Don't Be a Spectator

Participation, belonging, and the reality of not-knowing

“On any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team. That’s why they play the game.” - Sports cliche

“Holy cow, he won!” — the Israelites, after David killed Goliath

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“Don’t be a spectator.”

These words were intoned with some urgency by the monk standing at the zendo door.

I was sitting in a near-full zendo at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. It was early in my practice — I was twenty-seven years old — and had recently become a resident, moving from a beautiful apartment above my friend’s garage in Venice, walking distance from the beach, to the loud and bustling block in Koreatown that housed the ZCLA compound.

When I heard the words “don’t be a spectator” the hairs rose on the back of my neck. I felt they were meant specifically for me. At that time, I was quite introverted, very cautious in my commitments. I was enamored of Zen practice, but had a tendency to hold myself back and observe. Surely my practice as a writer also contributed to this tendency.

Reflecting on this, I suspect my tendency to observation is one reason I was (and am) attracted so strongly to meditation. There is nothing to see in watching someone else meditate, so the richness must come entirely from within one’s own experience.

We’re forced to participate.

And in this participation, we find our belonging.

When we are fully participating in our lives, we become more intimate with the reality of not-knowing. In Zen, the mind of not-knowing is a truer experience of reality. Over and over again we see that reality rarely aligns with our ideas about it.

Anyone who has been an athlete for long has experienced the “any given Sunday” effect: you’ve lost a match you should have won (which can be crushing) or you’ve won a match you should have lost (which is thrilling.)

The statement “that’s why we play the game,” while a cliche, nevertheless points to the wisdom and power of not-knowing. The “mind of the spectator” is fundamentally passive and misses the essence and power of life.

The mind of not-knowing IS the engaged mind of the participant, who does not know what is going to happen.

This mind is an especially supportive practice when we are faced with the classic conditions of VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. These conditions are chaotically present in our professional, social and political spheres right now (by design!) and we can’t help but feel them intimately in our daily lives.

One way we attempt to manage the internal stress of VUCA is to go up into our heads and try to conceptually understand what’s going on. We try to make sense of things to orient ourselves within the uncertain and frightening terrain, and to better navigate towards safety and the perpetuation of the values we hold dear.

While we may get some helpful sense of orientation with our understanding (we “see what’s going on”), the mind maps we create with our “knowing minds” very often disempower and demoralize us. Our ideas can get in the way of the intimate participatory experience that is required to live with presence and purpose.

Somewhat paradoxically, our “understanding” of the situation may actually alienate us from a deeper sense of belongingness with the whole.

The mind of not-knowing is a truer experience of reality, AND it allows for the actualization of a potential that our more disengaged or “expert” minds fail to see.

The archetypal Biblical story of David and Goliath brings this alive. All the Israelites were terrified of the “Philistine” (most likely Greek) giant Goliath, and no one, including King Saul and David’s own brothers, believed he had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. Yet David prevailed in combat.

Why? His victory is credited to the following factors:

1. Faith in God

2. Tactical and strategic agility. (His skill with a sling and dropping his armor.)

3. Goliath’s overconfidence.

4. Courage and initiative. (Developed by his earlier battles with the lion and the bear.)

At this point I want to take a quick geeky detour through the four types of knowing. (These are discussed in John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis — book and YouTube series — which I have been moving through with some interest.)

According to Vervaeke, the four types of knowing are:

1. Propositional Knowing: This involves understanding facts and truths expressed in statements, such as knowing that "the Earth orbits the Sun." It answers "what" questions and is associated with semantic memory. The standard of realness here is truth.

2. Procedural Knowing: This is about knowing how to do something, such as riding a bike or playing an instrument. It focuses on skills and actions, with procedural memory as its basis. The standard of realness is power.

3. Perspectival Knowing: This type of knowing relates to situational awareness and understanding what it feels like to be in a particular state or perspective. It results in a sense of presence and is tied to episodic memory. The standard of realness here is presence.

4. Participatory Knowing: This involves a deep, transformative relationship with the world, where the individual and their environment co-shape each other. It emphasizes belonging and identity, relying on a sense of self and historical narratives as memory. The standard of realness is belonging.

These types of knowing work together to provide a holistic understanding of reality, integrating different ways of engaging with the world.

When we talk about not-knowing in Zen we are, I think, talking primarily about Not-Propositional Knowing: the “facts” and “truth” that are expressed in statements about the world. These “truths,” while very often subconscious, are nevertheless alive as thought-forms, concepts, or beliefs. These thought-forms are the substance of our “truth,” including our biases and false beliefs.

Zen is famously “beyond words and letters,” which points to a form of knowing beyond propositional knowing (statements). We could say that not-knowing mind actually refers to Participatory Knowing, along with some elements of Perspectival Knowing.

These engage the “reality” of presence and belonging, instead of “truth.”

Going back to David, we can see that while all the Propositional Knowledge suggested he would be soundly defeated, he was empowered with the qualities of faith and courage that derived from his Perspectival and Participatory Knowledge (as well as his Procedural Knowledge - how to wield a sling.)

So bringing this all home, the important point here is to “get in the game” without overthinking, overanalyzing, overplanning, handicapping outcomes or endlessly speculating on causes and effects.

Lean into your own experiences of your past generative actions (what we call confidence), your experience of the presence of higher powers (what we call faith), and your sense of belongingness as a family member, community member, citizen, and human.

Whether it is your life, your career, your family, your community, or the chaotic state of our national and global politics … don’t be a spectator.

Align your attention with intention and …

… breathe your breath
… eat your breakfast
… serve your tea
… kiss your partner
… speak your truth
… make your move
… fire your sling

Blessings and peace to you all,

• Paul

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Image: David hoists the severed head of Goliath as illustrated by Gustave Doré (1866)