What is knowing?

Someone asked,

"What is Knowing? It seems that knowing is not the same to everyone. I know, you know yet there exists so many shades of differences. What is the reason for this?"

The knowing that is the same for everyone is the same, but everyone overlooks the knowing that is the same because we create differences in our imagination and call that which we imagine the different kinds of knowing.  Zen is about not being beguiled by the differences of our imaginations and realizing the true knowing that is the same for everyone, because that is the solitary brightness of the true person without rank.

In his Introduction to the Collection of the Various Expositions of the Fountainhead of Zen (sometimes translated with the shortened title Introduction to Chan or Chan Prolegomenon), Zen Master Guifeng Zongmi writes (in my translation):

Question: Above you already said that nature on its own is “completely constant knowing.”  Why is it necessary for the various Buddhas to open and indicate it?

Answer: That which is this word knowing is not indeed the knowing of evidence.  It means to articulate the true nature that is not the same as the vast sky, a tree, or a rock.  Therefore I said knowing.  Neither is it like the conditional and objective discriminations of consciousness, nor like the shining essence of complete penetration of wisdom. It just is the one true suchness of nature autonomously and constantly knowing.

[For comparison here's Jeffrey Broughton's translation from Zongmi on Chan, p. 135:  

Question: Above you have spoken of the “complete and constant Knowing that is intrinsically [pure from without beginning]’” Why should it be necessary for the buddhas to open it up and show it?

Answer: This Knowing is not the knowing of realization. My intention was to explain that the true nature is not identical to the sky or a tree or a stone, and, therefore, I said “Knowing.” [Knowing] is not like the consciousnesses that take sense objects as objective supports and discriminate. It is not like the wisdom that illuminates substance and comprehends. It is just that the nature of thusness is spontaneously constant Knowing. ]

So Master Zongmi is making very important points about the knowing that is the common ground of beings.

"That which is this word knowing is not indeed the knowing of evidence."

It is not the knowing that is discovered by evidence, proof, testimony, demonstration, etc.  This is very hard for us to see, but it is essential. We always grasp onto knowing by the content of what is known that we think we can amass and put on our mental shelf as knowledge.  We learn something by the evidence and call that knowing. But this is not the kind of knowing that Zongmi calls knowing.

"It means to articulate the true nature that is not the same as the vast sky, a tree, or a rock."

To talk about knowing is to clarify our true nature. The sky, tree, and rock do not articulate true nature and have not need to clarify true nature. We do.

"Neither is it like the conditional and objective discriminations of consciousness,"

Zongmi makes it clear that the knowing he is talking about is not the knowinng of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or cognitive consciousness (vijnana) of the six consciousness. This kind of knowing by the six consciousnesses is dependent on the activity of the conditional objective discrimination of consciousness (vijnana). This is the knowing that is more basic that the testimonial knowing of knowledge, as it is the knowing of perception. However, most of us erroneously think that this is true knowing. We think that perception of color is knowing. We think that perception of sound is knowing.  Zongmi reminds us that true knowing is not to be confused with discriminations of consciousness.

"nor like the shining essence of complete penetration of wisdom."

Here, Zongmi is making the Zen point that the true knowing is not even the penetrating wisdom of prajna.  Prajna is the realm of the sages, bodhisattvas and Buddhas.  Zongmi is saying that the true knowing is not this type of wisdom, but is the knowing that is the inherent knowing of both commoners and sages, sentient beings and Buddhas. If knowing was the purview of sages and Buddhas, then that knowinng would be a knowing of accomplishment and as a knowing of acomplishment it could not be the innate knowing of true suchenss.

"It just is the one true suchness of nature autonomously and constantly knowing."

This knowing is shared by everyone. This is the knowing indicated by the Zen phrase "ordinary mind is Buddha." But because we confuse this knowing of true suchness, this "ordinary mind," with ordinary perceptions, objective consciousness, knowing about things, penetrating wisdom, etc, Zongmi has given us the examples of these categories of mistaken notions of "ordinary mind" and "knowing."

The knowing that we should know is the knowing that is just the one true suchness of our own true natue.  Because it is autonomously and constantly knowing, such words as "non-action" and "unconditioned" are applied to it and it is said that it cannot be gained by seeking. This is the conundrum.  It is autonomous and constant knowing, yet we don't know this knowing becasue we are distracted by our own objective discriminations that analyze and divide this one suchness into kinds of knowing and unknowing.