Not Knowing is Most Intimate

posted 3 days ago in Health :: Mindfulness

There's always a time coming back from surgery when I step out to run or ride and I don't know if I'll be able to do things that I've done so many times before. Earlier in my journey with Crohn's, and the surgeries that have come along with it, it was difficult not to be frustrated by the fact that I used to be able to do something and I was back at what felt like ground zero. In our accomplishment-driven society, there is an expectation to always be moving forward, despite the fact that indefinite growth doesn't really exist in the natural world. The world operates in cycles and the fruit of a plant is the product of the environment and nourishment it received during its growth phase. The plant includes everything it had before, even if the fruit on the branches is new.

The other day, I set out to run my first 10k (about 6 miles) since my surgery in March. I had been running once or twice a week for about a month but hadn't really felt solid enough for the sustained impact of an hour or more of running. That morning, my daily meditation in The Way app was using a koan that was a story of a monk on pilgrimage, and the focus of that session was on the statement, "Not knowing is most intimate," which brought a sense of closeness with my awareness while sitting in my meditation.

The whole koan goes,

The master Dizang asked the traveling monk, Fayan, “Where are you going from here?”
Fayan says, “I’m on pilgrimage.”
Dizang responds, “What sort of thing is pilgrimage?”
“I don’t know,” Fayan responds.
Dizang says, “Not knowing is most intimate.”
The monk, Fayan, suddenly awakened.

As I set out on my run to reach 10k, I carried this present moment awareness of "not knowing." Somewhere around four miles or so, I got a small bit of panic. The feeling is that I'm too far from where I began, and a fear that I might not be able to make it back. This is the moment I described at the top where I'm a beginner swimming in the ocean of my experience. The koan came back to my mind, "not knowing is most intimate." The not knowing was pushing against the feeling of being propelled forward and the closeness to that fear was the most intimate moment with myself. A few strides later the feeling dissipated and I relaxed back into knowing I've been here before — the roots and branches ready to give way to new fruit — and finished my run.

If you're interested in this meditation, you can access it for free (and get 12 sessions for free) here.