something other than it is

There seem to two kinds of searchers: 

those who seek to make their ego something other than it is,

 i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), 

and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation

 and play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, 

which is to dis-identify themselves with the ego, 

by realizing its unreality,

 and by becoming aware of their eternal identity

 with pure being. 

~ Wei Wu Wei 

perception

 

...perception is the first stage of the conceptualisation process, 

and the two elements -perception and conception -

 form one whole, and that one whole is the mechanism

 whereby we create samsara.

 

What we are required to do is the contrary, 

to lay everything down, to be nothing, to know that we are nothing,

 and thereby leave behind the whole process of conceptualisation. 

 So-doing we cease to be that which we never were, 

are not, and never could be.

 

That, no doubt, is nirvana, ... 

at that moment we are sitting in a state of perfect availability. 

 We re-become integrally that which we always were, 

are, and forever must be.

 

...because THIS can never be thought or spoken, for this,

 being purely non-objective, is in a different "direction of measurement" 

from any conceptual dimension, being the source of all 

dimensionality and phenomenality.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Wei Wu Wei

(All Else is Bondage)

 

 

 

THIS-HERE-NOW

Every time you try to name THIS-HERE-NOW

 you are an eye trying to see itself.  

 

You cannot objectify THIS WHICH-YOU-ARE, 

and that which you can objectify is THAT-WHICH-YOU-ARE-NOT.

 

THIS which is seeking is THAT which is sought, and

THAT which is sought is THIS which is seeking.

 

When Bodhidharma told Hui K'o to bring him his mind

 so that he might tranquillise it, 

and Hui K'o failed to find it, 

 

Bodhidharma said "There you see - I have tranquillised it for you,"

 what then enlightened Hui K'o?  

 

He saw that the sought was the Seeker, 

and that the seeker was the Sought.

 

 

 

~ Wei Wu Wei

(All Else is Bondage)

 

 

 

 

 

the I - notion

Doing away with the I - notion is the same as not desiring
 the personal attainment of enlightenment.

Not desiring that (the "last desire," the "last barrier") 
is "having it," for "having it" is in any case merely being rid
 of that which concealed what is forever that which alone we are.

Therefore not desiring personal attainment of that is
 at the same time the elimination of the I-notion 
which constitutes its concealment.

.

The idea of liberation automatically inhibits
 the simple realization that we are free.

~ Wei Wu Wei

from All else is Bondage

you seek and cannot find

That which you seek and cannot find - is the Seeker.

"By the inquiry 'Who am I?'.

The thought 'who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts,

and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre,

it will itself in the end get destroyed.

Then, there will arise Self-realization."

The thinker is the ego, 

which if sought will automatically vanish.

Reality is simply loss of the ego.

Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.

Because the ego has no real existence, 

it will automatically vanish, 

and Reality will shine forth by itself in all its glory.

This is the direct method.

All other methods retain the ego, 

In those paths so many doubts arise, 

and the eternal question remains to be tackled. 

But in this method the final question is 

the only one and is raised from the very beginning.

No practices are even necessary for this quest.

~ Ramana Maharshi

And the only practice is seeing this, 

which is Awareness, 

which is this which an eye cannot see when it looks at itself.

Practice is deepening understanding, 

for understanding is first an intuitional glimpse of the truth of this, 

then the obtaining of this intuitional glimpse at will, 

and, finally, the permanent installation of this inseeing 

when "walking, standing, sitting and lying," 
in public and in private, asleep and awake.

~ Wei Wu Wei

from All Else is Bondage
x-ray image of a rose by albert koetsier

.

absent as "you"

Whenever you are absent as "you,"

You are present as I.

So you may say "My absence as 'me' is My presence as I."

Of course I am always present as I,

but when I appear to be present as "you" (or as "me")

I seem to be absent,

i.e. My presence appears to be an absence.

Also you may say "My absence as 'that' (which can be known)

is My presence as THIS" 

(about which there cannot be anything to know).

If one were to think it,

apperceive it, 

understand it, even occasionally?...

~ Wei Wu Wei

from Posthumous Pieces

.

time and space?

We tend to misunderstand the nature, 

and exaggerate the importance, of "time" and "space."

There are no such "things" (they do not exist in their own right):

 these come into apparent existence, i.e. they "function"

 only as a mechanism whereby events, extended spatially and sequentially, 

may become cognizable. 

 

 They accompany events and render their development realizable.

   In themselves they have no existence whatever.  They are appearances, 

and their apparent existence is deduced from the events they accompany

 and render perceptible.  They are hypothetical,

 like the "ether," symbols, like algebra, psychic inferences to aid 

in the cognizance of the universe we objectify,

 and they neither preexist, nor survive apart from, 

the events they accompany, but are utilized in function

 of each such event as it occurs.

Where there is no event there is no need of "time" or of "space"

 - and in their absence we are no longer in bondage- 

for there is no one to believe that he is bound.

Time is only an inference, devised in an effort to explain growth, 

development, extension and change, which constitute a further direction 

of measurement beyond the three that we know 

and at right-angles to volume; and "past," "present" and "future" 

are inferences derived from this temporal interpretation 

of the further dimension in which extension appears to occur. 

 

 All forms of temporality, therefore, are conceptual and imagined.

~ Wei Wu Wei

from Open Secret

I - notion alone can have "intentions"

.

The I - notion alone can have "intentions"

 - for "ego" and "will" are synonymous.

Therefore the absence of the one 

is also absence of the other.

 

"Intentions" simply imply an act of will.  

The Taoist  wu wei does not imply phenomenal inactions,

 but the absence of volitional action. 

 

 The absence of volitional action implies the presence of noumenal action, 

which is the Taoist Te, the dynamic aspect of Tao. 

 What, then is noumenal action?

 

There is a positive implication in Shen Hui's definition of wu nein as a double absence, 

 the absence of no-thought or of non-conceptualization, which is the presence of that absence,

 and that presence is the suchness of thought which is precisely spontaneous action. 

 Non-volitional action (wu wei), whether perceptive, conceptive,

 or somatic is noumenal action, and noumenal action 

is the so-called "non-action" (non-volitional, 

non-egoitic action) of the Sage.

 

 

 

~ Wei Wu Wei

from All else is Bondage

.

cure

.

It is less the medicine than the doctor that cures.

 

It is less the doctor than the organic consciousness that heals.

 

Always the organic consciousness is responsible for illness and for its cure.

 

The doctor inspires, gives the impulsion that leads to health, 

the medicine helps or hinders locally to that end.

 

Medicine-only is an attempt at healing despite the organic consciousness.

~ Wei Wu Wei

from Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon

Who has been lived all these years

.

This which seeks is That which is sought; 

That which is sought is This which seeks.

There is no seeker, and no thing sought.

The functioning of "seeking" in whole-mind 

is conceptualized by split-mind as Seeker and Sought.

From the beginning not a thing is. 

~ Hui Neng

This which I am is That (which I am not),

That which I am not is This (which I am).

There is neither This or That.

I neither am nor am not 

(there is neither an I which is nor an I which is not)

There is neither whole-mind nor split-mind.

There is nothing to function, and no functioning.

There is no absence and no presence.

There still remains spontaneous immediacy?

It, also, neither is nor is not.

.

Now do you understand that there is not a thing to be understood?

Who has understood,  What has not understood?

Who has been lived all these years,  What has suffered?

~ Wei Wu Wei

from All Else is Bondage

no more real than is a cinematograph film

The human being may be no more real than is a cinematograph film. 

When the projected light is switched off all that remains is a blank screen. 

That which has been projected by light was a series of 'stills'.

Such also is what is being projected by 'life'. 

The more you consider the analogy 

the more perfect it seems to be: it could help us to understand.

~ Wei Wu Wei

This Phenomenal Absence

.

NOWHERE, WHERE I am an object, am I; 
nor where any part of  "me" is an object is it part of me or is mine.
  Only here where I can see nothing (but the objective universe) am I
 - and I am only an absence objectively.

When I realize that, I cease also to be an individual "I"
 for anything individual is thereby an object.

My only existence is non objective,  as non - objectivity itself.

I cannot be portrayed in any way, drawn, photographed or described. 
 That which impersonally I am has no qualities or resemblance
 to an individual subject - object, which is purely conceptual.

.

Note:  A "self", an "ego", any kind of separated personality or being, is an object.  
That is why nothing of the kind is - as the Diamond Sutra so repeatedly insists.

My objective self only has a conceptual existence.

Non - objectively I am the apparent universe.

Identifying myself with my conceptual object is what constitutes bondage.
  Realizing that my conceptual object only exists in so far as it
 and its subject are THIS phenomenal absence and now - constitutes liberation.

I am my phenomenal absence.

~ Wei Wu Wei
 from  All else is Bondage

surpression of thinking

The Masters' exhortations to abjure  "thinking" 
 do not imply the suppression of thought 
but the reorientation, by articulation,
 of the impetus that results in dualistic
 thought into its im-mediate experience.

Suppressed thought is the negative aspect of the dualism 
 "thought - no - thought,"  another mode of thought itself
 and "one half of a pair,"  whereas what the Masters mean
 is wu nien, which is the absence of both counterparts,
 thought and no - thought,  which is the presence of the suchness
 of thought, and that is expressed in spontaneous Action 
 ( pure action arising from Non - action: Wu wei).

Wu Nien is the presence of the absence of no - thought.

~ Wei Wu Wei
 from  All else is Bondage