Behind the Mind
Page 6
Whatever one does to remind oneself of one's subjectivity is a movement in the direction of abidance there.
Therefore, one watches the mind to discern one is not the mind.
Once everything that is known is rejected, what remains is what also has been known, the Conscious Life Energy, but has been ignored.
That is your true state.
Mind is a series of processes in humans. Mind can no more volitionally be stopped than can digestion and elimination. Only that which animates the mind can stop it.
Deep understanding of this will allow you to see clearly that you are an instrument of the Conscious Life Energy. There is not a single thing you can do to contravene its movements.
Once this is seen, you can relax.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
Religion is a collection of beliefs, unverified certainties and worldviews that are built around narratives, symbols, and histories. It is intended to provide meaning to a personal life.
By far, the religion with the most adherents is the Religion of the Individual. Its main tenets are:
* We are born; we die. In between, is the life we live.
* We are a separate entity in a world of other separate entities.
* The world existed before we came into it and will continue to do so after we depart from it.
* Everything I claim to be mine is in fact so.
* Phenomena exist independent of their perception.
* We are the knowing subject of every object.
* We are the ultimate initiator, the doer, the thinker, the feeler, the choice maker.
* Mind is produced somewhere in the body and is therefore personal.
* Consciousness is epiphenomenal of mind and is likewise personal.
When these tenets are examined rigorously, the Religion of the Individual crumbles and is replaced with the clear sight of What-Is.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
Whatever occurs in the body and whatever occurs by the body is the action of the Conscious Life Energy. Its sole declaration is "I am". Its father is "I will be".
You say "I am speaking", "I am working". Is it not illusion to believe that the actions occurring via the functioning of the Conscious Life Energy are yours?
Are they anything more than the music that emerges from the instrument?
Make the "I" and the "am" a single word and follow each instance with "is".
We now have I-am is speaking, I-am is working.
This is the true state of affairs.
Let us now return to the silence for a time.
Master Wu Hsin continued:
Consciousness, being time bound, is the actualization of the Dynamic Potentiality.
Understand that manifestation is the spacio-temporal expression of consciousness.
Therefore, there is consciousness prior to manifestation, consciousness of temporal manifestation and consciousness of spacio-temporal manifestation.
These are the 3 states of consciousness.
The last two could be said to comprise a singular state, the state of appearances in consciousness.
The end of the scrutiny on objects in these two is the beginning of the scrutiny on subjectivity.
The conclusion of the scrutiny on first person is the dawning of the true Knowing.
Once dawned, it is seen that that there is no difference between Being and Knowing.
Your work is done.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
Dissatisfaction with What-Is is a great impediment.
We search in every direction for a remedy to the dissatisfaction.
Only when it is seen clearly that the remedy is directionless, when we allow ourselves to be where we are, we can then know what we are.
Knowing what we are, all dissatisfactions, all questions end and what we are is then their answer.
We are taught that happiness is attained via the Path of Acquiring. The evidence is not supportive of this.
On the other hand, the Path of Relinquishing has proven, time and again, to be an efficient means.
The former enslaves whereas the latter liberates.
In giving up everything, you learn that you need nothing.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
What is your world?
Is it anything other than a field, well furnished with what you think are flawless memories added to your imaginations, seeming knowledge, and anticipations?
Your world appears and disappears, and is ever-colored by the state of your mind. It is entirely private.
You can't share it with Wu Hsin so that he may partake in your experience of it.
If you can't share it, how can you claim that it is real?
Therefore, it cannot be. It may appear to you, but it has no true being.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master arrived late to the Hall. It is clear that he is feeling ill.
All problems and questions are based on one's identity with the body and mind as an individual.
If that identification is not there, then neither problems nor questions can arise.
Thus, the intention is to end the feeling of separation from That because of which we know we exist.
There may arise a fear of losing yourself.
However, you can never lose yourself; you can only lose ideas about yourself.
Ponder all this; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
The world of objects and subjects is relatively real. That is to say that it appears real from the inside looking out.
From the outside looking in, it is most clear that the world is a temporal projection, a superimposition.
Abiding outside of the relative is sometimes called realization. It is the realization of the Real.
The point of view is paramount.
Smoke may obscure the sun, yet the sun knows no such obscuration..
Let us now return to the silence for a time.
The Master continued:
Thinking may or may not stop.
However, if you listen to the words of Wu Hsin, any thoughts that appear will no longer be deemed yours.
You can live without thoughts, but thoughts cannot live without your sustaining them.
Don't allow your mind to take you away from the immediacy of Consciousness. This Consciousness is what the mind appears to.
The subtlety here makes it easy to miss, like looking for a black cat in a darkened room.
So you look and then you look again.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
Consciousness experiences its manifestation via 3 cyclical states; they are commonly referred to as waking, dream and sleep.
Instead, Wu Hsin suggests that they be called the experience of mind and matter, the experience of mind, the experience of nothing to experience.
One could also say that the three are: the appearance and disappearance of mental and physical phenomena, the appearance and disappearance of mental phenomena, the absence of phenomena.
Yet a third alternative would be Consciousness plus time plus space, Consciousness plus time, Consciousness plus relative absence.
In any of these, consciousness stands as the background, the screen on which each comes and goes.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
Wherever one's mind goes, consciousness is already there.
The mind, by its very nature, is compelled to objectify the sense of I-am. It does so by extending I-am into I am this body, then into I am this body in this world.
"I am this body in the world" is the herald of the mind flow. This is temporary, appearing on a background of permanence.
This sense must be refined via what we call returning until each adjunct is removed, leaving only "I", the true Self, That which serves to support "
I am this body in the world".
You begin from where you are, which is awash in thoughts, one following the other in endless succession.
Returning involves going from this condition to a reduction in thoughts, to the holding of a singular thought, to the absence of thought.
Of all the singular thoughts to be held, the sense of being, I or I-am, is the best.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
Images do not exist by themselves. They only exist as the brain's representations of the incoming data feed, the movements of energy perceived by the sense organs.
No one argues with the notion that imagination is untrue. The challenge set out, then, is to investigate how much time is spent in imagination.
One fully enjoys the world only when one has no vested interest in it.
One must remember that an entry is also an exit. We seemingly enter into the world through I-am and return to prior to the world by exiting through I-am.
The dream lasts as long as the dreamer. The end of the latter is the end of the former. Although it may not seem so, the same can be said for the world and the individual.
The world is very seductive. It creates a force that draws attention toward it.
Unless and until there is a countering pull from Conscious Being Itself, clarity is not possible.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
Can an appearance discover that it is an appearance?
As long as there is no insight into the appearance being an appearance, what can be done.................. and by whom?
Can you admit that every investigation and any possible proof, take place in the very appearance where the appearance itself is?
What is undeniable is that if the person is an appearance, then the world in which the person lives is also an appearance.
When we examine ourselves deeply, we are able to see more clearly the dimensions of the prison that have built around ourselves.
What is so paradoxical is that we fight hardest for that which we need least.
Ponder this; Wu Hsin will speak more tomorrow.
The Master began:
If You are absent, then no thing is. This You is Conscious Life Energy.
If the bowl of sugar is removed, what is the likelihood that the cup of tea can be made sweet?
In the absence of this Conscious Life Energy, what can exist and who is there to know it?
What occurs is that this Conscious Life Energy localizes as mind.
The mind, in turn, reframes the functioning by reorganizing it around a central reference point, me.
But, this me is only a label: body and its actions, mind and its narratives, ideas and beliefs.
When a thought appears, the mind generates an "I think".
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
There is no method for getting rid of what doesn't exist.
This world is like an intricate spider web. Once entangled in it, it is difficult to get free.
Remembering that not a single thought is accompanied by a certificate of ownership is helpful in this regard.
We live in our own narrow, limited world commanded by associations from all our subjective impressions. This could be called a prison, except for the fact that we voluntarily return to it time and again.
Thoughts are temporary. Things are temporary. All appearances are temporary, appearing on the intemporal.
The world we experience around us is no more "out there" than are our dreams.
That point at which the world suddenly appears is the intersection between duality and the non-dual.
In the body, there is a current of energy and intelligence which guides, maintains and energizes the body. In attending to that, the world loses its importance.
When waking up in the morning happens, it begins with the thought of I-am, and then the entire world appears as I am this and there is that.
Whatever differences may appear make no difference in the functioning of totality. They only impact the seeming "your world".
Let this be your contemplation for today.
The Master began:
A distinction must be drawn between what comes and goes and what does not. The former may be labeled "appearances" and the latter "actuality".
Since the attention can only go to one at any time, each must decide where the attention is placed.
Actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings all come and go.
But the knowing of each never departs, not even for even the smallest unit of time.
As such, Knowing cannot be an activity, since activity starts and ends. This Eternal Constant, Knowing, is what one is. When one distances oneself from one's image of oneself, this becomes clear.
All satisfaction, seeming derived from objects and experiences, is actually derived from the cessation for the desire for the object.
In the absence of desire, one's natural state of satisfaction and peace shines forth.
Let this be your contemplation for today.
The Master began:
Before attention can be redirected, inattention must be acknowledged.
Belief is the currency of delusion. We do not so much observe what is as we do conjure what appears to be.
Beneath a rock, there is always darkness regardless of how bright the sun shines. To begin to get out from "under", one need not fully understand; one begins by ceasing to misunderstand.
How do we see an object?
The sense organ provides the form while the mind supplies concepts or ideas. But it is only Knowing, the Self, which provides the sense of being. Whatever is observed points back to the perceiving center.
Memory is what makes life appear to be continuous. However, the body, the mind, and the world are really all discontinuous. They are mere appearances on That which is continuous.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
Most people think they need to have some sort of practice. Stop thinking and then revisit the issue.
No-mind is when mind has nothing to say. In it, everything that comes is welcomed because no preferences are held.
Now-here is the spatio-temporal point at which life and living occur. Any movement away from it is movement into imagination.
Problems are thoughts and thoughts are problems.
Vast leaps in understanding occur when, instead of building onto what is thought to be known, one discards what is thought to be known.
Sensations, thoughts and feelings are all perceptions. What is it that perceives? It is That which never sleeps, which ever-is.
The brain filters all incoming data for relevance. It then allocates what it deems relevant to memory and rejects the rest.
The brain imparts its reality to everything that passes through it. However, the brain's reality is not reality. It is a representation, albeit an inaccurate one.
Things are as they are, because we accept them as they are. When we stop accepting them and begin to investigate, they will dissolve.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
The mind is so small that it can only hold one thought at a time. As such, there is no difference between mind and thought.
There is no dreaming in dreaming. There is only dreaming upon reflection when waking.
A dream is only labeled a dream when it is in the past. At the moment of experiencing both the dream state and the waking state, no differences between the two can be discerned. Both are taken to be real as they occur.
Thinking of what cannot be thought is still a form of thought. One cannot conceive of what lies beyond the mind. One must go there.
Thoughts enslave when their ownership is claimed. When the thoughts are not yours, they cannot exert any power over you.