Unlearning

In his book Breathing Under Water, Father Richard Rohr stated: “All mature spirituality in one sense or another is about letting go and unlearning.” 

A central construct in Zen Buddhism is holding “Don’t Know Mind” – approaching life with a sense of newness and openness rather than being attached to what we think we know. 

What does this mean, and why do two very different spiritual traditions elevate it as a higher state of being?

In psychology, we might relate unlearning and don’t know mind to what we call mental flexibility – the ability to shift perspective, adapt to new information, and hold multiple, even contradictory, ideas at the same time.  It is the capacity to let go of our assumptions and loosen our grip on what we believe we know, to see what is actually there.  

It is, in essence, the opposite of rigidity.

It forms the foundation for curiosity, innovation, and creativity.  And it is key to our resilience. 

The power of unlearning is a hard concept for us to wrap our minds around.  Especially in western cultures where unlearning is counter to everything we strive for.  From the moment a child is born they are celebrated for their learning.  We are measured for what we know and that measure is used as a mark of our worth.  We equate smart with having the answers.  It makes sense, answers are valuable.  Knowing is valuable.  I’m not knocking knowledge.  In fact, I’m constantly hungry for more.

Knowing and learning also play a critical role in survival.  The faster we can process the world around us and translate incoming data into good vs bad, risk vs reward, important vs not important, the better equipped we are to respond quickly and survive. 

Knowing creates a sense of certainty -- and we are drawn to certainty because it allows us to feel safe and in control.  Not knowing, by contrast, can feel destabilizing; there is nothing firm to ground us. Uncertainty is uncomfortable, but certainty comes with a cost.  Thinking we already know cuts us off from further learning, and certainty becomes an invisible prison for the mind.

Much of what we “know” operates beneath conscious awareness. We experience ourselves as rational beings making decisions consciously and independently.  Yet many of our judgements about the world, about other people, even about ourselves, are ruled by heuristics; mental shortcuts our brain uses to process information quickly, often out of conscious awareness.  These shortcuts are often useful when they are accurate, but they are not infallible.  In fact, we frequently make predictable and systematic patterns of errors in our thinking, called biases, which are well document by psychologist Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow.

While biases and heuristics “feel” accurate, they lead to many errors in judgement.  This form of “knowing” is particularly insidious, as it involves aspects of ourselves that we are often reluctant to recognize; we are so deeply invested in our identities as rational, reasoned and fair beings we are often unwilling to look in a mirror that might reveal otherwise.  But if you have a brain, you have bias, and we cannot unlearn what we are not willing to see.

As Carl Jung observed: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

In as much as the task of survival is learning, the task of thriving is unlearning. 

And perhaps nowhere is this more consequential than in our most reflexive judgment of all: whether something is good or bad.  Judgements are assumptions, interpretations, no matter how correct they feel.  We think getting that high-status, high-paying job is good, and that it will make us happy.  But what if it means an 80-hour work week keeping us away from family, and work that feels misaligned with our values?

We think loss is bad, but what if loss teaches us things about ourselves that we would never have otherwise faced, and we grow stronger and kinder from it?

What if we stopped deciding things are good or bad? 

“Don’t know mind”, paradoxically, opens us up to options, deeper growth and evolution. 

Imagine approaching the world from a place of not knowing. 

Wouldn’t we become more curious? 

More open to seeing the complexity of what is in front of us? 

More willing to entertain alternatives? 

Try new directions, change, shift, and grow? 

Would we marvel anew at what life has to offer? 

What if we approached people, and our relationships, with a “don’t know mind,” instead of assuming we already know and understand everything about them? 

What new discoveries might become possible?

What deeper connections might emerge?

Might we feel more joyful, even more alive, to approach the world through a lens of unlearning? 

Wouldn’t we see more, take in more? 

Wouldn’t everything feel new, and exciting, and full of possibility? 

What if unlearning is how we fall in love with life again?