Behind the Mind

by Wu Hsin

  Therefore, what perceives the mind is only Consciousness.

  This is the truth of Wu Hsin.

  Consider this; more tomorrow.

  The Master walked into the Hall, turned toward the group and said:

  Consciousness turned outward is mind; mind turned inward is consciousness.

  The preoccupation with the objective must be replaced with a preoccupation with the Subject. Instantly, everything clarifies.

  Nothing more need be said today.

  With that, the Master departed from the Hall.

  More Questions Answered

  Q: How can I maintain presence?

  A: Presence is the absence of yourself. That which is, is as it is. It transcends the spoken word and is beyond all attempts at description.

  Q: I have never experienced bliss. What is it, Master?

  A: Bliss is the pure joy and contentment of Being Conscious.

  Q: What remains when I have transcended my individuality?

  A: What cannot come and cannot go remains.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, how can this one become enlightened?

  A: All becoming is personal. From the impersonal, there is nothing to become. As such, there is no such thing as enlightenment except for the one who creates the need for it.

  Q: Master, my problems overwhelm me. I cannot make myself quiet. There is no progress. What do you advise?

  A: All problems are resolved when you resolve yourself. What am I really? Draw the distinction between having a body and being a body. See that whatever you perceive, whatever you think about, comes to you.

  It is not you.

  See that there is nothing to get. It is already present. All ideas about progress serve the mind only.

  What progress is required to go from here to here?

  Q: How may I get the experience of the Unchanging that you speak about?

  A: Experience requires change. As such, the Unchanging cannot be experienced.

  Experiencing, an experiencer, and that which is experienced all emerge from the same source and are essentially One.

  In that sense, you are the "I," you are the "I am," and you are the world.

  Q: Master, my understanding remains incomplete. What must I see that I am not seeing?

  A: Whereas seeking understanding is a noble enterprise, the higher is seeking the cessation of misunderstanding.

  Consider a hole. Dirt was removed to make it. Yet the space was there before and after the removal of the dirt. So, what is to be realized?

  Only what is imaginary requires realization. The removal of the imaginary is sufficient. When that is accomplished, where is the need for further realizations?

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, I cannot be with you every day. Am I doomed to failure?

  A: Having the complete support of the Inner Teacher in every moment, there is no absolute mandate for an Outer Teacher.

  My words can only take you to the limitations of my words. Beyond this, you must go alone.

  Q: If I fail to attain enlightenment in this life, how will I be re-born?

  A: There should be no preoccupation with re-birth. What is key is the continuation of the investigation into the mythology of this birth.

  If you are not identified with the body, how can you die? If you cannot die, nothing is re-born.

  Q: There is complete disharmony between my inner and outer worlds. How can I reconcile the two?

  A: Why do you continue to take everything personally?

  Understand that there is no entity or person as such. This also means there is no personal consciousness and no personal inner world nor outer world. All there is, is universal consciousness and its phenomena.

  In this regard, true discrimination is between the seeming personal and What-Is.

  Q: Master, how would you describe yourself?

  A: I am, as always, nothing perceivable or definable. Because you believe that you have a body, you expect other bodies and they appear. You cannot locate me, I am the wind.

  I am unchanging and continuous, remaining as such in all the states which are constantly changing. You are now thinking that you are the mind or the body which are both changing and transient. But you are unchanging and eternal. I discern this; you, as yet, do not.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, Mengshi teaches us to be indifferent, to not want anything. Is this too a valid path?

  A: Not wanting is not indifference. Not wanting is having no preferences. It is welcoming whatever arrives.

  Wu Hsin does not offer paths. What path will deliver you to where you already are?

  Q: Master, how can I be what I perceive?

  A: The naming of the perception always comes after the perceiving. In this way, it can be seen that consciousness precedes mind.

  This "me" is the mind's representation of the sensations, thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions that appear to it. All else is another representation, the world. In that sense, the world is there only because this "you" is there.

  Q: How can I develop a relationship with my inner being?

  A: There are no opposites, only complements. Relationship exists in duality. In the non-dual what is to have relationship with what?

  There is no outer being to relate to any inner being. There is only Being.

  Q: Master, please reveal to me that state which is before my consciousness.

  A; Any knowledge that Wu Hsin conveys can only be in the consciousness. How can the consciousness hold any knowledge about that state which exists prior to its arrival? Take your pose in consciousness, as consciousness, and see the result.

  Q: Master, I come to you in distress. I have no time for lengthy practices. Is there an alternative?

  A: Yes there is. Everyone lives out of memory. Replace the old memories with the memory of the words of Wu Hsin and live in accordance with that.

  Then, you cannot fail.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, what are the criteria for evaluating a teacher?

  A: You see yourself as a body that can evaluate another body. Both sides of the argument are erroneous. To see clearly, your mind must be pure and unattached. Then you will answer your own question.

  Q: I am most dissatisfied with my life. What can I do to bring about a change in it?

  A: A whole new way of living is required. Living from memory and acting habitually, what can one expect to accomplish?

  Q: Master, it is most obvious to me that the world is real. How can you argue that it is not real?

  A: Who trained you in discerning the real? How were you trained?

  You simply accept what appears to be real. Wu Hsin challenges your acceptance.

  Q: Master, can you instruct me how to find my god?

  A: Yes, my son, it is quite easy. Look where you are not.

  Q: Master, I listen to your every word and try to imbibe them. Yet, I remain unaware. What do you advise?

  A: See that your sense of unawareness appears in Awareness Itself. How can you say that you are unaware of being aware?

  Q: Master, how can I acquire the same clarity as Wu Hsin?

  A: You seek to amuse us, do you not? How can you acquire what you already are?

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, which path is best?

  A: Regardless of the path one chooses, ultimately one must lose oneself in it. Those unwilling to be lost need not initiate the first step on any path.

  Q: Master, is the world real or unreal?

  A: Whether the world is real or not real is not the key issue. Rather, the focus must be on whether the person in the world is real or unreal.

  Whatever the finding, it will apply to both the person and the world.

  Q: What is self realization?

  A: Self realization is identification with nothing. It can also be said that it is also identification with everything.

  What it is not is identification with the particular.

  Q: What is wrong with viewing the world from a personal point of view?

  A: The person is momentary; in different moments, one manifests differe
nt persons.

  The person has intermittent existence; it comes and it goes. When there is deep involvement in anything, the person is not there. Nor is it present in sleep.

  The inquiry must be directed toward what is not intermittent, to what underlies and supports the intermittent. This is one's natural state, Conscious Being Energy.

  Q: I desire to develop a posture of no-mind. How may I do this?

  A: Until one reaches "no-person", no-mind cannot be claimed.

  The best way to annihilate the person is not to provide it with the energy of attention. In the absence of attention, it withers and dies.

  Q: Master, my unhappiness continues. Where is the happiness that you promised?

  A: All those things that man yearns for: God, happiness, peace................. can only be found where "you" is not.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, which holy books would you advise this one to read?

  A: The teaching of the Master is the very essence of all the holy books. A Master's words and ten thousand books are the same.

  Q: Master, yours is one of many different perspectives. How can I discern which is the correct one for me?

  A: Do not lose yourself in the labyrinths of philosophy; instead, go straight to the Source from which they all rise.

  Abide there; it is there that the philosophies lose their relevance.

  Q: Will my questionable actions in my younger years adversely affect me now?

  A: There isn't anything such as "someone's actions"; there are only occurrences, events. Events happen. Happenings don't require someone.

  The thought to act and the act itself are an integral whole. The mind devises and the body executes.

  Neither are yours.

  Q: My efforts have not produced my desired results. Is my practice flawed?

  A: Whatever it is you seemingly do, are, or experience, you are aware space, that onto which everything appears. Without the need to define, divide, categorize, describe, understand, explain or seek anything, simply be that relaxed openness that you are.

  This is all the practice that is required.

  Q: Master, my mind dominates my every moment. Is there any method for making it quiet?

  A: When it is clear that you are not the mind, you will no longer be concerned with the mind's contents.

  Until that time, refuse to provide this mind with the energy of attention.

  Q: Master, how am I to be liberated?

  A: Attention liberates. From moment to moment, you chose what you attend to.

  If you choose the outflow of the mind or the appearance of the world, you take them to be real. But neither can take you to the Real.

  When you direct attention to how you, the organism, function and behave, it gradually becomes clear that most of the function and behavior is mechanical and automatic. You begin to realize that the person you have taken yourself to be is a fiction.

  Q: My Master Wu Hsin, all this talk of the reality or unreality of the individual has me most confused. Can you provide me with guidance?

  A: The question of the reality of the individual entity is rendered moot when we deny importance to the entity. Then, whether it is real or not no longer matters.

  The understanding finally comes that “I” am never going to find the solution to the problem because “I” is the problem!

  At that point, no doing is possible and all effort is to be surrendered.

  Q: How can I rid myself of my fears?

  A: All fear is, at its root, the fear of self-extinction. It is biological in nature and is only transcended when identification with the organism is transcended.

  Q: Master, my progress is very slow. Can you help?

  A: All notions of progress are for the individual only. No individual, no need for progress.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, my life is without meaning. Every day is only drudgery. How do I get beyond this?

  A: All quests for meaning are egoic demands for relevance. Knowing itself to be insubstantial, it strives to attach substance to itself.

  See this and be done with it.

  Q: I feel separate from everything else. You say this is an illusion, yet the feeling remains.

  A: Having a body is the source of all feelings of separation. Is it not our very skin that separates inside from outside?

  One false idea fathers other false ideas.

  Clarify the distinction between "I have a body" and "I am in the body". That which operates from and thru the body is what has a body.

  Q: Why is it so difficult to discern all that is false?

  A: It is the nature of the false that it appears real for a moment.

  It is the insistence on clinging to the false that makes the true so difficult to see.

  Q: Master, is there an end to all this?

  A: Yes; it ends when you are no longer interested in getting anything.

  Q: Master, you teach that all this is mere illusion. How can I break free of it?

  A: All conscious efforts to get rid of the illusion is part of the illusion. For as long as one is imprisoned by inattention and imagination, the illusion continues.

  Trust in That which gave you the illusion to take it away.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, I have tried to see the flaw in believing myself to be only an actor in this play. Yet, nothing changes. What would you advise?

  A: Whether or not you see yourself as the doer of anything does not affect what happens.

  Just as you have done nothing to grow up from childhood, there is nothing that needs to be done to grow out of identification with the body/mind composite.

  Q: Master, what is freedom?

  A: Freedom is the absence of beliefs, opinions, and preferences.

  Illusion, like a cloud, cannot be discerned from the inside. Only when one steps out of it does it become clear. This is freedom.

  Q: Master, why can I not see things as others see them?

  A: It relates to the individual point of view.

  According to the view of different onlookers, the same woman is considered to be wife, husband’s sister, daughter-in-law, mother, and more. Yet, she does not at all undergo any change in her form.

  When the view changes from the relative to the absolute, there is no further disagreement.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, why do you say that the body and the mind are not important?

  A: Wu Hsin does not say so. The body and the mind are important to the total functioning.

  However, what is more important than the body and the mind is that which knows the body and the mind, that which observes the total functioning.

  It is on this that Wu Hsin asks that you place your attention.

  Q: Master, when we speak of the seer, the seeing, and the seen, it is the seer that is the subject; is this not so?

  A: No it is not. The seer is itself an object, the instrument of the Seeing which is the true subject.

  Stated differently, there is the world, the individual and that which transcends both.

  Q: Master, how do I rise above my body sense?

  A: There is no further rising to be sought. The sense of being a body or being in a body has arisen.

  Therefore, to rid oneself of it requires subsidence, sinking back into that which prevailed prior to the arising.

  Q: Dearest Master, I have been unable to find what you sent me to look for. What should I do?

  A: Wu Hsin never sent you looking. How can you find what is not perceivable nor conceivable?

  You are already looking from that which we are looking for.

  You are; this is undeniable. Don't hold to "I am this".

  Abide as being without being anything in particular. This is Wu Hsin's instruction.

  Q: My intellect fails me. I do not see what you see. Can you help me?

  A: All the intellectuals task the mind to confirm what is beyond the mind.

  How can failure not be the outcome of this?

  You are just like space, insofar as space is the beginning and the end of everything. See this
and you'll have seen all that needs seeing.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, can you teach me to transcend this world?

  A: The world is no more real than the individual who sees it. Our experience of the whole world is nothing but our thoughts of it. These thoughts have no continuous existence. They vanish in an instant, replaced by others. The succession creates the illusion of continuity.

  What is the world other than the sum of one's concepts?

  When you know the truth about yourself, the world is transcended.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, your teaching is too complex for my simple mind. Must I resign myself to never gaining clear sight?

  A: You are neither the body nor the mind, yet aware of both. Remembering only this in every moment will propel you onward.

  Q: Master, am I not the thinker of my thoughts?

  A: One is the total space to which everything appears, in which everything appears, on which everything appears. There is no need for narratives.

  There is no thinker of thoughts.

  Thoughts appear and they are witnessed by That which witnesses the arising and setting of all phenomena, all these transient displays.

  Q: Master, what is your instruction for destroying the mind?

  A: No one has ever destroyed the mind by confronting it. When it no longer receives the energy of attention, it withers and dies.

  Q: Master Wu Hsin, my problems go on. No sooner than I solve one, another appears. How can I break this cycle?