The Farther You Go …

Seekers of enlightenment could literally seek everywhere: gurus, sacred places, books, the subconscious, higher self, meditation, or else. And the fact is, the more seek, the more they want to seek, without a thing to be found. It’s like drinking seawater when one’s thirsty. Why does that happen?

After the quote from the Biblical text in the previous post, I’d like to introduce another line from Tao Te Ching, a Chinese classic: “The farther you go, the less you know.” This is an artful piece of advice that simply points to the fact that one is already “there”.

Let me elaborate. For instance, a seeker starts the seek, having in mind the idea that there is something to be achieved, leading to a certain kind of piece of mind. But they don’t realize that “piece of mind,” if any, is in not seeking at all. This is because, the main cause of psychological turmoil that makes one seek is the illusion that there are two separate things: you, and something other than you (including a certain state of mind that looms out there in imagination).

The imagined division between you, being over here, and the world over there, brings about conflict that is unsolvable in principle, as anything you want to acquire or keep away are actually not apart from you; in other words, it’s you yourself, indivisible from you, just like your internal organs can’t be attached or detached according to one’s liking.

From this fundamental misconception about how things are derives the search to end this misconception itself. Does that mean we can do nothing about it? Not necessarily. Zen gives us a hint to how not to do anything while doing everything. This is called narikiru (成り切る), which means to “be” something.

The procedure is as follows: one focuses on a chosen object (or an action) and becomes so concentrated on it that they forget about both themselves and the object. At this point, they are neither self-aware or other-aware. Here, the question is “what is it that’s attending?”

The fact that they can be oblivious of both themselves and the object somewhat suggests, even at an intellectual level, that the subject - object division may not be the default mode of our being, but that they are the result of thoughts and ideas.

Now, if we apply the above tips to how we search, one possible way is to search, to the bone, with one’s whole being, so intensely that there is no division between the searcher and the searched. We don’t say “Don’t search,” but rather say “Search , search, and search” until it isn’t search anymore. Then, what is it, if it isn’t search? Give it a try, and we’ll see.