Behind the Mind

by Wu Hsin

  Once found, it is the satisfaction of the desire to see the seer of seeing, to experience the reasonless joy of the imperishable.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Today, the Master began:

  Wu Hsin has no interest whether or not his words are compatible with your beliefs.

  When you see yourself as an object in a world of objects, completely separate from this world outside of you, understand that you are dreaming. It is mere imagination, confusion between stability and instability.

  To be preoccupied with what you are not is a process without end. When you speak of "myself", you must clarify what is this "self" and to what does the "my" apply?

  Knowledge of the objective may be vast, but none of it leads to knowledge of the Subject.

  The journey from self consciousness to Consciousness itself is a reversion of the natural movement toward the object, toward other, and it shifts the direction toward the subject, toward the Knowing.

  In that sense, the first thought has no existence in the absence of That which knows it. Further, the sense of being, prior to thought, is the primordial experience.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Today, the Master began:

  The nature of Consciousness is ‘experience’ itself.

  It is the experience of the absence of content, as in deep sleep.

  It is the experience of content as in dream and it is the experience of content and the involvement with said content as in waking.

  So, to speak of conscious experience is redundant.

  Now, sit in silence.

  The Master continued:

  “I do not know” offers tremendous possibility.

  “I do not know” is the basis of all knowing.

  All too often, what passes for the known is merely the believed.

  There are an infinite number of ideas and phenomena. All of them are temporary.

  As long as the attention is attracted to what is temporary, nothing changes, despite the sense that there is change.

  When the attention shifts to the permanent, to the changeless, and stays rooted there, all problems and all questions dissolve.

  Let us now return to the silence for a time.

  Master Wu Hsin continued:

  Wu Hsin declares that there is no going beyond.

  There is only returning to before.

  Who is to realize what, and how, when all that exists is the Conscious Presence and nothing but the Conscious Presence?

  When Wu Hsin arrived, he brought the world with him.

  When he departs, it too will go.

  At the core, there is consciousness in which everything appears.

  Where is the problem unless we are creating stories about the appearances?

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  The Master arrived late today

  You are infinite potential and inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, anything can be.

  However, you are presently abiding as such and such an individual. Until this is thoroughly seen through, you are like a water buffalo in deep mud.

  That is why Wu Hsin's words have a singular purpose, to destroy all belief in the existence of any subjective object.

  When you say "I see a mountain", what you are saying is that the eye, which is an objective instrument, in the body, which is another objective instrument, sees the mountain, another object.

  There is no subjectivity to be found and, as such, the statement cannot be true.

  It would be much more accurate to say "I sees the mountain" wherein this "I" is the Subjectivity Itself

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Today, the Master began:

  There is a single Subject.

  You have lost your identity with this Subject that you truly are and have mistakenly identified yourself with an objective "me".

  Yet, this "me" is nothing but an idea, a thought. It has no substance other than that which you assign to it.

  When the Conscious Life Energy in the male seed finds an egg-host, a new life begins.

  However, there is no special "you" in it. The "you" is just a mental construct, a way in which the brain protects the body.

  Mind is both the actor and the stage whereon the particular and the universal are inseparable.

  There is functioning, the seeing, the hearing, the movements.

  But there is no "you seeing'.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  The Great Hall is full as we await his arrival. Master begins:

  Suppose someone is one hundred years of age. It has been one hundred years of becoming; becoming this, becoming that.

  But these becomings, these movements from infant to adolescent to adult to old man are changes appearing in the changeless.

  Becoming is always of what one is not, it is always a movement away from, a fractionalization of, what one is.

  Let us not preoccupy ourselves with becoming. Let us stay here, be here, be.

  Let us now return to the silence for a time.

  Master Wu Hsin continued:

  It is, in a way, perverse that there is so little to really discuss.

  All there is, is being and the knowledge of being. This is irrefutable.

  The discussion should end here because all else is conceptual and can be argued endlessly.

  Yet, we continue talking.

  What must be made clear is that the brain is an object. As such, anything resulting from brain activity cannot be subjective.

  The subjective, the Single Subject, therefore remains elusive.

  Let us now return to the silence for a time.

  Master Wu Hsin continued:

  One need not make any effort to be, to see, to taste, to smell, etc. All of it occurs spontaneously.

  Likewise, that which is seen, tasted, and smelled also arises and sets spontaneously. The day begins spontaneously and ends spontaneously. You don't will yourself to sleep or to awaken.

  So, who is doing anything?

  Where is the need for various practices in order to become what you already are? See it, then be It.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  All things personal appear and disappear, perhaps to appear again, perhaps not.

  But, when you are nothing in particular, how can you be harmed?

  The insanity of it all is that the so-called seekers want to reach this "nothing in particular" while retaining their individuality.

  Individuality is the price and there are a rare few willing to pay it.

  He then rose and departed the Hall.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  We gather here to glean the reality underlying your seeming state.

  Light goes out thru the windows from the lamp that is lit inside. We are here to light that lamp.

  The peace you say comes and goes is false peace. It's not the real peace because it is subject to conditions.

  The only thing that stands in the way between you and unwavering peace are the concepts and beliefs you hold.

  Divest yourself of them and Wu Hsin guarantees your peacefulness.

  To state it a bit differently, the challenge before you is the conquest of your imagination.

  Give your full consideration to this.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  Most of life is lived automatically, below the threshold of conscious attention.

  The body functions this way too, most effectively.

  When you can allow everything to unfold in its own time and in its own way, a relaxation will sweep over you like nothing you have ever known before.

  Your wants dissolve, freeing up a huge reservoir of energies that had been previously allocated toward the satisfaction of desires.

  It is through this that you come to understand that everything perceivable is transient, and only being, 'I am', endures.

  What is "not you" and "not yours" becomes clear and obvious.

  Ponder these words; more tomorrow.

 
; Master Wu Hsin began:

  Empty your storehouse of concepts and ideas.

  Money that is borrowed is not yours.

  When you fill a cup in the river, the water is not yours.

  In the same way, you've taken endless ideas and concepts from others and now call them your own.

  When the storehouse has been emptied, investigate what remains.

  Let us now return to the silence for a time.

  Master Wu Hsin continued:

  Striving for betterment is merely a subtle form of control, to control the quality of the experiences that come.

  It is always that which we seek to control that ultimately controls us.

  Therefore, in so doing, we merely provide reinforcement to the prison doors.

  In other words, you are your only obstacle.

  Let us now return to the silence for a time.

  Master Wu Hsin continued:

  Energy moving through the ocean is called waves. When it moves through the air, you call it wind. When it moves through this body, you call it "you".

  Understand that you do not move, only the scenes change. That is to say that there are movements in consciousness while consciousness is unmoving.

  The waking, dreaming, and sleeping states pass before you.

  Regardless of what appears or disappears, that which cognizes appearance and disappearance is fixed.

  Paradoxically, this Most Antecedent Principle cannot be known because for it to be known it would have to be an object of knowledge.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  You cannot be what belongs to you. If you say "I am my cart", people will think you're mad. So why do you believe that you are your body and you are your mind?

  In a similar fashion, you can't be what you are conscious of. You must be prior to it.

  Begin with "I am nothing perceivable" and stay with that for some time.

  Once there is a deep feeling for it, move on to "I am nothing conceivable" and do the same. The former eliminates the body as "I" and the latter does the same for the mind.

  By proving that you are not the body and its senses or the mind, and standing separate from them, you remain in your real Self.

  According to this approach, everything, from the intellect down to the body and the world, become objects to be separated from you.

  You will come to see that being what one is occurs naturally when one ceases being what one isn't.

  When your attention is off a thing and not yet fixed on another, in the interval you are your Self.

  In most cases, notions of "me" and "mine" are transformed slowly, impeded by imagination.

  It is much like ice which turns to water and water to vapor, and vapor dissolves in air and disappears in space.

  Take hold of "I cannot be whatever appears before me.”

  As such, whatever I perceive, is not what I am. I am the very perceiving itself" and allow it to do its work.

  The progression is often from objects of consciousness to objects in consciousness to objects as consciousness.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  We say that the body is a corpse once dead.

  But the truth is that the body is always a corpse insofar as it is inert and requires animation.

  Therefore, what is one other than an animation, an event of a fixed duration?

  One sincerely sets out to find this "me" but all that is found is a story, a detailed narrative. But there's no substance to it.

  I, as the potential source of all experience, experiences the apparent universe through a psychosomatic apparatus. But this is the experience of appearances.

  What you truly are is waiting for you behind all experience.

  Cease taking yourself to be within the field of consciousness.

  That which perceives is not the body, which is only an object since it also can be perceived. The knower and the known are both objects.

  It is the Knowing that is the subjective element and needs to be the focal point of attention.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  One experiences oneself as a body and a mind independently acting in the world.

  When one recognizes that the way one experiences oneself is a skewed representation, it becomes easy to accept that the way one experiences the world is likewise a skewed representation.

  The Subjective functioning is all that is, the seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling, thinking, and acting in the objective manifestation via the psychosomatic instrument that is fitted into the manifestation.

  Those who succeed in adapting their viewpoint in alignment with this know only peace.

  Let us now return to the silence for a time.

  Master Wu Hsin continued:

  You begin here and you come to learn that there is no "there".

  The five senses cannot help one to transcend the world; in fact, they keep one mired in it.

  One’s captivation and fixated interest in external objects is a misdirection of consciousness itself.

  Attention must be moved from phenomena to Noumenon.

  It is the source of everything; it is the destination of everything and it is the space between the two.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  How much must you exert to have a great idea?

  Great ideas are not a function of effort; they are spontaneous arisings.

  What effort did you make to become self conscious?

  It is the same effort required to remove it!

  There is no fixed or prescribed method in which the Self reveals Itself.

  When you are one with the sense of conscious presence, then whatever is necessary will sprout by itself; that is to say, if the self consciousness is to go, it will go spontaneously.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  The body is in the mind which is localized in the brain.

  This, in turn, functions via the Conscious Life Energy.

  Disregard the psychic life you struggle so hard to nurture and maintain.

  Stop fixating on the arriving thoughts and see what has been, is, and always will be.

  This Constant is what you are.

  By comparison, the world, and all its components, is the shadow of the formless.

  Ponder this; more tomorrow.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  What is to be understood is that you are in essence The Complex which is formed by consciousness and the life force. The world is an afterthought. It doesn't matter.

  This Complex provides sentience and activity to the body. It provides beingness and functioning to the world.

  Yet, they are merely an appearance; they don't matter. It is like the way things were prior to the arrival of self-consciousness. Nothing was of any value.

  They don't matter in the same way that the burning wood has no interest in whether or not the stove heats evenly. Smoke does not disturb the sun. The wind doesn't care about the kite's dance.

  As one has no interest in what the neighbor down the street is doing, have no concern for the activities of the body. It does what it does and fulfills its role.

  Remaining as The Complex, all is peace. Phenomena appear and disappear; the space remains.

  The world doesn't matter.

  Think of this today.

  Master Wu Hsin began:

  Subjectivity is the true state.