by Wu Hsin
The content of memory is the source of identity wherein memory combines recordation with recall.
Yet that doesn't address what it is that identifies.
Free yourself from the memory of the past and the dreams of the future and come face to face with living present.
Find That by which you know "I am".
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Wu Hsin may lead the ox to the pond, but he cannot force it to quench its thirst.
Rare is the one that drinks from Wu Hsin's pond.
Come to understand that where you are and what you are doing has no bearing on what you are.
One need do nothing to be what one is. However, to be what one is not requires ongoing efforts.
Whether an emperor sits on a throne or squats on a toilet, he remains an emperor.
Simply be aware of your ongoing desire to be this or that within the world.
Then you will see that there is no need for you to free yourself from a world which exists only in your imagination.
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What is real is relative to the tools of perception, that is, the senses and the brain.
This can be said to be relative reality.
Nothing can be said of absolute reality.
Trying to express it is like trying to ignite a log with a wet flame.
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Wu Hsin was born with the birth of the world.
Total functioning continues whether the "me" is there or not.
Yet one imagines he is the doer. One begins to walk and continues to do so for a short while. Then, it ends.
"I walked" is declared although no attention was placed on the walking.
It happened of itself, yet one imagines a walker.
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"I Am" is the beginning of experience. It is the affirmation of Conscious Being.
Consciousness is. With manifestation, there is consciousness "of". With identification, there is consciousness "as".
"I" is its father. Only the unconditional precondition, the light by which darkness is known and the mover of all that moves is worthy of the reference "I".
Any other "I" is inauthentic, an echo, and a distortion of That.
Believing in any inauthentic-I is like believing you can walk away from your feet.
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The constant drive toward changing, toward improving or becoming, must end.
In its place, must be the yearning for That which never changes.
Only after thoughts arise does the world comes into being.
The mirage does not disappear even after knowing it to be a mirage.
Individuals expecting great changes will likely meet with disappointment.
Rather than focusing on what needs changing, turn the attention to what cannot change.
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The Eternal Ever cannot be experienced; it is a non-experiential state.
Arising out of it is the consciousness, then "I Amness", and the life experience of the body in the world.
Once the intellect appears, the real is replaced by the conceptual.
External objects are presented as appearances. As such, we may be said to possess a viewpoint regarding them rather than knowledge of them.
A rose is a markedly different object to a blind man than it is to one who sees.
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How do you know what you are?
You are what you think you are.
You are what you believe you are.
You are what others say you are.
You are what you feel you are.
You are what you sense you are.
But do you really need a mirror to know you are? What mental activity is required?
Stop telling yourself what you are and only be what you are.
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When you are dreaming, do you go to the dream world or does it occur in you?
It is no different in this waking state; it comes to That which is already there.
Because your point of view is outward from a seeming personal center, you speak of a "without". In that case, you are told to look within.
The without and within are relative to the seeming center.
What is everywhere is neither without nor within, yet both.
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Understanding dispels belief as light dispels darkness.
The absence of understanding necessitates belief.
One is compelled to believe as it seemingly provides the only comfort amidst all the insecurity.
To realize is to discern what is real.
Before realization, one creates what seems to be real and takes it to be so without verification.
The investigation Wu Hsin talks about has essentially two factors, namely discernment between the actual and the believed and permanent concentration on the actual.
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Because one identifies oneself with his body, one thinks one is born and dies.
What is born is only a particular sense of presence.
The flame is time bound, based on the quantity of the fuel.
The personal consciousness has a date when it will go.
On the date, all that is contained in that consciousness is gone, having returned to the Universal.
This Universal is the same destination for all thought.
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There are three stages, if one could call them that.
First, there is the one who identifies himself with the body-mind.
One who thinks I am a body, a personality, an individual apart from the world.
He excludes and isolates himself from the world as a separate personality.
Next, there is no one separate and distinct.
There is only the Consciousness Life Energy, which appears as the world. "I Am" means the whole world is.
Last is the Absolute, the Pure Potentiality, the Ultimate principle that births the Consciousness Life Energy.
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The notions of good and bad are the parents of confusion.
How much time is spent trying to create a future that will make satisfactory what is now deemed unsatisfactory?
In giving up the belief that one knows how things ought to be, where can unhappiness gain a foothold?
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The Conscious Life Energy is a fuel-less flame.
It is the unseen Seer of all that is seen, the unknown Knower of all that is known and the unmoved Mover of all that moves.
Seeing, hearing, thinking and acting all happen in the same way that fingernail growth happens.
Stop taking credit for what you didn't do.
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Wu Hsin advises a reversion to Being.
Being True Being, not a single thought pertains to you.
Why, then, make it yours?
When thoughts have nothing to do with you, how can they disturb the inherent peace that you are?
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Awakening in the morning always precedes "I awoke". In that sense, "I awoke" is a mere echo of awakening.
What wakes up?
Body consciousness wakes up. The I-am-this-body idea wakes up.
It is Self-projected body and mind.
This "you" is just another phenomenon appearing on the screen of consciousness.
It comes and goes intermittently during each daily cycle.
Seeing that the body and the world rise and set together, one is confronted by this profundity: when I was not, the world was not and when I won't be, the world won't be.
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He has no wants, only biological needs.
His actions arise therefrom.
He has no opinions or worries.
He has no dissatisfaction with What-Is.
There is no mind, there is no entity.
Events are of interest only as long as they last.
He is driven solely by instinct.
Who is this great one, this one who has mastered enlightenment?
He is the curr who uses this compound as his home.
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When one is no longer occ
upied, there is nothing that needs to be done.
What does Wu Hsin mean by occupied?
When phenomena appear in the clear empty space, the attention has become occupied.
That which sees cannot be seen.
To pursue it, one must gaze into vacancy.
Then, even when one is not aware of other things, one continues to be aware of Oneself.
This is the throb of Being.
September (Qī Yuè)
1
The mind looks after the body; it calls the body "me".
We accept the notion of a self, when in truth there is no such thing.
We create an ultimate destination, when in reality there is no such thing.
A path is used to close the distance between two points.
What path is there that can take you to yourself?
2
"I am" is the spark that ignites the mind.
The world is a picture made of light from this ignition.
One assigns reality to the pictures while ignoring the light.
When the light is extinguished, the world ceases.
A still mind is one in which the light is extinguished.
3
If Consciousness could be pointed out, as having a specific location, it would be a place existing in space.
All that Wu Hsin can say is that it is nearby. It cannot be exactly described.
But when there is an intuitive understanding of its substance, it is there.
It's all right here. Yet somehow, inexplicably, you are like birds in flight looking for sky.
4
Mind is not an illusion. It is the stream of thought, the process of thought.
"My mind" is the illusion.
The more easily you can be without thoughts, the nearer you are to It.
To make the mind die, you must deprive it of energy in the form of thought.
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Wu Hsin is the introduction of a torch to a darkened cave.
Even if a poor man's eating utensils were made of pure silver, he would be a pauper as long as he remains uninformed.
In the same sense, clear awareness is already there, but the clarity may not be.
It is for Consciousness to eliminate all the debris creating the entanglement between It and the body.
Once the debris has been removed, any seeming self melts away like a candle approaching the sun.
This is the path of the rejection of all paths.
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You are here looking for the experience of nothingness.
Wu Hsin tells you go home.
There is no experience of nothingness.
All experience requires subject and object.
Nothingness is the absence of both.
Cease feeding your delusion.
7
You came and ask Wu Hsin for signs of progress.
If the goal is the disempowerment of the world, then progress is measured by one's disinclination toward worldliness.
However, all notions of progress are really spurious since the sought is available in every instant.
It merely requires that one make a donation to Wu Hsin and that donation is one's self.
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To be a person requires memory, whereas to be does not.
What path must be undertaken to be what you have always been?
Someone has told you that milking a raven is what you need to do.
But can a raven be milked?
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Man lives by words, not by the reality of what is.
What does it matter what Wu Hsin calls himself or doesn't call himself?
What matters is whether his words are true.
If they are true, then live by them yourself.
10
The mind deals exclusively with the known. The known means the past.
If something is known, it was known at some point prior to this moment.
As such, the mind is a product of the past.
The first thing known was "I am". Before that was known, nothing was known.
All so-called knowledge is subsequent to it.
Abidance in the first thing known will take you where you need to go.
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Go to that place where nothing is.
It is there that everything, in fact, is.
Penetrate this space.
You will vanish from yourself.
Then, only the authentic You will remain.
12
There are two ways of knowing things, knowing them intuitively and knowing them conceptually.
The knowledge that we have by eating rice is of a different quality and is superior to our knowledge about rice before having tasted it.
No one can do more than lead you to the door of the sanctuary, invite you to enter, and bow and depart.
One will never reach his own core except through himself and in the very depth of himself.
The essence sees the essence in the essence through the essence.
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There can be no transformation of consciousness.
Consciousness is; it is unchanging and constant.
What occurs is a transformation in brain processes, a movement away from the self-centric viewpoint and back to where there was perception without a perceiver.
Realization is the repositioning of the sentient screen that is consciousness from the background to the foreground.
That which had been hidden is then obvious.
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It is only when you are confused that you need to be led, to be taught.
The end of confusion is the end of dependence.
The simplest way to end confusion is to accept Wu Hsin's words with total conviction.
Make them your own. Live as if all were true although yet unrealized.
This is effortless work.
How can realization not follow?
15
Wu Hsin declares that the authenticity of clarity is discerned as follows:
The lightning flashes.
The world vanishes.
I remain.
The world returns, as I.
16
You know you are. This is obvious.
However, that in you which knows you are is less obvious.
It is like a subterranean spring; it is there, but is simply not perceived.
It is a singular drop of noumenal essence, easily overlooked.
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When the learned hear the words of Wu Hsin, they immediately discard all that has been learned.
What is there that needs to be learned?
There can be no state of waking in which I am not.
There can be no state of dreaming in which I am not.
There can be no state of deep sleep in which I am not.
This is the acknowledgement of the continuity I am.
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