Bodhidharma, “I don’t know”
The king asks the basic, he wants to know who is Bodhidharma? Why he came from South India. Is he a messenger or sage. All these things belong to the intelligent mind to understand the visit of Bodhidharma.
But Bodhidharma was above the mind. He has renounced his thinking mind. He doesn’t know what the king is asking is more like a last bench student who always has a ready made answer of ‘I don’t know’. Here Bodhidharma’s reply has a deep understanding.
I don’t know
what this means, here Bodhidharma asking what you mean?
It always happens to the Scholar, they always struggle to answer the question posted by strangers because the scholar doesn’t know the stage of understanding of a stranger. Hence scholars struggle to connect the platform of understanding with the questioner.
Here, the Bodhidharma who is above mind never knows what the King is asking.
A general question should follow with a general reply from the receiver but here Bodhidharma never knows what the king is asking. Who is in front of him, he may not be posting a silly or general question to Bodhidharma but he was treating the King as an enlightened person and his question. So, Bodhidharma becomes a student and reveals that he doesn’t know. There is a master and student in him hence he replied, “I don’t know” hence he put the question to the king to know his thought as answer.
I don’t know..
there is no knower and the known in his reply, hence there is no knowing. When knowing disappears you become one with the whole. You become everything if someone asks you, Who is in front of me? You cannot differentiate you and him. You and him remains the same and the question cannot be a question but it will leads to awareness of the king and Bodhidharma are standing facing each other and the answer will be “Both”
But the king will not understand ‘both’ but he can understand the reply of ‘I don’t know” though it carries the highest truth of “It’s both”