by Wu Hsin
What efforts can such a shadow make?
Can you cook food on a painting of a fire?
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I have studied the ancient texts for many years and I feel that I understand them well. What is the need, therefore, to accept you as my teacher?
A: The study of sacred texts is of inferior quality to the realization of the truths the texts contain.
In the same way, the teacher is unimportant; only the teaching matters.
The teacher is merely the instrument through which the teaching manifests.
Q: Master, what happens to me after I die?
A: Why do you have this interest in what happens after death when you still retain such a poor understanding of what happens prior to death?
Why make death the reference point? All this is a distraction.
Death only has meaning in terms of the virtual entity who is caught up in the imagination of a solid, permanent self enduring for all time. Is this what you are?
Q: Master, can you clarify yet again what I am?
A: The body, with its personality, its identity, all its sentient functions, is an object.
That which knows the body, that which provides the sentience to the body, cannot be an object.
You are That.
Q: Master, what do you mean by "resting"?
A: All objects are pointers like the finger pointing at the raven in the tree.
Each points back to the Subject, in Whose absence, objects have no existence. To disregard the pointers, the objects, and to abide in the Subjective, is resting.
Q: Master, do those who follow your teachings reach heaven?
A: For those who understand Wu Hsin, all the world is heaven.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I have a deep yearning to go to the Beyond. Will you take me there?
A: To speak of "beyond" is looking in the wrong direction.
Better is the continuous movement in the direction of "before". Find that line of demarcation where this "you" started and step over it.
Q: Master, if I hold fast to this consciousness, does the world disappear?
A: It disappears for some and not for others. In either case, the world becomes unimportant.
Q: Why is happiness so elusive?
A: People spend all their lives seeking happiness in one way or another, and the proof that they never obtain it is that they never stop seeking it.
It is now time to re-examine the validity of where the searching has been taking place.
Wu Hsin declares that this is not where happiness can be found.
Q: Master, the pains in my body make it difficult for me to put your teachings into practice. What do you advise?
A: The body is a borrowed thing; it must be returned. Turn the attention to what borrowed it.
Then, be still.
Q: My Master, the aches of my body and the incessant thoughts of my mind make it difficult for me to focus. What advice can you give me so that I can move into alignment?
A: The body and the mind work in accordance with their predispositions. Being neither, how are you affected?
Where is the need for alignment?
Q: Master Wu Hsin, could you speak more about the mind?
A: All the discussions about the mind are produced by the mind itself for its own continuation and expansion.
Remember that the conditioned mind can only provide conditioned responses.
Then you will not use it for this.
Q: Why has my god failed to help me?
A: Your god is not a thing; it is no thing.
If being nothing is good enough for your god, let it be good enough for you too.
Q: Master, please restate for me what is to be gained?
A: It is like believing that you have lost your pouch and then subsequently finding it. Nothing is gained because the pouch was always your own. In this sense, there is nothing to become.
All becoming is in service to the ego.
Q: Master Wu Hsin: I cannot meditate. My mind is filled with fears. How can I dispel them?
A: The idea of ownership creates fear. All "my's" need protection against loss.
As such, to live fearlessly is to live without "mine".
Q: How is peace to be attained?
A: There are two types of peace. The lesser is the absence of disturbance. The greater is that which is unassailable by disturbance. If you settle for the former, you have once again acquiesced to that which comes and goes.
You are the immaculate field of consciousness. Whatever appears in you cannot be you.
What you are is Peace Itself.
Q: Master, how can this small, limited person reach the Great Unity?
A: You define yourself as a name and a form and by the contents of your mind. You are not the body.
You are the conscious presence, the very Knowing of every thing. Of course you feel limited. When you identity with the particular, how can you not feel limited?
Accept my words and integrate them into your life. Then, all will reach fruition.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, my nature is dark. I cannot control it. What do you advise?
A: You are not your nature. This nature belongs to this body but you are neither.
The psychosomatic apparatus has a life of its own. Yet, it is not yours and you need not make it so.
All is because you are. Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly.
Q: Dearest Master, please help me understand this idea of Conscious Being.
A: You are conscious of your individual existence and therefore must be something prior to it. This Being Consciousness is the original experience of differentiation from the Unmanifest.
From this, all else unfolds.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, so much is ephemeral. Please illuminate for me what is truly lasting that I may seek it out?
A: Anything lasting such as lasting peace or lasting happiness, can't be provided by anything temporary. Anything in time is temporary.
Only "now" stands outside of time. Seek “now”, it is the easiest to find.
Q: Master, you have shown me the way. Soon, I will have all that I desire. My eternal thanks I extend to you.
A: A word of caution. You now perceive a hole in your prison cell's wall big enough to jump through.
Be warned that what awaits on the other side of that wall, that which you are so keen to jump into, is the abyss.
Q: Why do you claim that the world and myself arise together?
A: In the absence of phenomena, "me" has nothing to hold, to cling to.
The non-dual is anathema to "me". Isn't it paradoxical that so many "me's" are trying to attain it?
Q: My Master, can you show me the absolute state of being?
A: The Absolute cannot be known directly.
Like the wind, it can only be known by its effects.
Q: I have been ill for quite some time. My body has numerous problems. How can I follow your teaching?
A: When you say “my body”, who is this “my” distinct from the body?
If your neighbor has numerous problems, you are not affected. Treat your body as your neighbor.
Where, then, is any problem?
Q: My Master, what do you mean when you suggest that I “go back the way you came”?
A: The arrival of self consciousness is the movement away from the universal to the individual.
Going back the way you came means moving from the individual to the universal to the transcendent.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, when will I awaken?
A: You are like the man with a hen who wants to cut it in two, eating one half and keeping the other for laying eggs.
A person can never wake up whereas That Which Is is always awake.
Q: Why do you insist that no effort is necessary?
A: Why look for the sun with a candle?
One awakens spontaneously; one falls into sleep spontaneously. What occurs between these two also occurs spontaneously. There is no need for effort.
Can effort make you taller?
Q: Master, if one eliminates everything, then nothing remains. How does this activity lead to clear sight?
A: When everything is gone, what remains is that which certifies that everything is gone.
One might refer to this as the Sought.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, kindly guide my return to the Absolute. I ask for nothing more and nothing less.
A: One becomes an individual, so to speak, by thinking about that individual virtually every moment.
One returns to the Absolute in the same fashion.
Q: My Master Wu Hsin, I am confused. Should not waking up be my goal?
A: Whatever can wake up can go to sleep again.
To realize that which never slept is all that is required.
Q: My Master, how to discriminate between the good and the bad?
A: All such judgments originate in the mind and are structured relative to the individual.
Go behind the mind and you will find that good and bad don't exist.
Q: Master, what is the best method for studying your teaching?
A: What Wu Hsin teaches cannot be studied. It is only taught via listening. One allows it to sink in deeply and one ruminates over it.
The seeds thus planted then yield their fruits.
Q: Is there a singular impediment to the attainment of clarity?
A: You know only what the senses inform. All experience is purely relative to them. Therefore, you never get past this relative to the Absolute.
The Pure Energy is not perceivable; only Its appearances, sound, heat, light etc. can be perceived.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, which is superior: matter or mind?
A: Matter is spacial whereas mind is temporal. This spacio-temporal field is the screen on which the world appears.
It is known by the Light of Consciousness.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, my teacher advised me to repeat "I am All" continuously but its promise has not been realized. My question is whether or not I should cease this practice?
A: Even a parrot can be taught to say "I am All".
Ultimately, the highest practice, so to speak, is to be free of practices. Begin by getting rid of everything, all previous acquisitions relating to mind and body.
Once this is accomplished, one gets rid of the practice itself and one is then free from all practices. This is the practice; continue it until it leaves you.
Q: Master, what assurances do I have that I can exist without this body?
A: Look and see. You do so every night in sleep. You have no knowledge of this body in sleep. Yet, you know you slept.
What is this Knowing?
Q: Master Wu Hsin: This is my first time in the Hall in your presence. What do you teach?
A: Wu Hsin teaches a single trick: how to be in the water without getting wet.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, what practice do you recommend for me?
A: All practices sustain what one is not. What one is requires no practice to be. Let Being be your practice.
Q: My Master, I have been with you for more than fifteen years. Yet, I remain incomplete. What is my failing?
A: For so long as you continue to avoid the means while insisting on its ends, this seeming failure will continue.
Wu Hsin shall reiterate: The only path to follow is the path by which you came. Retrace your steps assiduously and you will see.
Q: Master, my thoughts make it impossible for me to remain quiet. I feel powerless. What do you advise?
A: Your hear the beautiful song of the sparrow. It appears inside your head. Yet, you don't claim the song to be yours. Why is it that you claim that the thought that seems to appear inside your head is yours?
It is not; it is mere appearance, like a cloud in the sky. It need not receive your attention.
Q: I come here today to challenge you, Wu Hsin. What you teach is a soulless view of the world. Can you deny this?
A: Quite the contrary, Wu Hsin affirms this.
Wu Hsin does not deal in fictions, in stories crafted on hearsay or in the absence of evidence.
If you have proof of the existence of a soul, I return your challenge: produce it now.
Q: My Great Master, how can this one be worthy of you?
A: To be worthy of me is to not be separate from me. This is achieved by the death of individuality.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I am 101 years of age. Soon, I will be finished, yet the goal has not been reached. With so little time remaining for me, what do you advise?
A: It is only your body that is short of time, not you. You are not bound. When you truly understand yourself, you realize eternity.
Q: Master, how does enlightenment come about?
A: The subjective Conscious Life Energy becomes entangled with its objective instrument. This entanglement must be undone, yet cannot be done by any individual.
Such disentanglement is deemed enlightenment.
Q: Master, it amazes me that you are always so even, never fazed by what occurs around you. How do you do this?
A: When everyone vacates this Hall, how is the Hall affected? Clouds appear in the sky while the sun remains unfazed.
Q: Master, where is this Conscious Life Energy located inside me?
A: When speaking of something that is everywhere, the words "inside" and "outside" are meaningless.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, what is your advice for attaining the highest state?
A: As a man cannot claim to be destitute before examining the contents of his coin box, so you cannot claim to know what you do before you know what you are.
Therefore, the advice is to separate yourself from what you are not.
What could be easier?
Q: Am I not the perceiver of everything?
A: The quality I-am perceives. This perceiving via the senses is a process whereas thinking about what was perceived creates a perceiver.
Q: Master, I don't understand how you can say that I am not real. Can you help me to see this?
A: An "I" is an unexamined assumption. How can you be a person when you are that which observes the person?
Q: Oh, Master, where do I begin?
A: Beginning points are numerous. Recognize that you are never reaching a point where you remain fulfilled.
Discover that you do not really know what you want in life beyond the survival essentials.
See that the mind is not interested in peace but only in its own pursuits.
I believe that these will keep you occupied.
Q: Must I not examine the teacher before I put myself entirely into his hands?
M: By all means examine. But what can you learn?
Only as he appears to you from your viewpoint, from your established standard.
How many times has it been explained that Wu Hsin is not a person?
What does examination of such a person satisfy?
Q: Master, how do you describe this unity?
A: It is one continuous whole over which the three states of waking, dream and sleep pass.
Once this is apperceived, one has returned from never having been away.
Q: Master, all my searching has failed. Does this mean that I am not worthy?
A: Not at all; you are most worthy. The only problem is that you have been ill-advised.
Where can you search for that which is non-objective?
Q: There are those who advise we must go beyond the world. What say you, Master Wu Hsin?
A: Would it not seem reasonable that prior to going beyond the world, one have full understanding of that state before the world?
Attain that and then see if anything more is required.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, once I acquire clarity of sight, will I view others differently?
A: Yes, without Knowledge, one cannot know the other. With Knowledge, one is the other.
Q: Master, my happiness comes and goes. What can I do to give it stability?
A: One cannot speak of “my happiness” as if it were an exclusive possession. One cann
ot use “my happiness” as one would use “my wife”.
The happiness that Wu Hsin speaks of is universal; it cannot come and go. It is inherent in you, in your innermost being.
Q: Which path is best for me?
A: By whatever path you go, you will have to lose yourself in it.
Self realization is only the realization of that which is not true. Whatever approach aligns with your disposition is the path to pursue.
The notion of paths is as useless as back pockets on a shirt.
There are no paths to what you already are.
Q: Master, does destiny control my course in life?
A: The tree is latent in the seed. It is already there.
This is so for all seeds and their fruits.
Q: Master, what is reality?
A: Reality is thoughtlessness. When one is without thought, one's vision is clear and reality is discerned.
Q: Master Wu Hsin, I have been your faithful student for many years now. However, the goal continues to elude me. What is my failing?
A: You indeed sense that you may not be what you believe yourself to be. But, you refuse to investigate it with sufficient depth for fear of losing what you have.
You are not yet willing to relinquish your sense of continuity.
Wu Hsin advises there is nothing to fear.
Q: Master, why do you refuse to recommend any practice?
A: All practices require doing something. As such, they reinforce the cage that holds you, the notion of a doer.