I interviewed Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on May 26, 2011.
Earlier that month, I had completed my job as an expert witness and software development engineer for the Technical Committee of the Department of Justice monitoring Microsoft’s compliance with the settlement agreement. The contract began in 2004 and was to be only six weeks! It only ended because the DOJ and the plaintiffs had thought that we had done our job.
I was feeling a wonderful sense of freedom when the contract ended because I had made valuable contributions to the case and earned a good deal of money.
In Zen, this state is called, “don’t know mind,” because at that moment or during that period of mind we fully accept not knowing, we have freedom from knowing.
I had no idea of what I would do next in my life other than visit New York and see what would develop.
This state of “don’t know mind” gave me permission to write to Dr. Tyson to ask for an interview.
In this video, Zen Master Bon Soeng (Jeff Kitzes) talks about “don’t know mind.”
He quotes Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi‘s famous words, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
Have you ever experienced “don’t know mind?” Have you ever felt freedom from knowing? Please share.
