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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
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great between these two words, but it is great, it is vast. It is tremendously important to understand the difference between knowledge and knowing.
Knowledge is always of the past; it is a finished phenomenon, a full point has come. Knowing is always a present process. Knowing is alive, knowledge is dead. A buddha is not a man of knowledge but a man of knowing. A scholar is a man of knowledge, a pundit is a man of knowledge but not a man of knowing. Knowing is riverlike, flowing.
And it is very important to remember, as far as Buddha is concerned, that he did not believe in nouns, he believed in verbs. He says the noun is only a convenience. In fact, in reality nouns don't exist, only verbs. When you say, "This is a tree," your statement linguistically is acceptable but not existentially, because by the time you said, "This is a tree," this is no longer the same tree -- one dead leaf has fallen, one new leaf has started coming up, the bud has opened. The bird that was singing on the tree is no longer singing. The sun that was shining on the tree is hidden behind a cloud. It is no longer the same tree, and it is growing, continuously growing.
A tree, to be true, should be called treeing, not a tree. A river should be called rivering, not a river. Everything is growing, moving, everything is in a flux. Verbs are true, nouns are false. If some day we are going to create an existential language, it will contain no nouns, it will contain only verbs. You are not the same person that had come this morning to listen to the discourse. When you leave you will be a totally different person -- so much water has gone down the Ganges, so much has changed. You may have come very sad and you may leave laughing. You may have come very serious and you may leave very playful. These changes are tremendously important.
Hence I will translate it: THEIR FOOD -- the food of the awakened ones -- IS KNOWING. 'Knowledge' is not the right translation. They continuously are in a state of awareness, consciousness; they are continuously learning, knowing. They never say, "I have known." They only say, "I am available, open to know, more available, more open to know."
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