Knowing What Exists
by Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. on November 20th, 2009Point 1
What exists? Does yesterday exist now? Does tomorrow exist now?
Of course, not.
Our thoughts of yesterday may exist now if we are now thinking of yesterday.
Our thoughts of tomorrow may exist now if we are now thinking of tomorrow.
But now neither yesterday nor tomorrow exists.
What about the moment a second ago when you started reading this blog? What about a moment from now when you will have finished reading this blog? Do these moments exist?
Of course, not.
Our thoughts of these moments may exist if we are now thinking them…
What exists now but now?!
Point 2
What can be known?
Only that which exists.
Will you wake up tomorrow morning?
Who knows… But I am sure that you believe that you will.
We can know and we can believe.
We can only know that which we witness.
Will your car start when you head back home today after work?
You don’t know, of course, but you believe that it will.
When we don’t know we have no choice but to believe.
To believe is to act as if you know even though you don’t know.
What else can you do instead?!
After all, you can’t know that which doesn’t yet exist…
Point 3
Ignorance, they say, is bliss.
But there are two kinds of ignorance – ignorance out of lack of conscious awareness and ignorance by conscious choice, ignorance of not knowing and ignorance of consciously ignoring that which cannot be known…
Which one is bliss?
Will you wake up tomorrow?
Who knows?! Don’t you know that you can’t know that which doesn’t yet exist?!
Ignore the un-knowable…
And notice the Now that still exists…
Point 4
The Buddhist doctrine of Sunyata (the doctrine of emptiness) is often misunderstood as a nihilistic doctrine of nothingness.
Buddhist psychology negates that which doesn’t exist only to affirm that which still exists .
You’ve heard this before: the past has already happened, therefore it doesn’t exist; the future hasn’t happened, therefore it doesn’t exist. Thus, there’s nothing but Now…
So, here we stand, sandwiched between the Nothingness of the Past that’s already gone and doesn’t exist and the Future that hasn’t yet happened and therefore doesn’t exist…
Here we stand in this proverbial and pre-verbal here-and-now, in the middle of Nothingness…
This is …




