fuller way.

But as soon as you have, we, in Zen, the idea

if you put a filter of knowing, understanding, expertise,

opinions between you and the experience or the person you're with that you can't really know them.

It's not very intimate.

And so not knowing, another teaching is something called great doubt. A certain kind of

spiritual doubt that is not in decisiveness, it's not uncertainty exactly.

It's questioning our assumptions, questioning our perceptions even, our understandings. And maybe it's like adding at

the end of some understanding we have, maybe not, maybe it's not like so, maybe not, so that

we're more open because many times we have these understandings and

interpretations and they close things down they limit us rather than making us

fresh and available for what happens next.

And so this idea of not knowing so that we can be more fully present for our experience can be very helpful in meditation.

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