Yes-But-Mind vs. Don't-Know-Mind

[SodaChanh]

I like this video on the Don't Know Mind

 

 

[Mark Foote]

 

She's discussing something altogether different, but I thought it was worth noting that Sojun Mel Weitsman said this about Shunryu Suzuki's teaching:

 

He said that the secret of Soto Zen is "yes, but."

 

("Wind Bell", S. F. Zen Center, vol. XXXlll no. 2 FALL/ WINTER 1999, "introduction to "Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness" BY Mel Weitsman, p 15)

 

 

 

Edited November 5 by Mark Foote

[Tommy]

I am not that sophisticated to understand the difference between "Yes- but-mind" and "Don't-know-mind". So correct me if I am wrong. The whole thing seems to be about the attitude in which one approaches the sitting?? Or is there something else I am missing?

Edited November 7 by Tommy

[SodaChanh]

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

I am not that sophisticated to understand the difference between "Yes- but-mind" and "Don't-know-mind". So correct me if I am wrong. The whole thing seems to be about the attitude in which on approaches the sitting?? Or is there something else I am missing?

 

What is your next thought going to be? 

[Tommy]

14 hours ago, SodaChanh said:

 

What is your next thought going to be? 

And this affects the sitting how? When the point of just sitting is .. to not follow thoughts or chase thoughts, how does it relate? When just sitting is .. to allow one to not identify with thoughts and to be present? What is your next thought going to be?

Edited November 7 by Tommy

[SodaChanh]

10 hours ago, Tommy said:

And this affects the sitting how? When the point of just sitting is .. to not follow thoughts or chase thoughts, how does it relate? When just sitting is .. to allow one to not identify with thoughts and to be present? What is your next thought going to be?

 

Yes but... 

 

You see? 

[Tommy]

10 hours ago, SodaChanh said:

 

Yes but... 

 

You see? 

Don't know

[Mark Foote]

On 11/6/2025 at 6:18 PM, Tommy said:

 

I am not that sophisticated to understand the difference between "Yes- but-mind" and "Don't-know-mind". So correct me if I am wrong. The whole thing seems to be about the attitude in which one approaches the sitting?? Or is there something else I am missing?

 

 

 

Yeah, it's easy to overthink this (ha ha).

My take is that there's a certain negation in "don't know mind", because the mind does know, that's it's nature. And a certain affirmation in "'yes, but' mind".

 

Some teachers say "root out discursive thought". Gautama described mindfulness of mind in a more affirmative light, IMO:

 

Aware of mind I shall breathe in. Aware of mind I shall breathe out.

 

(One) makes up one’s mind:

 

“Gladdening my mind I shall breathe in. Gladdening my mind I shall breathe out.

 

Composing my mind I shall breathe in. Composing my mind I shall breathe out.

 

Detaching my mind I shall breathe in. Detaching my mind I shall breathe out.

 

(SN 54.1, tr. Pali Text Society vol V pp 275-276)

 

 

In my experience, that sequence is natural, and any attempt on my part to "root out" a particular kind of thought leads me in a loop of thought.

 

Gautama spoke of observing the mind the way the king's chef observes the king, to see what he favors on a given day and what he does not. He also said:

 

As (one) abides in body contemplating body, either some bodily object arises, or bodily discomfort or drowsiness of mind scatters (one’s) thoughts abroad to externals. Thereupon… (one’s) attention should be directed to some pleasurable object of thought. As (one) thus directs it to some pleasurable object of thought, delight springs up in (one’s being). In (one), thus delighted, arises zest. Full of zest (one’s) body is calmed down. With body so calmed (one) experiences ease. The mind of one at ease is concentrated. (One) thus reflects: The aim on which I set my mind I have attained. Come, let me withdraw my mind [from pleasurable object of thought]. So (one) withdraws (one’s) mind therefrom, and neither starts nor carries on thought-process. Thus (one) is fully conscious: I am without thought initial or sustained. I am inwardly mindful. I am at ease.

(Gautama repeats the above for “As (one) contemplates feelings in feelings…”, “… mind in mind…”, “… mind-states in mind-states, either some mental object arises, or…”)

 

Such is the practice for the direction of mind.

 

And what… is the practice for the non-direction of mind? (First,) by not directing (one’s) mind to externals, (one) is fully aware: My mind is not directed to externals. Then (one) is fully aware: My mind is not concentrated either on what is before or on what is behind, but it is set free, it is undirected. Then (one) is fully aware: In body contemplating body I abide, ardent, composed and mindful. I am at ease.

 

And (one) does the same with regard to feelings… to mind… and mind-states. Thus (one) is fully aware: In mind-states contemplating mind-states I abide, ardent, composed and mindful. I am at ease.

 

This is the practice for the non-direction of mind.

 

(SN 47.10, tr. Pali Text Society SN V pp 135-136)

 

 

Maybe you have better luck with "only don't know" than I do!

 

 

Edited Sunday at 10:10 PM by Mark Foote

[Cobie]

 

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

… the mind does know …

That’s what you believe.  
 

Spoiler

imo: the mind cannot know; the soul knows. 

 

 

Edited Monday at 12:07 AM by Cobie

[Tommy]

     In my life, I have found that I have a mind and emotions. These things exhibit their properties thru my body. I feel them to be real. I have not found a soul. So when one says something about spiritual this or that, I really do not understand as I have not found there is a soul in my body. In movies, the souls are mostly ghosts of a person who might have existed. They exist in our realm thru their trauma and inability to move on. Where they are suppose to go, I have no idea.

     I was taught, as a child, to believe in God and have prayed many times usually when I needed help. There has been no action or vision to lead me to believe there is a God. Many have said it is a matter of faith. Where as, the Buddhism says to not just take their word but to actually find out for myself. So, even though I have never experienced enlightenment, I trust there must be such a thing. What it is or how it is , ... well, that is beyond me.

     Buddhism becomes strange when it declares that this world is an illusion. When I strike my fist against a rock, my hand hurts with pain that makes me feel the truth of this world. It is real. Suffering is real. The more I just sit, I realize that there must be something else or more to this life than just suffering. What is the truth of our nature? Don't know.

     So when it comes to Buddhism, I listen and hear the words or the wise. My mind goes "Yes, but". And then I sit and My mind goes "Don't know". Is it really one versus the other? Seems to me to be all part of the mix.

Edited Wednesday at 10:41 PM by Tommy

[Mark Foote]

On 11/9/2025 at 3:43 PM, Cobie said:

That’s what you believe.  
 

  Hide contents

imo: the mind cannot know; the soul knows. 

 

 

 

I'll agree that gnosis is not in thought, even though thought can be in gnosis. Other than that, I don't gno!

 

[Cobie]

 

3 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

… I don't gno!

 

 Well you wouldn’t, it’s the girls night out. 

 

Edited Wednesday at 09:40 PM by Cobie

[Tommy]

4 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

I'll agree that gnosis is not in thought, even though thought can be in gnosis. Other than that, I don't gno!

 

Well, you seem to know what spirituality means. What is the spirit and how do I find it in myself?

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

Well, you seem to know what spirituality means. What is the spirit and how do I find it in myself?
 

 

 

Why do I suddenly feel like Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs?

 

 

Alias, "The Wizard of Oz"!

 

All kidding aside, be careful what you wish for.

 

I am hoping to publish my book soon, and my producer thought a biography would be a good thing. This is what I came up with:

 

My life has been 50 years trying to figure out how the zazen that gets up and walks around fits into a normal life, and likewise trying to figure out how zazen sits zazen so I can sit as long as I feel I need to sit without wrecking my knees.

 

As to "spirit":
 

Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French, from Latin spiritus ‘breath, spirit’, from spirare ‘breathe’.

 

(Oxford Languages, dictionary publisher)

 

I stumbled into the zazen that gets up and walks around by telling myself I was going to be aware of every breath in and every breath out all day long for an entire day, back in '75. You can read my take on all that, in my The Inconceivable Nature of the Wind.

 

That wasn't the same as discovering zazen sitting zazen, for me. My best take on that is Just to Sit.

 

That's going to be the last essay in my book before the appendix. The whole thing is A Natural Mindfulness, absolutely free to download, hopefully coming soon to Amazon as a paperback.  Turns out, they'll publish anything, so it might  happen.

 

The book opens with Waking Up and Falling Asleep. I continue to believe that's the best place to find it.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 12:01 AM by Mark Foote

[Lairg]

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

What is the spirit and how do I find it in myself?

 

In the current manifestation of this solar system,  Spirit anchors in the heart of the standard human.

 

Hence the many sayings about heart - such as:  he (a bad person) is heartless

 

 

Edited yesterday at 12:02 AM by Lairg

[Tommy]

4 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

In the current manifestation of this solar system,  Spirit anchors in the heart of the standard human.

 

Hence the many sayings about heart - such as:  he (a bad person) is heartless

The heart where emotions are felt? So, you say that spirit is anchored in the heart? Is the spirit an emotion? Or is it part and parcel of the the heart and its emotions?

 

My emotions are driven by my mind's understanding of the situation to provide a base for my emotions to be felt. To say that spirit is anchored in the heart, means to me, that it is just part of that which ??? ....   arises from where into the mind and thus takes it form from the thoughts. Yeah, now more confused than ever.

 

4 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Why do I suddenly feel like Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs?

Yeah, all that makes me think of the guy who is holding onto a rope which is anchored on a roof edge. The guy is holding onto the other end of the rope. All the while standing on the rope and walking out into the middle of nowhere. Up in the air by holding onto the rope? Yea, fancy words and lots of dancing around to produce a wonderful show. All of which still makes no sense to me.  I guess I am lost and always will be.

Edited 21 hours ago by Tommy

[Lairg]

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

The heart where emotions are felt? So, you say that spirit is anchored in the heart? Is the spirit an emotion? Or is it part and parcel of the the heart and its emotions?

 

Feeling is a generic word.  The sense of touch (feeling) can be developed on every plane: physical, emotional, mental, buddhic/heart, atmic/will etc

 

Spirit that anchors in the heart provides life force and spiritual purpose to the human.  Many humans have interference in the anchoring so that their life force and spiritual purpose is disturbed/incomplete.

 

Traditionally the anchoring of Spirit in the heart is inwardly seen as a flame.  The Counter-Reformation artwork of the Roman church showed that flame - but mainly for Jesus.

 

Spirit, as anchored in the standard human, comes from before Existence.  This means that the unfolded human, functions before, during and after Existence - in parallel.

 

 

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Lairg

[Tommy]

8 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

Feeling is a generic word.  The sense of touch (feeling) can be developed on every plane: physical, emotional, mental, buddhic/heart, atmic/will etc

 

Spirit that anchors in the heart provides life force and spiritual purpose to the human.  Many humans have interference in the anchoring so that their life force and spiritual purpose is disturbed/incomplete.

 

Traditionally the anchoring of Spirit in the heart is inwardly seen as a flame.  The Counter-Reformation artwork of the Roman church showed that flame - but mainly for Jesus.

 

Spirit, as anchored in the standard human, comes from before Existence.  This means that the unfolded human, functions before, during and after Existence - in parallel.

Don't know how you ever came up with this? Meaning how did you discover this truth?? And what way is there for me to verify this? Is this like enlightenment?  Just something to aspire to but never really achieving?? Sorry for the so many questions.

[SodaChanh]

There is no anchor really. 

 

Like Ramana Maharshi says the Heart is Reality. It is neither inside nor outside.

 

Pointing out by a master makes this obvious at once. You see Reality. 

[Lairg]

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

Don't know how you ever came up with this? Meaning how did you discover this truth?? And what way is there for me to verify this?

 

Occasionally while meditating I am shown new techniques, relationships, flows, structures etc.

 

The first skill shown to me is for me the  most important:  accurately controlling my level of consciousness  (plane,  sub-plane and sub-sub-plane)  so that I can target and measure what I want to observe and conduct experiments.

 

Occasionally a friend and I will swap around as experimenter and observer.  Often the observer, being outside the process, will have a broader perspective of what is happening.

 

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

Is this like enlightenment? 

 

The primary conditions for first stage enlightenment include:

 

- control of the physical, emotional and mental energies within the light-body (aura)

- discharge of heavy energies (lower sub-planes)

- release of personal karma

- alignment of light-body energies to allow smooth inflow of Light

- intent to be at-one with all

- acceptance by the community of enlightened beings.

 

Looking at that process from another perspective, the core requirements are:

 

- right energy

- right relationship

- right intent.

 

The rightness is measured by alignment with the directionality of the Cosmos within which we exist

 

 

 

[Nungali]

16 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

Feeling is a generic word.  The sense of touch (feeling) can be developed on every plane: physical, emotional, mental, buddhic/heart, atmic/will etc

 

Spirit that anchors in the heart provides life force and spiritual purpose to the human.  Many humans have interference in the anchoring so that their life force and spiritual purpose is disturbed/incomplete.

 

Traditionally the anchoring of Spirit in the heart is inwardly seen as a flame.  The Counter-Reformation artwork of the Roman church showed that flame - but mainly for Jesus.

 

Spirit, as anchored in the standard human, comes from before Existence.  This means that the unfolded human, functions before, during and after Existence - in parallel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

and mainly over the head in the position of  the Sahasrara Chakra ;

 

 

  

 

which had its origin in the nimbus or halo 

 

which had its origin in Zoroastrianism ; 

 

     

 

but a nasty person had snakes coming out their shoulders ;

 

       

[Nungali]

7 hours ago, Tommy said:

Don't know how you ever came up with this? Meaning how did you discover this truth?? And what way is there for me to verify this? Is this like enlightenment?  Just something to aspire to but never really achieving?? Sorry for the so many questions.

 

 

  

 

Did you like the answers you got ?  

 

 

.

Edited 3 hours ago by Nungali

[Mark Foote]

20 hours ago, Tommy said:

 

Quote

 

  23 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Why do I suddenly feel like Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs?

 

 

 

Yeah, all that makes me think of the guy who is holding onto a rope which is anchored on a roof edge. The guy is holding onto the other end of the rope. All the while standing on the rope and walking out into the middle of nowhere. Up in the air by holding onto the rope? Yea, fancy words and lots of dancing around to produce a wonderful show. All of which still makes no sense to me.  I guess I am lost and always will be.

 

 

 

Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks.

 

 

Quote

 

  On 11/12/2025 at 2:42 PM, Tommy said:

Well, you seem to know what spirituality means. What is the spirit and how do I find it in myself?
 

 

 

 

 

As I mentioned, the word "spirit" is derived from words for the breath. I would say, spirit is the necessity in the movement of breath.

As to how you find it, if you feel you have lost track of it

 

... As Shunryu Suzuki said, following the breath is only a preparatory practice:

 

… usually in counting breathing or following breathing, you feel as if you are doing something, you know– you are following breathing, and you are counting breathing. This is, you know, why counting breathing or following breathing practice is, you know, for us it is some preparation– preparatory practice for shikantaza because for most people it is rather difficult to sit, you know, just to sit.

 

(“The Background of Shikantaza”, Shunryu Suzuki; San Francisco, February 22, 1970)

 

 

Suzuki described shikantaza in more detail:

 

So most teacher may say shikantaza is not so easy, you know. It is not possible to continue more than one hour, because it is intense practice to take hold of all our mind and body by the practice which include everything. So in shikantaza, our mind should pervade every parts of our physical being. That is not so easy.

 

(“I have nothing in my mind”, Shunryu Suzuki, July 15, 1969)

 

 

Gautama spoke similarly about the mind pervading the body:

 

… seated, (one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind.

 

(AN 5.28, tr. PTS vol. III pp 18-19, parentheticals paraphrase original)

 

 

“The pureness of mind” Gautama referred to is the pureness of the mind without any will or intent with regard to the activity of the body.

 

In Gautama’s teaching, the extension of “purity by the pureness of mind” belonged to the last of four concentrations. The initial concentration is induced, said Gautama, by “making self-surrender the object of thought”:

 

… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.  (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought initial and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein. 

 

(SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol V p 174; parentheticals paraphrase original; “initial” for “directed”, as at SN 36.11, tr. PTS vol IV p 146)

 

 

In my experience, “one-pointedness” occurs when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a singular location in the body, and a person “lays hold of one-pointedness” when they remain awake as the singular location shifts.

 

Gautama described the “first trance” as having feelings of zest and ease, and he prescribed the extension of those feelings:

 

… (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. 

 

(AN 5.28, tr. PTS vol. III pp 18-19, parentheticals paraphrase original)

 

 

Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey that the weight of the body accompanies the feelings of zest and ease.

 

The weight of the body sensed at a particular point in the body can shift the body’s center of gravity, and a shift in the body’s center of gravity can result in what Moshe Feldenkrais termed “reflex movement”. Feldenkrais described how “reflex movement” can be engaged in standing up from a chair:

 

…When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all. 

 

(“Awareness Through Movement”, Moshe Feldenkrais, p 78)

 

 

“Drenching” the body “so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” with zest and ease allows the weight of the body to effect “reflex movement” in the activity of the body, wherever “one-pointedness” takes place.

 

In falling asleep, the mind can sometimes react to hypnagogic sleep paralysis with an attempt to reassert control over the muscles of the body, causing a “hypnic jerk”. The extension of a weighted zest and ease can pre-empt the tendency to reassert voluntary control in the induction of concentration, and make possible a conscious experience of “reflex movement” in inhalation and exhalation.

 

(Just to Sit)

 

 

If you want to get in touch with spirit, relinquish volition in the activity of the body until you have conscious experience of “reflex movement” in inhalation and exhalation, from inbreath to outbreath and from outbreath to inbreath.

If you want to be in touch with the "great spirit", then do the above, and extend friendliness and compassion without limit:

 

[One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… with a mind of sympathetic joy… with a mind of equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence.

 

(MN 111; tr. Pali Text Society vol III p 79)

 

 

Gautama said that “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of the mind of compassion was the first of the further concentrations, a concentration he called “the plane of infinite ether” (MN 111; tr. Pali Text Society vol III p 79).

 

The Oxford English Dictionary offers some quotes about “ether” (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “ether (n.),” March 2024):

 

They [sc. the Brahmins] thought the stars moved, and the planets they called fishes, because they moved in the ether, as fishes do in water.

 

(Vince, Complete System. Astronomy vol. II. 253 [1799])

 

 

Plato considered that the stars, chiefly formed of fire, move through the ether, a particularly pure form of air.

 

(Popular Astronomy vol. 24 364 [1916])

 

 

When the free location of consciousness is accompanied by an extension of the mind of compassion, there can be a feeling that the necessity of breath is connected to things that lie outside the boundaries of the senses.  That, to me, is an experience of “the plane of infinite ether”.

 

(The Inconceivable Nature of the Wind)

 

 

and the way to let the great spirit move me.

 

 

Edited 55 minutes ago by Mark Foote