Behind the Mind
Page 14
Any method, no matter how promising, fortifies the structure of the ego, further increasing the chaos. It is like tasking a cat to guard a bowl of milk.
Only being requires no doing. This is the one true practice.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, kindly direct me back to the source of all things.
A: To know the world, you remove attention from its support.
To know the support, you remove attention from the world.
Q: Master, I yearn for nothing less than the infinite. Can you give it to me?
A: A price must be paid for the infinite. That price is everything finite.
Are you willing to pay it?
Q: You have stated that beingness is the key to your teaching. Why is that?
A: The sense "I am" exists in all three states. When it identifies with a body, "I am" becomes self consciousness.
That which knows "I am" is what should be made the focus of attention.
Q: Where does this consciousness come from, Master?
A: Asking where consciousness comes from is like asking when time began.
Q: Master, I continue to be confused whether the world is real or not.
A: Let the world bother about its reality or falsehood.
Find out first about your own reality. Then all things will become clear.
Q: Master, I have forgotten my true nature. What am I?
A: One's true nature need not be remembered nor can it ever be forgotten because it is ever-present.
The changeless Self never changes. Therefore, anything that changes cannot be what you are.
Do not preoccupy yourself with "What am I?" Defining yourself will not help you; delineating what you are not is sufficient.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I have been sitting and watching my mind. Is this the correct approach?
A: The correct approach is to clarify who is watching the mind. Is the mind watching the mind or is it something else? If it is something other than mind watching the mind, then observe this watcher.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I have sat at your feet for many years now, yet still I have not attained. Where is the flaw in my practice?
A: No source of illumination is required in order to see the sun. One simply turns toward it and rests the attention on it.
How can you expect to see the sun if your attention is fixated elsewhere?
Q: Master, what needs to be given up in order to realize the state of Wu Hsin?
A: Only thought.
You can't consume pure water from a dirty cup.
Q: Master, can you give some direction so that I may find peace?
A: Any direction will take you away from where you are. This peace you seek is where you are.
Merely stop masking it with thought. You know that you are. Without this, you cannot know the world.
Discern by what it is that you know that you are and stay there.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, your wisdom is indeed infinite. Can you describe for me what it is that you have gotten?
A: I got what I need to have. I see what I need to see and I know what I need to know. I am no longer distracted.
Q: Master, would a vow of silence be helpful to me?
A: Such a vow merely restrains the speaker, yet does nothing to quiet the source of the words.
Before any word is spoken, it is in mind. True silence is silence of mind.
Q: Master, I have yet to attain the Ultimate. What is the impediment?
A: Clinging to the idea that only what has a name and a shape exists, the Ultimate cannot be available to you. As such, searching within the phenomenal is searching in the wrong place.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, can you teach me about the witness, the one who watches?
A: When there are phenomena to be witnessed, the witness appears.
In the absence of phenomena, the witness exists in potential, as does the totality of manifestation. In truth, there is no witness, only witnessing as function.
Therefore, we can say that the witnessing and manifestation rise and set together.
Q: Master, what must I do to move beyond the world?
A: Is the world within you or outside of you? Does it exist apart from you?
See through the world to your own being. In so doing, the drive to move beyond the world falls away.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I humbly beg you to free me from this bondage.
A: Believing in hearsay or in thoughts that are incorrect leads one to incorrect conclusions.
If there is any freeing to be done at all, one might say it is only to be freed from the idea of one who is bound.
Those who look deeply discern that they have never been bound and therefore have no need to be freed.
Q: My Master, when I look around me, all that I see is unhappiness interrupted by brief periods of happiness. How can this be resolved?
A: Happiness and unhappiness are two sides of the same coin.
What remains when the coin is thrown away?
Q: Master, I have been striving for so long. What must be done to bring an end to it?
A: All striving is toward becoming.
When the notion of becoming falls away, striving falls away.
To be is effortless; only being something in particular requires effort.
Q: Master, what you speak of is so beautiful. Unfortunately, to me it is lost. What must I do?
A: You must simply change the way you look at things.
What is ever-present can never be lost. It only seems lost to you because you are otherwise engaged.
Q: Master, how can you assert that I am eternal?
A: Did you not exist prior to this birth, dormant in the seed of your father in the same way that the sunflower lies dormant in the sunflower seed? And was your father not dormant in the seed of his father? This regression leads back to the so-called beginning.
As such, you have always been, in potential, awaiting the right time and place for your arrival.
Q: Master, all the practices I have done in the past have failed to provide the desired results. What would you suggest for me?
A: Be as you are and stop being as you aren't. What course, what practice, needs to be undertaken for you to be as you are?
What one appears to be is framed by one's ideas and beliefs. Setting all of these aside is the return to one's naturalness.
Q: Master, you teach that the way things actually are has been obscured. This confuses me. Can you expand on this?
A: Rice has poured over your precious jade. How, then, to see the jade? Simply remove the rice.
What is this rice that Wu Hsin alludes to? It is thought.
Q: Why do you say that being knowledgeable is an impediment?
A: You consider yourself knowledgeable because you know worldly things like the rising and setting of the sun.
Do you think the sun has any interest in when it rises and sets?
The mind is easily distracted with irrelevancies. Until you can discriminate between the important and the unimportant, you will remain lost regardless of Wu Hsin's words.
Q: Master, how can I find peace?
A: Peace is easy to find.
In total stillness, that is, both mental and physical stillness, all there is is peace.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, can you help me understand my god?
A: Asking "why did my god do this?" is like asking why the sun grows the grass. You may come to understand the "how" of it, but never the "why".
Q: Master, what is the relationship between mind and identity?
A: The mind is the set of processes leading us to think that we think.
The identity that is commonly referred to is a temporary one. It is always in flux and is little more than the sum of everything you call "mine".
Q: Master, my life is tossed about by numerous problems. How can one such as I get clear of all this?
A: Thought is an epiphenomenon of the life energy. The sum of thoughts, mind, is the creator of the pseudo-subject and all of its objects, including the body.
Q: Master, how can I stay present?
A: Presence is always present. This may sound trivial, but it is in fact pivotal. Presence cannot be lost so all notions of searching for it or attaching to it are only delusion.
Q: Master, can you describe the path to Reality?
A: There are no paths to Reality whereas the paths to unreality are numerous.
If one abides at the source of one's being, what path need be prescribed? All paths are movements away from this abidance.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, can it be said that the Source is my center? Is it your instruction that I abide in this center?
A: To speak of one's center is to give credence to individuality.
This Source is both the center and the circumference. If you like, call it the center of infinity.
Q: Master, why is it that so many go away without receiving your help?
A: Those who are unwilling to examine every belief they hold cannot expect to benefit from being seated with Wu Hsin.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I am a simple man. Can you give me a simple practice that will allow one such as I to succeed?
A: Those insistent on a practice need do nothing more than continuously reject the false.
Q: Master, am I to be totally alone and unsupported in this quest?
A: Not at all. That which you are accompanies you to the goal because It is the goal.
Q: Master, what is the highest state?
A: The highest state is not a state because all states are bound to time. That which was prior to time is the highest.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, you advise us to discern the real from the unreal. How to do this?
A: Don't confuse what is real with what appears. What appears, disappears.
You can't say that it was real "for a while". That which sees is present at the time of the appearance and at the time of the disappearance.
What is real is always. That is the measuring stick.
In that sense, all experience is temporary except for That which is experienced without the senses and without thought.
This is the direct knowledge of I.
Q: Master, you have spoken of a deeper knowing. Can you say more about this?
A: In the absence of a reflecting surface, how do you know that you have eyes?
You know because there is an inherent Knowing in operation at all times.
When the attention is turned toward this Knowing and remains there, the allure of the world dissipates.
Q: Master, how long will it be before I have reached your understanding?
A: For some, it is instantaneous. They hear the words and in a flash it is done.
For others, it is like wind and water wearing away rock.
Q: Master, where is this Conscious Life Energy?
A: Where is it not?
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I am afraid to stop all thinking. The nothingness that would remain scares me.
A: Absence of thoughts does not mean a void because what remains is the knower of the void.
This is what you are and what must be discovered.
Q: Is the recognition of the Conscious Life Energy the ultimate or is there further to go?
A: First stabilize there and then see if the question arises.
Q: Master, the world I see when I wake up is the same world I saw before I slept. It is a constant; is this not so?
A: That which is in perpetual flux can never be said to be the same. One cannot bathe in the same river on successive days. One can say that it seems the same, but it is not so.
Q: Master, my consciousness requires purification. What do you advise for me?
A: "My consciousness"? How do you claim to own it?
When you go to the river and fill a pail with water, dare you call the water in the pail "mine"?
Q: Master, do you continue to think?
A: There are thoughts. However, my thinking, like my digestion, is unconscious.
Q: Master, what is the proper way to conduct myself?
A: Codes of conduct pertain to individuals. Wu Hsin does not speak of or to individuals.
Q: Master, my yearning to reach the end of my search continues. I have traversed many roads, yet I still have not arrived. Am I destined to fail?
A: All needs, wants, hopes, wishes, ambitions, pleasures or dissatisfactions are creations of an individual. Only humans experience these.
All searching is a search for completeness, to find what must be added from "out there".
Once it is discerned that one is already complete, searching naturally, of itself, falls away.
Q: Master, I have experienced periods of great peace and tranquility. Then, the world reasserts its hold on me and the peace is lost. What can I do to hold this state of peace that I have had?
A: If one's inner state is dependent upon outer events, it is false and must pass.
All outward movement is movement away from inherent peace.
When the energy of attention is removed from the world, the world will lose its hold on you.
Q: Master, I see the world, but I don’t understand it. Can you help me to see it more clearly?”
A: It's all about viewpoint, about the center of reference.
From our view, the sun rises and sets.
But to speak of rising and setting from the vantage point of the sun is a meaningless statement.
We say that the moon shines in the same way as we say that there is a person that acts.
Yet, it is not that the moon is shining.
Rather, it is merely reflecting the light of the sun.
Persons, too, are only the reflected light of That which shines on them and provides their support.
Like the tartness in a lime or the sweetness of honey, the person is merely the quality or expression of the organism.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, how can I overcome my fear of death?
A: No one is born, no one dies.
There is merely the beginning, the duration and the end of an event, an objectified life in space and time.
When you become clear that you are not this body, but that it is your instrument, then worries about death dissolve.
In essence, death dies.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, if I follow what you advise to its conclusion, what will happen to me?
A: What happens to salt when it is thrown into water?
Q: Master, I am possessed by fear. What can I do?
A: What is fear? Fear is "other".
As long as one considers oneself to an object in a world of objects, fear will remain a component of experience.
When the eyes are opened to a new way of seeing, the result is a new way of being.
Q: My Master, how may I repay you for this gift?
A: Be what you are. Remain as what you are. This is the greatest repayment to Wu Hsin and to the world.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, what is the need for listening to your discourse?
A: Before a pail can be filled with water, the cracks and holes must be repaired. Otherwise, nothing is held.
Consider the words of Wu Hsin to be sealant.
Q: Master, I will give up all of my possessions if that is what is required. Is it so?
A: No possessions need be given up. All that is to be relinquished is the notion of "mine".
Q: What is realization, Master?
A: Suddenly, you realize that what you considered normal was not really normal. Said realization is an instantaneous shift from an individual existence to existence as it is. There is no longer a willingness to exchanging peace for thought. What had been considered to be the mind is transformed into That to which ‘I’ refers.
Q: Master, can you please explain what you mean by knowingness?
A: This knowingness did not appear because you submitted a requisition for it. It arose spontaneously. It is that which reports on the three states of sleep, dream, and waking.
Q: Master, is this higher state that y
ou speak of something that comes and goes?
A: To that which is everywhere, coming and going has no meaning.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, do you advise that I renounce everything?
A: No, you need only renounce your attachment to everything.
Q: Master, how can a limited being realize the Unlimited?
A: You have become so acclimated to limitation that, for many, the idea of limitlessness is unfathomable.
The regression is from "I am an individual" to "I am the Totality" to "I am No thing".
That which is nameless, formless, and attributeless cannot be described. The only means to it is the rejection of all that is not-That.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, for over twenty years I have been seeking liberation. All my efforts have ended in failure. What do you advise?
A: Talk of the liberation of any phenomenon is foolishness.
Until you are willing to loosen your grip on your identification with the body and the mind, any effort will continue to end in failure.
Q: Master, I am considering taking a vow of silence. What is your opinion?
A: Unless you are able to keep the mind silent, such a vow will have no value.
Q: Master, how can I attain union with the ultimate?
A: To seek union presupposes separation.
There is no need to seek union; simply verify that there is, in fact, separation.
Q: Master, your words are subtle, yet complex. Where can I begin?
A: Begin with complete surrender to the words of Wu Hsin.
Do that first, await the results, and then see if there need be anything more to do.