When commenting on the koan ‘Kyogen’s Man Up A Tree’ (Case 5 of The Gateless Gate), Koun Yamada writes,
“He [Kyogen] was a very intelligent and learned man, but his erudition must have been a hindrance, for he did not come to enlightenment early.”
The Tao Te Ching expresses a similar sentiment in chapter 19: “Banish learning, discard knowledge: people will gain a hundredfold.”
These statements imply that our learned knowledge isn’t useful in certain circumstances, such as when we are searching for enlightenment or when we are trying to work in concert with the natural way of the world.
The authors are also warning us that when we revel in our knowledge (intellectualism) we are distracted from seeing what is truly here: the essential reality of all things.
Why should erudition be considered a hindrance to enlightenment? Shouldn’t it prove to be just the opposite? That is, shouldn’t knowledge bring us the enlightenment we seek?
It is the Western way to believe that learning leads to a better understanding of the world, not an increased confusion about it. From a Zen perspective, such thinking can be taken too far: to be less confused about the world, it is helpful to put our learning aside for a while and see what is right here in front of us. Then our learning can be understood for what it truly is: a partial description for some aspects of a vast, interconnected reality.
Realization in the Zen sense is sometimes described as the dropping away of all human ideas about how the world is so that we can experience the essential world directly. One does not remain permanently in this state but instead re-enters the World of People with a new perspective and improved insight. That insight includes an awareness of how we humans confuse ourselves with our words and knowledge.
Scientists tend to appear erudite, which means they know a great deal about at least one subject of learning, and often about many other subjects, too. Scientists place a premium on knowing things, on being able to recite those things, and on speaking critically about them. They are trained to appear authoritative about their subject of study, and often that confidence is not misplaced.
But being an authority on how the world seems—as opposed to how the world is—invites a Zen perspective.
In science, our intellectualism can prevent us from questioning our own understanding. We scientists should never allow ourselves to get trapped by our beliefs about reality because we indulge in intellectualism. We should constantly be practicing doubt about our knowledge of the world, because that knowledge can never be complete.
To be clear, I am not advocating the extinction of scientific knowledge or the complete avoidance of intellectualism. Instead, I would like us to be aware that such knowledge is just one more human construct, one more human tool that is best used with full realization of what it can—and cannot—describe about reality.
Erudition is not easy to gain, and in many ways it is worthy of appreciation. But we scientists must also be on guard against a sense of ‘knowing it all’, which can easily happen to one who knows many things.
Let us keep all knowledge in context. It may be good to know a lot about a topic, particularly in science. But it is a mistake to believe we know everything about that topic and a mistake to think we understand reality because we have characterized a tiny facet of nature in an understandable way.
