Not knowing
Leland Shields – September 13, 2026
I’d like to start with a poem of Ryokan’s:
Who calls my poems poems?
My poems are not poems.
Only when you know my poems are not poems
can we together speak about poems.Translation Kazuaki Tanahashi, Sky Above, Great Wind; The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan, p. 20.
Let’s put that together with Gateless Barrier case 40, “Guishan Kicks Over the Water Bottle.”
When Guishan was with Baizhang’s assembly, he was cook of the monastery. Baizhang wanted to choose a founding teacher for Mount Dagui. He invited all his monks to make a presentation, saying, “The outstanding one will be sent. “Then he took a water bottle and set it on the floor, and said, “Don’t call this a water bottle. What would you call it?”
The head monk said, “It can’t be called a wooden clog.”
Baizhang then asked Guishan his opinion. Guishan kicked over the water bottle and walked out.
Baizhang laughed and said, “The head monk loses.” Guishan thereupon was made the founding teacher at Mount Dagui.
Translation Aitken-Foster, Gateless Barrier, 2013 printing.
(“Zh” is pronounced like the “dg” in fudge.)
Ryokan and Baizhang set us up. The sentence, “My poems are not poems,” is clearly contradictory, and we might take it as nonsense. Baizhang said, “Don’t call this a water bottle. What would you call it?” What’s the point of that exercise? I can ask my last question with a sarcastic tone that communicates an eye roll. Or, I can ask it genuinely; what is the point of that exercise? Ryokan and Baizhang both offer the same open door, though to call it a door already closes it, implying that there is an inside and an outside.
Don’t call this talk a teisho. What would you call it?
It is not my intention to play games or offer riddles in asking these questions and not offering answers. I also truly believe that Ryokan and Baizhang are expressing something of great significance for us as readers, and listeners. They encourage us to have a simple mind in meeting that which is right here – whatever it is, whether one or many.
Before telling you more of Guishan and the head monk, I’d like share some of their backstories. I’d like you to see if some of it violates the ideas you had about either of these individuals.
In historical record, Guishan did indeed set himself up as the founding teacher on Mount Dagui, where he practiced with monkeys for eight years without any students coming to see what he had to say or do. We are told he lost heart and was leaving the mountain when a tiger clamped teeth on his sleeve, which Guishan took to be a signal that he should stay. No need to differentiate as to the nature of the signal, or whether the tiger was added as the story was mythologized in its telling.
The unnamed head monk who “lost” went on to be a well respected teacher as well. Each as humans, went on with their lives, eating, sitting, and bathing, and leaving us a few words here and there for our very human steps along the way. If hearing only the koan story of Guishan and the head monk, we could mistake it as defining them. Hearing more, we learn that it was one moment for us as a koan. It also was one moment of a person who was called Guishan. It was one moment of a person we know only as head monk. As this is one moment for you and for me.
To call what we are doing “meditation” can be seductive in giving us the idea we are finding peace, looking for something, figuring something out, or trying to see more clearly. We can impute that we need to be someone else – one who gets this Zen nonsense. After all, I should understand these riddles, right?
Zazen is not effort to change your state of mind; Zazen is the release of effort, release of ideas, to freely engage in what is right here, as it is. While sitting, standing, walking, do less. Zazen is not action to change our states of mind. Zazen is the engagement with diaphragm expanding and air rushing into lungs. Mu is the distinct ringing of the bell and restlessness of my leg. Zazen is looking nowhere beyond this, this, this.
Instead, Zen is nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing to get, no one to get it. Not consistent, not inconsistent, not obvious, not paradoxical. And even that is not complete and saying way too much. We don’t have to call it breath to save our lives with each inhale and exhale. Don’t be distracted by any of these words, or any other words. Meet breath. Hear (slam hand on table).
What we defile by calling it Zen is wholly inclusive, incorporating all without filter or editing. Eyes see whether we know the name of what we see or not. Ears hear whether we know the source of the sound or not. A water bottle sits on a table as it is, independent of associations, evaluations, and categorizations.
Of course, there are roots and leaves, and I never go out to rake the roots. Of course there is salt and sugar, and I never use salt in my coffee. Truly tasting salt, you taste everything. Tasting everything is not a big task – the salt does all the work.
Bernie Glassman was a wonderful man who happened to be a Zen teacher, and the founder of the Zen Peacemakers Order (ZPO). Its mission is “to realize our oneness and relieve suffering through contemplative social action.” The first of its three core tenets is this:
Not knowing-giving up fixed ideas about self and universe
I won’t cloud this talk with words about how to give up fixed ideas. For one, you already know. Secondly, this is sesshin – you’re doing it. Trust the practice; trust the container.
Don’t call it a zafu. What do you call it?
The second ZPO tenet is, “Bearing Witness: to the joy and suffering of the world.” ZPO believes that not knowing isn’t enough by itself; we also must see all that is present in the circumstances of the world, including our attachments and judgements.
The third tenet brings them together: “Taking Action: that arises from Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness.”
Zen Peacemakers went on to found an adjacent organization called the Order of Disorder that has its own precepts, starting with The Three Treasures:
Disorder
Humor
Love
And the Three Tenets:
Not even not knowing
Just wait
Belly laughter
And the Ten Guidelines:
1. Don’t kill anything by taking it seriously
2. Don’t steal anything unless you can get away with it (and you can’t)
3. Don’t worry about promiscuity; no one would look twice at you- you clown
4. Don’t lie by pretending to know anything
5. Forget about intoxicants, you are already a mess
6. Laugh at yourself at least as often as you laugh at others
7. If someone makes a fool of themselves, pay your respects and join in the fun
8. If you can, smile. If possible, giggle. Whenever there is a chance, laugh with all your might
9. Have fun
10. Don’t laugh at Bernie, Yoowho, or Kuku….https://zenpeacemakers.org/zen-peacemaker-order-home/order-of-disorder/
The Order of Disorder is to me a reminder that we can be committed without being grim, and the attitude we bring to sitting and walking in here can already arise from hidden ideas of self and practice as well. Those ideas also cloud our recognition of the simplicity of this, just this.
Not even not knowing – not knowing is to meet each word, swallow, and itch as it is. Not knowing is what we say to drop even not knowing, and scratch. We don’t have to know why we itch now to bear witness to it; an action is bound to arise. Practice like this.