I grew up in an environment and a culture where people know things. Or when they don’t know, they quickly hide behind a theory or a little cliché that fills the moment of uncertainty and saves them from the shame of not knowing. I grew up crushed by the weight of everything I didn’t know. The feeling of an endless race toward knowledge, which would finally come to an end one day when I became an adult and was finally able to understand the conversations of my parents, of others, of the world.
The irony of life is that I went on to pursue studies and an academic career where knowledge is highly valued. Where “I don’t know” is seen as an unmentionable weakness, a shortcoming that we hide deep within ourselves and barely dare to admit to ourselves. So there was no respite; knowledge continued to be held up as the absolute value of an intellectual life—and, in my case, a professional one.
Buddhism and the Realm of Not-Knowing
At the same time, I began studying Buddhism, which gently and elegantly shook up just about all my certainties. And at 52, I can finally say that I don’t know—with the relief that comes from honesty and the cessation of all inner conflict. In fact, I know less and less. My intellectual frameworks turned out to be built on a vision of reality that was solid—and therefore illusory. I have discovered the joy of impermanence, of the continual movement of everything, which, despite our attempts at definitive definitions, rebels and flees into an infinite becoming. I savor a little—sometimes a lot—the joy of seeing the world beyond concepts—or at least of seeing through them, of seeing that their apparent intellectual dominance is merely a construct, an intellectual sleight of hand, a house of cards that cannot withstand the emptiness of all things.
Yet I remain a teacher. So I do teach something. I teach not so much the things I know as the things I feel. I try to convey an open and healthy worldview—one in which our innate intelligence is capable of intuitively finding its own answers, and in which we allow ourselves to grope in the dark without knowing. I provide few guideposts in this landscape that is our cognition, for it knows how to do the work on its own—let’s finally trust it. I convey much more of an attitude—that of opening ourselves up to our experiences without imprisoning them in concepts, systems, or judgments. I do have a method, but it, too, is subject to each person’s critical curiosity; it is malleable, revisitable, and constantly being revisited.
Relying on Uncertainty: A Method
My method can be summed up in three words or concepts—here again, the irony of trying to transcend the concept through the concept itself—: feel, gather, open. I apply it to those precious moments of uncertainty, when we no longer know. First, let’s feel the space that opens up; we don’t know, so we can perceive with great freshness, without presuppositions or filters. Let’s allow ourselves to be in our body/heart/mind within the opening that has appeared before action, response, or knowledge. It may last the time it takes to breathe; it may last several days; let’s allow ourselves not to know, just to be. Let’s make ourselves receptive to what is—just that.
Then perhaps the moment will come when we “bring it together”—that is, when we provide a framework for this space, not to confine it but to see it more clearly. This is where the “tools,” the technique, or the instruments of know-how come into play. In my yoga classes, this corresponds to the principles of alignment and the anatomical and energetic coherence of the body. I certainly draw on knowledge, but not on certainties. For these tools will only have meaning if they support the inner experience and allow it to express itself through “opening.”
“Opening” is the action that ultimately arises—not to erase the uncertainty inherent in any human situation, but to embrace it in order to offer a direction. A direction that is therefore uncertain, yet rooted in being rather than in “doing.” Inhabited by intelligent doubt, by curious questioning, by an open perspective. In my yoga classes, this manifests as a posture—not a static one, but one vibrating with the movement of life; the posture is a process of becoming that is not yet complete, a momentum with no specific destination.
Conveying Possibility
My method is disorienting. For I offer precisely the space of doubt, of uncertainty—those areas we so often flee, thinking they will destroy us socially, professionally, culturally, and even psychologically. But what freedom we discover when we allow ourselves to simply be—without knowing who we are, what we should do, or where we’re going. Every direction is possible; every way of being is at our disposal so that our heart can express itself fully without fear of who it is.