Solving Yourself Read online

  It is a spontaneous returning to essence.

  Whereas the mind is constant movement, essence is immovable stillness.

  Being everywhere, it has no place to go.

  Being in all things, there is nothing it need become.

  11

  All there is is this consciousness. It cycles through three states.

  First, there is consciousness without content.

  Next is consciousness with temporal content and the last is consciousness with spatio-temporal content.

  Clearly see that it is the consciousness which is common to all three.

  Look from where Looking looks and you will discern that you are That.

  12

  Wu Hsin has no doctrine to teach.

  Why is there no doctrine?

  Because there is only the understanding that there is no entity to be enlightened or liberated by any doctrine.

  What, then, could there be to teach?

  Who is there to be taught?

  13

  All thought serves to support the unreal I.

  Every spoken "I" is inauthentic-I, usurper-I.

  It points to the body and mind as author and actor.

  Every spoken "I" is inauthentic-I, usurper-I.

  The true-I cannot be spoken.

  14

  I am the all-pervasive consciousness in which all bodies, minds and other phenomena in the world are appearing and disappearing.

  I am that consciousness which remains unchanged and unaffected by these appearances and disappearances.

  Wu Hsin has stabilized in this conviction.

  It likewise can be your own.

  Either trust Wu Hsin when he speaks, or arrive to it by study and investigation.

  The way of total faith is the quickest.

  15

  Being and doing are not identical. The latter is derivative of the former.

  It is in the nature of action to foster further action until all actions are neutralized and equilibrium is re-established.

  Acceptance of What-Is is the shortest path.

  To act to bring about change is movement away from acceptance.

  16

  Regardless of the number of bodies of water it appears in, there is a singular sun.

  Likewise, regardless of the limitless manifestations that appear as objects, there is a singular subject.

  Spatial forms are five-fold. First there are the insentient such as rocks.

  Next are those that are alive with rudimentary sentience, like plants.

  These are followed by animals, those that are alive and sentient.

  Then, those alive and sentient with intellect. This the human condition.

  Last are those humans that do not look from confusion. These are said to be the enlightened.

  17

  Most who sit with Wu Hsin will settle for comfort, for security, for an escape from conflict and suffering.

  There is no escape from being human; there is only seeming escape.

  Those who believe otherwise are like one who believes that tea can be brewed in cold water.

  The three doors of seeming escape are via sensations, via acquisitions and accumulations, and via ideas and beliefs.

  Close all the doors and be free.

  18

  Wu Hsin declares that there is an eternal reality which can be discovered only when the mind is free from all illusion.

  Since it is already present, it cannot be attained.

  It is like an empty pot, which contains space and at the same time is contained by space.

  Is the space contained different from that which contains?

  Full understanding of this can come only through an inexpressible mystery.

  19

  To declare "not me, not mine" is the domestication of the self-consciousness.

  All the "mine”s are extensions of "me". The more "mine”s, the greater the "me".

  This is the deluded thought field.

  The swelling that arises out of self-centeredness and pride precludes passage through the gate of wisdom.

  Hearing this is insufficient.

  Listening to Wu Hsin's words becomes the understanding and the understanding works by itself.

  20

  It is the Conscious Life Energy which transforms inert matter into its vehicle.

  This body is like a rented hall in which a play is performed.

  All of the comings and goings in the performance are real in the relative sense, yet unreal absolutely.

  What difference would the reality or unreality make to one who has no preferences?

  All preferences are mind.

  The mind cannot comprehend reality until it is completely free of all confusion.

  Confusion is mistaking an object-to-object relationship for a subject-to-object relationship.

  An object takes itself to be the subject; thus self-consciousness arises.

  Self-consciousness is a fragmentation of the authentic I.

  21

  One must never confuse belief with fact.

  One must never confuse Knowing with thinking, feeling and sensation, the instruments of Knowing.

  One must never confuse the temporary happiness derived from objects with the ever-present happiness contained in the subjective.

  One must never confuse being a self with being the Self.

  One is clear when one is not confused.

  22

  A wise man treats the self-consciousness like his shadow.

  It follows him wherever he goes yet provides no hindrance.

  As such, he is not compelled to act against it.

  23

  Recognition of one's true nature is available in every moment.

  As soon as one is willing to abide in the gap between one thought and the next, it presents.

  Even though this gap is only the entryway, looking from this gap one sees that everything is included in it.

  It is the bridge connecting thought and no-thought.

  In the absence of preferences, no-thought is not preferred to thought.

  That which only seems to be this gap is actually the container of everything, all thinking, feeling, and all perception.

  This is the emptiness from which things arise and ultimately return.

  24

  Whereas That is the primal, "this" is its reflection.

  Whereas the consciousness of the totality of objects may be called the universe, the consciousness of the absence of all objects may be called emptiness.

  Zero is not this emptiness, but merely serves to point to it.

  Emptiness is the number zero without any borders.

  It is the source of all things emergent.

  25

  As the dreamer is inside the dream and the dream is inside the dreamer, so it is with the individual and the world.

  Just as both black and white pieces are needed in the game of Go, opposites are likewise required in the game of appearance.

  One comes to see that a world which is identical for all does not exist.

  Therefore, any and all worlds that appear must be personal.

  26

  A mind chained to certainties cannot flow freely.

  Treat each appearance as if one is too ill to bother with it.

  When all confusion has been cleared away by understanding, then only can one perceive that which is enduring, the immeasurable.

  This is the unconditional precondition of everything.

  Intellectual understanding is the beginning.

  Heart understanding is the terminus.

  27

  A consistent diet of rich food either destroys the appetite or makes one ill.

  It is the same with the craving for additional information.

  It is more likely that one can transfer the ocean to a hole dug in the sand than one can succeed in fitting this great mystery into the confines of one's head.

  28

  Mind provides the name for every form.

  Ye
t is totally silent when confronted by the formless.

  This silence is not the opposite of sound.

  Rather, it is its background.

  29

  The flow of life is one alternating between being and becoming.

  Yet, it is the very idea of "becoming" that obstructs.

  There is nowhere to go and there is nothing to become.

  Some call it ignorance.

  There is no ignorance, only inattention.

  30

  Memory feeds imagination and imagination generates desire and fear.

  At their root, fear is estrangement from Source and desire is longing for Source.

  Man wrongly deals with fear by assigning authority to others. Man wrongly deals with desire through acquisition and accumulation.

  These are not the right means to resolve the tension between self-consciousness and true nature.

  One doesn't learn to swim by grasping, by holding the water. One learns by sinking.

  Only when one is willing to sink does one discern that one can float.

  The lotus flower, with its roots extending below the surface of the water, has leaves untouched by the water.

  July (Wǔ Yuè)

  1

  Most are virtually suffocated in the prison of their beliefs.

  What is belief? Belief is the acceptance of possibility as actuality.

  It is a mind made impure by its inability to accept the actual.

  For most, the only thing that makes the present manageable is the prospect of a better future.

  In the interim, to deal with the unsatisfactory nature of this moment, the addiction to distraction suffices.

  Wu Hsin prescribes doubt as the solvent in which all impurities of the mind dissolve.

  2

  Until there is full and correct knowledge of the known, the unknown will not be available. This is Wu Hsin's purpose here.

  The unknown is masked by imagination.

  Until imagination and satiation by the known ceases, clarity cannot ensue.

  Diamonds encased in ice may or may not be seen by random viewers. It is the seeing that is all-important.

  Likewise, Wu Hsin may talk endlessly for days.

  But if what his words point to are not seen, all is for naught.

  3

  What is understanding? It is the discernment of falseness.

  I-am-this is false.

  The movement from I-am to I-am-this is the rising of self-consciousness.

  When this movement is arrested, the realization is I-am-That.

  4

  Wu Hsin declares that there is a singular path that is applicable to all.

  That path is to go back the way one came.

  It is accessible to any and all who decide to use it.

  Wu Hsin has nothing to provide other than stimulus.

  Don't expect him to take you anywhere.

  5

  You come to Wu Hsin searching for clarity.

  But this searching for clarity is like trying to fall in love.

  Love happens on its own terms, as does clarity.

  Suffice it to say that the gate to clarity is wide open.

  Yet not a single individual can pass through it.

  6

  What is the necessity for personhood?

  When action is necessary, action occurs.

  Action doesn't require a person; it requires an acting object.

  The dog acts when the need arises.

  It does not become a person to do so.

  7

  Everything that seems to be outside oneself is actually inseparable from oneself as pure awareness.

  Imagine the field of consciousness as a body of water.

  Energy moving below the surface creates waves.

  At the wave descends into the ocean, it ceases to be wave and is simply what it was all the time, ocean.

  It is thus revealed that wave is epiphenomenal of ocean.

  8

  When one begins searching, it implies that that which is searched for is not here, but there.

  There may be a concession that the searched for is everywhere, but the contradiction that such a concession creates is not seen.

  How can something that is everywhere be there but not here?

  If it is here, what is the need to search there?

  9

  Consciousness of one's own being, that is 'I am', is authentic Self or I.

  It is present in the three states: waking, dream and sleep.

  It is what lends reality to all experience in these three transitory states.

  Without this fundamental consciousness 'I am', one cannot experience or be conscious of any other thing.

  Wu Hsin is alive and conscious, but no longer self-conscious. The person has ended here.

  Relinquishing the particular, one becomes everything.

  10

  Can you cease introducing yourself into every perception with "I perceive", into every action with "I act"?

  Can you stand in the river of life without trying to change the flow to suit the way you think it ought to be?

  Wu Hsin declares that peace of mind is easy to obtain.

  Throw away the mind and see if what remains is not peace.

  11

  So many questions begin with "why".

  Let there be not a single question of "why".

  This "why" is a mere intellectual distraction.

  If a snake is found sleeping beside you in your bed, do you question why it chose to be there or do you act to sweep it away?

  There is no need for "why".

  Understand that the confusion is nothing but the belief that one is a body and a mind plus their activities.

  12

  What goes unseen is that one can never know what is outside of oneself.

  One only knows what appears in the Conscious Presence that one is.

  Whereas the content may change, that which observes the content does not.

  This observing awareness is one's true nature.

  13

  The desire for continuity carries with it the inherent error that what one is is discontinuous.

  What is there to die? Since there is no person living, there are none dying.

  It's like getting the chills in a hot room. There is no cold, yet there is an experience of coldness.

  There is no "me" yet there is a sense of "me".

  "Me" is a mere verbal convention.

  It has no reality.

  14

  One cannot understand the cloud from inside the cloud.

  One best understands the cloud by establishing a distance from it.

  See that there are no gaps in being although there can be gaps in being the particular.

  Being enlightened does not pertain to any being or individual.

  It refers to Being imbued with enlightenment.

  15

  The calligraphy is there because the scroll is there. Without the scroll, there is no calligraphy.