I know, and I don’t know
These are two mental prisons.

How our conventional reality imposes on to absolute reality.

On a conventional level, it’s beneficial to know how to do something, and to admit when we don’t know how to do something. In the first scenario, we can cruise on auto pilot, whereas in the second we can learn something. The problem arises when we become stuck in a realm of “I know!” and “I dunno!”. When this happens, we become a type, a profession, a caricature, and we lose our knowingness or awareness of our true nature. I find I’m in a constant oscillation – lost and found!

If we think we know ‘something’ or can do ‘something’, then we are not actually experiencing it: we are merely repeating a pattern of behaviour, going round in circles, and giving the impression of knowing, of being enlightened. This is pride (we are talking here about function in relative reality). We then project our imagined talents onto situations, and stop refining perception, thus delaying our arrival at the final shore.

A genuine change in perception is moving closer to genuine enlightenment.

There is knowing, and there is knowingness. Knowingness is merely being open to a situation without imposing anything on to it. It is just being aware in a situation. When having something explained to us, we merely listen, neither accepting nor rejecting. The explanation is that person’s point of view, and may not require ‘correcting’ from our point of view. These are both merely viewpoints, again on a relative level.

“I don’t know” has the same effect as “I know”: both dominate a situation. We feel inferior, unfortunate, unappreciated, got at. This is inverted pride (another function in relative reality).

“I know” and “I don’t know” are all about me. There are ‘things’ we don’t know about, but we can learn – that’s if we want to – instead of holding onto an idea about ourselves. When we learn, we then know something. Knowingness is already present, as is awareness, but usually goes unnoticed, because we are straight in there, confusing the situation!

I suspect that even in dementia, when we forget names of thing or who people are, we will still have a sense of knowing, of being aware. Animals cannot communicate to explain the name of things, but still have awareness, a knowingness about a situation.

I know and I don’t know.
Pride and inverted pride.
Both are imprisoned in their own realm.

Pride is a feeling of being special because of being smarter, richer, higher than others.
Inverted pride is a feeling of being special because of being a victim, of being poor, of being insecure and of perceiving oneself to be inadequate.

Pride spends a lot of time talking about how wonderful it is, and how much more deserving. Inverted pride monopolises the conversation with self-condemnation, talking about how unfortunate it is: “Poor me!”.

Both attitudes are all about me, me, me with little consideration of how that focus on one’s self ignores the rest of humanity, and doesn’t recognise that other people have their own qualities and deeds to be proud of, or to regret.

This brings us to the alaya, and the alayavijnana.
The alaya and alayavijnana are two Sanskrit words for the eighth consciousness – the store house of memories – our karmic bank and its contents. The first five are the sense consciousnesses, the sixth is perception, the seventh is judgement, and the eighth is our reference library. The alaya is the hard drive, and the alayavijnana is the software = memory imprints. We relate to the outer world through these eight consciousnesses (there is more information about these consciousnesses in the ‘search’ facility of this blog).

The trap into which we fall is being stuck in the eighth consciousness, which is “I experience”, “I rest in stillness”, “I am aware”, “I am”…these are still at the conventional level of reality, and this is the reason why we repeat everything.

Through proper instruction, we can break through this barrier, to what could be called the ninth consciousness – pure awareness – essence – higher self. Then, there is just stillness, just awareness, just is-ness. One one level, this is called Rigpa, and on a higher level it is termed Dharmakaya, although other traditions will give this other names.