Don't Know

Q: Is there any simple mantra or koan comprising of 2 words or a phrase that can be recited while inhaling & exhaling e.g. (Bud- dho) in order to strengthen our contemplation.

A: The expression "Don't know" covers so many facets of mindfulness development, it is surprising more people are not aware of it.  The Zen practice of the "Don't know mind" that 'empties' the mind, is not what is intended here; but of a meaningful enquiry so as to keep focused on just about any object of contemplation.  One of the basics of Dhamma is Anattaa, hence any object under investigation will respond to the _genuine_ exclamation of "Don't know" simply because all objects lack any substance and thus aren't objects.

Unwholesome objects will become 'stressed' or rejected; whilst wholesome objects will gladden and develop, until such time as increasing subtlety renders such objects unwholesome so as to give way to states of ever-greater subtlety and wholesomeness: etc, etc.

For some practitioners, the best results might come when the so-called 'heart' centre is focused on, whilst synchronising the breath. The space behind the sternum joint at the first visible rib pair: which is drifting off-topic!

For the Kalamas.

"Test what you know endlessly,
test it a million times,
on the million and oneth time it may change".
Kapilavaddho.

Perfect Wisdom

Perfect wisdom is the clear knowledge of total ignorance.
Paradox begins with the craving to know.
Dwelling in not-knowing is the final peace.
Perfecting that knowledge is the path.

All we are...

All we are:
Oscillating ions,
In various parts of the brain,
Living on a planet with a magnetic field.

If it changes ...

If it changes it can't be real.
If it doesn't change it can't be known.
Luangpow Pannavaddho

Is it possible to relate Buddhism to Western Culture?

There are at least two possibilities, and no doubt many more besides.

The first one turns around the Cartesian dictum, "Cogito ergo sum", "I think therefore I am".  René Descartes got off to a brilliant start and then promptly took a wrong turn, completely missing the point of his inadvertent discovery.

He turned right, taking the very 'doubt' that he took as evidence of his 'existence', making it the keystone of his entire intellectual edifice.  Instead, he should have turned left and investigated it.  So as to realise it's causal factors, thereby realising it's true nature, "... thus I am simply the result of that thought".

The second possibility considers the two Grail Legend questions.  "What does it mean?" and, "Whom does it serve?"  The first investigates the object of attention.  The second investigates the subject himself, using the same principles, in the same way, to find the same answer.

One could also think of a teaching given to Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan's "second attention": though others might not agree.

Begging the Question

Generosity cuts against both greed and hatred, 

and begs the question "Who is it that knows this?"

Your not supposed to know

That's the whole point.
Conditions arise unknowingly.
Everything is dependent upon just this one factor.
It's called Ignorance.

Eternity

Nothing unchanging in the present moment.
Nothing surviving to the next.
An absence of anything eternal.

Bodily sensation fading and boosted
by successive mental movements:
together, maybe, with the knowing of this.

But who, or what,  knows that?

As successive mental movements fade
bodily sensation fades.
As conscious movements fade
no bodily sensation remains.

But who, or what,  knows this?

Here is the Knowing - Now is the Knowing

Dukkha ceases to be manageable.
Techniques fail.
Clarity ceases to penetrate.

After a lifetime of practice, something knows that there has to be
something else.  In spite of the very clear perception that there is
absolutely nothing knowable whatsoever that can remedy the
situation with any hope at all, there is nonetheless a distinct
conviction that there is indeed something else.

What is it that knows this?

Shazam!

Even Eureka doesn't do it justice.
Something else in a complete league of it's own.
There isn't anything else.  But what knows this?

Just this knowing: knowing that it doesn't know.
It can't ever know.  There just isn't anything else.

Looking at things exactly as they are:
as they present themselves in the moment.
The practice of doing nothing special.
The way to go.

The One Who Knows

The One Who Knows,
A personification of the Knowing processes.
"If you see the Buddho, kill him."
Identity is Dukkha,
This one too.

Perfect Sanity

Perfect Sanity
The Don't Know Mind
The absolute absurdity of trying to know anything at all - whatsoever.

The Knowledge of Not Knowing

The outflows are due to the ignorance of them.
That ignorance is dependent on it not being known.
Thus the outflows are knowable and their originating conditions are equally knowable: in the not knowing of them.
Thus their cessation is equally knowable, the knowledge of that original not knowing.
Thus the way leading to their future non arising comes from the knowledge, of the knowledge, of that initial not knowing.

On Knowing the "Don't Know"

Kilesa, unknown activities that are identified with unknowingly: powerful for as long as they remain unknown.

Asava, essentially outflows, though occasionally useful to see as other renderings, such as biases, influxes, chancres etc.

Tanha, craving.  This kind of craving is inclusive of aversion, the two toggle together, successively conditioning one another; successive, serial alternation, eternally changing.  Collectively - attachment.

Conventionally - a quiet mind is an inactive mind immersed in white noise, inefficient activities, all cancelling each other out, with no net effect: Zero Point Energy, the ultimate inefficiency.  "E=MC²",that is to say, mentally active energy manifests as bodily sensation: a sensation experienced within the physical body, robbing the practitioner of ultimate peace.  It is fully knowable, but what is it that knows?

Reality is thus seen to be serial, successive, linear.  The "here and now", an eternal infinity or infinite eternity: nothing other than this present moment.

Space being a physical thing, bodily sensation due to mental process.  For a practitioner in the midst of practice, space is a mental construct that is readily believed but with no actual reality, robbing him of the total stillness that rewards genuine practice.

These aspects of subjective activity conspire, as it were, to rob the practitioner of his goal.  They only know conventional realities: rewards of bodily identity, pleasure.  So that total stillness threatens their continued existence, since they would have become fully knowable - objectified - as a direct result.

Thus the equation of total stillness with perfected, remainderless knowing.  Knowing being the ground level of zero mental activity.

Knowing the knowing develops into the ground state of mental activity where consciousness itself comes to rest.  Nothing can be said about this state, it is beyond conventional terminology.  All that can be said is that anyone can know this for himself.

"Don't Know", the starting point for knowing the most subtle of subjective activities.  Cultivating the "Don't Know" mind brings Knowing to perfection.

This Knowing has no substance, mental or physical: is beyond change, and thus eternal.

Processes Dependant Upon Not Being Known

Subject, object, duality.  Processes dependant upon not being known.

Craving within aversion, aversion within craving.  Processes dependant upon not being known.

At the very centre of the Heart: the object there, is nothing other than the subject looking at it, whilst not knowing this.  Processes dependant upon not being known.

Mind, the personification of unknown processes.

But what knows this?

Cracking Dukkha

When craving and aversion are seen as interdependently arising, the path becomes manifest.

Eureka!

Looses it.

Realising the way leading to it's future completion, both sustains, and latter, reasserts it.

This path has an intelligence all of it's own: the Dhamma becomes fully automatic.

Just need to perfect Samadhi to see it at it's most sublime, just as it is, beyond all words.

Physiological Sensations

I think therefore I am physiological sensations due to consciousness of currently running processes.

Serially arising objects, combinations of thought and memory or associations.

Feelings accumulating within bodily tissue as tangible sensations.  A solid basis for identification in the real world: except that it fades when conditions no longer sustain: changes when condions change.

Furthermore, it conditions change.

What is out there?

We eat and drink. 
We don't know where it comes from.

We defecate and urinate.
We don't know where it goes to.

There is something out there: a void with which we live in perfect harmony.

Knowable only by the mind.

Anicca, Dukkha, Anattaa

To show yet another way into the Dhamma:
Changing Dukkha for currently running subjects,
Changing Anattaa for imminently arising objects.
All three for the balance within current processes.

Where am I?

You won't find yourself in the present moment. 
You can't know what's coming in the next one.

First contemplation looks at currently running subjects.
Second contemplation looks at successively arising objects.

But what knows this?