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“Bewilderment --> Stupidity --> Confusion”
One of the most important and powerful principles, the utmost essence of Zen, is the principle of prajna. Prajna is a state of mind in which we have complete clarity, complete certainty. Such an experience is very rare, but at the same time very precise and penetrating. It can only occur in our state of mind, say, once in a hundred moments. The nature of prajna starts with bewilderment. It is as if we were entering a school to study a certain discipline with great, wise, learned people. The first self-conscious awareness we would have is a sense of our own ignorance, of how we feel extraordinarily stupid, clumsy, and dumb. At the same time, we begin to get wind of the knowledge; otherwise, we would have no reference point to experience ourselves being dumb.
The first glimpse of prajna is like that. There is a sense of confusion, stupidity, and utter chaos, in that you have no systematic way of organizing your mind or your intelligence. You are all over the place, and you feel that your existence is a big heap of apology. The minute you walk into such a learned circle of great teachers – of art, or science, or whatever else – your footsteps sound louder and louder and louder, and your shadow becomes thicker and thicker, as if you had a gigantic body. You feel so clumsy entering into such a circle. You begin to smell your own perspiration, and you feel big and clumsy and in the way. Your whole being, trying to communicate with such teachers, is a gigantic attempt to apologize that you exist. Strangely enough, that is the wind of prajna. Knowing one’s own stupidity is the first glimpse of prajna, very much so.
The interesting point, however, is that we cannot consistently be stupid. Our stupidity is not all that well fortified. There are certain gaps in which we forget that we are stupid, that we are completely bewildered. Those glimpses, those gaps where we have some room, that is prajna. This is demonstrated very beautifully in the Zen tradition of monastic discipline. In Zen training periods, from morning to evening every activity has been planned and taught. In the morning you are dealing with sitting practice, at mealtimes you are dealing with oryoki – how to eat food, how to unfold your napkins. Then there are walking practices and there is also study period, cooking duty, and cleaning duty. Even when you are sleeping, you may be sleeping in the temple or in the meditation hall, on duty.
Whatever duty you are assigned, all of them are a challenge and a mockery. They are making a mockery of you, making you feel completely bored and extraordinarily inadequate. The more you become associated with learned people, the more self-conscious you become. It is extraordinary discipline, and it is an extraordinary, extraordinary joke – but it’s not a trick. Such a big joke is being played on you that you find that the environment around you, where you practice, has no room for anything else. Occasionally, you indulge in your confusion. That’s the only break you have – indulging in your confusion and bewilderment. Strangely enough, such discipline works, and prajna gradually grows.
-- Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, "Zen Mind Vajra Mind"
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