Read time 7 minutes. Unknowing is a stand alone article in our series regarding paradox.
We have been winding our way through the endless dualities that rise up in Zen thought and practice. Each step reveals how overlapping, how intertwined, these ideas actually are. Such is the case with today’s topic: no-mind.
I like to think of no-mind not as some grand permanent state, but as little momentary tastes of awakening. A glimpse, a pause, a flash. In the end, true peace of mind is only uncovered by way of the peace of no-mind.
If mind is the instrument of knowing, then unknowing is the gate.
What no-mind is—and is not
No-mind is not the blank void many assume. It’s not mindless emptiness. Ordinary mind, when identified with the ego, is lost in self-concern. In no-mind, mind is still present—but it is not yours. Thoughts, emotions, worries still appear, but they are not bound to the illusion of a separate self.
No-mind is a paradox. It is both presence and absence. It is the awareness behind thought—fully awake, yet untouched by the chatter.
Unknowing into effortless awareness
Here comes the next paradox. No-mind is effortless, but a certain effort may be required to reach it. Training. Discipline. Practice. We must, in a way, learn to unlearn.
Mindfulness, meditation, breath, inquiry—each points in the same direction. And all share the same requirement: unknowing must be universal and without prejudice.
In this space, thoughts are not labeled mine. Emotions are not named good or bad. Even judgments themselves dissolve. This is the temporary end of dualistic opposition.
Effortless awareness is not laziness. It is fully engaged, yet free of entanglement. Present, yet undistracted.
Presence and absence
To step into this requires an unknowing of both past and future.
The present is not just a tick of the clock—it is the unfolding moment itself. We are here for it, open and allowing. But in that same opening, we also become willing to step back. To observe thought from a distance. To watch emotions rise and pass without possession.
This is the absence of no-mind. Distance creates calm. Distance dissolves the manic scatter of ordinary mind.
And in that space, clarity arises not by force but by surrender. This is what some call original mind. The peace of being free even from attachment to mind itself.
Unknowing into understanding
“The teachings are meant to lead us to no-mind and then to be discarded. In this no-mind true understanding can sprout spontaneously. When this happens no doubts of any kind can arise and that understanding is of the same nature as understanding ‘I Am.’”
~ Ramesh S. Balsekar
Every teaching is provisional. Each one points only far enough for us to let it go. Beliefs may soothe us with control or familiarity, but they also restrict. They fence us in.
To truly enter no-mind, belief itself must be abandoned. Not ignored—unknowned.
This understanding is not intellectual. It is infinite and cannot be contained by logic, cannot be cornered by words. It is the Tao itself. The unknowable revealed only in the unknown.
Why then “no doubts of any kind”? Because doubt and confidence both belong to the ego. When ego dissolves, so do its opposites. No-mind is the end of concepts. It is the great unknowing, the clear gate into effortless action.
Unknowing into simplicity
The Tao Te Ching circles back to this theme again and again. Chapter 28 praises simplicity—“returning to the state of a newborn babe.” The image of the uncarved block is original mind itself: natural, unshaped, pure potential.
Life carves us down into identities. Knowledge piles on, cluttering the water. Yet Tao reminds us: what is learned may be useful, but what is unlearned is infinite.
“To learn, one increases day by day; to cultivate Tao, one reduces day by day. Reduce and reduce until non-action is reached. With non-action, nothing is left undone.” (Tao Te Ching, Ch. 48)
This unknowing is not ignorance but the end of arrogance. It is humility, simplicity, the stripping away of the ego’s story.
The question: Who knows?
Life overwhelms us. It feels unfair. We throw up our hands: “Who knows?”
At first, this is ego’s retreat. A shrug, a dismissal, a way to protect itself from harder questions. “Not my fault. Out of my hands. Mystery unsolved. Let’s move on.”
But the ego is slippery. It claims to help, then deflects blame when it can’t deliver. “Who knows?” becomes a disingenuous defense.
Unless we turn it. Unless we flip the question into self-inquiry.
A simple practice
When anxiety rises, we can ask: “Who is it that knows this anxiety?”
The answer: “Who knows?”
But this time, the phrase is not avoidance—it is release. It is a wedge between ego and awareness. It strips ownership from the thought. Anxiety belongs to the ego. Awareness itself knows nothing of it.
“Who knows?” becomes a koan. An unanswered question that reveals by refusing to resolve. Our true nature is Tao. Empty awareness is our closest glimpse.
So the question is not meant to be answered. It is meant to unmask the one who keeps asking.
Self-inquiry, the inner glance, and empty awareness
Over time, practice shifts from conscious effort to instinctive pause. The inner glance—the brief turn of awareness inward—is enough.
The question “Who knows?” becomes a breath. A pivot back to the seat of awareness. Not to knowledge. Not to ignorance. Simply to being.
Empty awareness is not concerned with teachings, doubts, or certainties. It simply is. And paradoxically, in that unknowing, reality reveals itself more vividly than ever.
No-mind is not escape but deeper connection. In it, nothing is resisted, nothing is forced.
We can spend a lifetime training the ego to let go one thought at a time—each surrender bringing brief relief. Or we can let go of the root: the false identity of separate self. That single unknowing opens the door to the peace that does not end.
The question remains: Who knows?
Asked from the ego, it is dismissal.
Asked from awareness, it is liberation.
No-mind is not found through accumulation but through subtraction. Not in knowing, but in unknowing. Not in mind, but in the peace beyond it.
Explore more:
In “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Douglas Adams whimsically wrote, “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” This article on BigThink discusses the vastness of the universe. It also offers some awe inspiring pictures to go along with the discussion.
You don’t need to ponder some sort of cryptic, paradoxical question in order to enter the realm of koan practice. Consider the following, “Overall, our observable Universe spans 92 billion light-years. But the unobservable Universe must be at least hundreds of times larger. For all we know, the universe may be infinite.” The concept of infinity, in and of itself, is enough to humble the ego’s pretension to know it all. How can the universe be infinite? Ponder that until you conclude that there is no reasonable, logical answer for you to come to. Then become okay with not knowing.
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