The Wisdom Of Not Knowing

Part of Dr Jar's writing: “The Poetics of Tai Chi Awareness series”, “The Wisdom of Not Knowing” reflects on the space between understanding and unknowing, the quiet openness where awareness deepens.

Through Dr. Jar’s embodied reflections in Tai Chi and meditation, this piece invites us to rest in uncertainty, to sense wisdom not as knowledge, but as presence unfolding moment by moment.

Transcript

They call it practice,

But Tai Chi is not something you do.

It is something you allow to unfold.

Each time you step into movement,

The mind wants to know,

Am I doing it right?

Am I improving?

Am I closer to mastery?

But the old master said,

To know is to lose the essence.

Not knowing is the way.

Because the Tao cannot be grasped or collected like knowledge.

It cannot be captured by effort.

It reveals itself only when we stop reaching.

So you stand,

You breathe,

And you begin to notice the smallest details.

The soft pressure beneath your feet,

The quiet trembling of balance adjusting itself,

The gentle sway of your center aligning over the earth.

Feel the spirals,

How weight circles and gathers,

How the spine twists and releases without strain.

Feel the spaces between motions,

The pauses,

The still points,

The silence that holds the flow together.

Notice how the body remembers what the mind cannot teach.

This is not passivity.

It is a deeper intelligence,

One that emerges when the noise of control subsides.

The movement is no longer yours.

The breath is no longer yours.

The Tao moves and you move with it.

Not knowing is not ignorance.

It is intimacy.

It is the state where there is nothing to achieve yet everything is revealed.

Where practice becomes a mirror reflecting the rhythm of the silence,

The pulse of the breath,

The quiet conversation between body and sky.

And in that space you understand something beyond language,

That the path has always been beneath your feet,

That the wisdom you sought was never hidden,

Only obscured by your attempt to seize it.

Reviews

This is wonderful, thank you. It's helped me understand at a deeper level and has inspired me

Thank you 🙏🏻