Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth. --- Archimedes

Ordinarily, unnoticed in our perceiving and thinking is the assumption that "we" are truly standing "somewhere" apart from the "objects" of this perceiving and conceiving.

Assuming this supposed point of view has been called
'the dream[ing] of an objective universe.'


"Awakeness" is "actual immediacy."

this dualistic world

There is nothing perfectly simple in this world.

Everything is doomed to final decomposition.

It seems to exist as a unit, to be itself, but there is nothing there
that cannot be reduced to its component parts.

It is sure to be dispersed.


--- D. T. Suzuki

Mind is never truly divided

Only let not your insight be interrupted
through all the periods of time,

and you will be at peace with whatever situation you come into.


--- Lin-chi

the One Mind

Friends,

Mind has no form
and penetrates every corner of the universe.

In the eye it sees,

in the ear it hears,

in the nose it smells,

in the mouth it talks,

in the hand it seizes,

in the leg it runs.

That which is most unmistakably perceivable
right before your eyes,
though without form, yet absolutely identifiable---

this is what understands the discourse and listens to it.


--- Lin-chi

"pure subjectivity" is "pure objectivity"

"To escape" or "to be disengaged" or any[thing] implying the idea of keeping oneself away from a world of becoming, is altogether inadequate to express the Zen way of achieving "salvation." Even "salvation" is a poor term, because Zen recognizes nothing from which we are to be saved. We are from the first already "saved" in all reality, and it is due to our ignorance that we talk about being saved, or freed. Zen knows no traps or complexities from which we are to escape. The traps or complexities are our own creation.

Zen, therefore, does not try to disengage us from the world, to make us mere spectators of the hurly-burly we see around us. Zen is right in the midst of the ocean of becoming. It shows no desire to escape from its tossing waves. It does not treat Nature as if it were an enemy to be conquered, nor does it stand away from Nature. Indeed it is Nature itself. For "pure subjectivity" is no other than "pure objectivity." Our inner life is complete when it merges into Nature and becomes one with it.


--- D. T. Suzuki

delicious

An officer once visited Gensha and asked, "They speak of our not knowing it while using it all the time. What is this 'it'?"

Gensha looked as if he were not paying attention to the questioner, for he innocently picked up a piece of cake and offered it to the officer to eat.

The latter finished it and repeated the question.

The master said, "There you are ! It is daily made use of and yet you know it not."


--- D. T. Suzuki

Prajna is the law of identity

The eye cannot see itself; to do this a mirror is needed, but what it sees is not itself, only its reflection. Vijnana may devise some means to recognize itself, but the recognition turns out to be conceptual, as something postulated.

Prajna, however, is the eye that can turn itself within and see itself, because it is the law of identity itself. It is due to Prajna that subject and object become identifiable, and this is done without mediation of any kind.

Vijnana always needs mediation as it moves on from one concept to another---this is in the very nature of Vijnana. But Prajna, being the law of identity itself, demands no transferring from subject to object.


--- D. T. Suzuki

"pure" seeing

Juten, the master, once asked a monk, "Where do you come from?

The monk answered, "I come from a monastery on the western side of the river where Kwannon is enshrined."

The master said, "Did you see Kwannon?"

"Yes I did."

"Did you see it on the right side or the left side?"

The monk replied, "When seeing there is neither right nor left."


In a mondo like this, one can readily see that the question at issue is not Kwannon, which is used merely as a symbol for ultimate reality; and the seeing of it means Prajna-intuition. There is no differentiation in it of right and left; it is complete in itself; it is a unity in itself; it is "pure" seeing.

This monk apparently understood what Prajna-intuition was, and this form of question on the part of the master is known as a "trial" question.


---from "Studies in Zen" by D.T. Suzuki

Prajna is the fundamental noetic principle whereby an apprehension of the whole becomes possible.

Prajna is a unifying principle. It does this not by going over each individual unit as belonging to an integrated whole, but by apprehending the latter at one glance, as it were. While the whole is thus apprehended, the parts do not escape from entering into this vision by Prajna. [Even the smallest] parts are united in the whole to become significant, and this unification is the doing of Prajna-intuition.

--- D.T. Suzuki

immediacy

...the idea of an all-permeating God in the world of plurality is the work of postulation. Prajna-intuition precludes this. No distinction is allowed here between the one and the many, the whole and the parts. When a blade of grass is lifted the whole universe is revealed there; in every pore of the skin there pulsates the life of the triple world, and this is intuited by Prajna, not by way of reasoning but "immediately." The characteristic of Prajna is this immediacy.


--- from "Studies in Zen" by D.T. Suzuki

the I is Reality

The eye that sees, the ear that hears, the tongue that tastes
are only apparatus,

but the I that sees, hears, and tastes is Reality.


--- Wei Wu Wei

all (nothing) at once

We have two eyes to see two sides of things,

but there must be a third eye which will see

everything at the same time and yet not see anything.


--- D.T. Suzuki

totality and viability

It need not be specially mentioned that the Unborn is brought into actuality by means of the instinctive or unconscious reaction to sense-stimuli and their psychological complications; but the main point is that all these conscious and unconscious activities on the part of each individual are gathered up by the basic notion of "I am" or "I exist."

Descartes' dictum, "I think, therefore I am," will be, according to Bankei, "I feel (or perceive), therefore I am," and when this "am" is apprehended in its deepest sense we have the Unborn.

Descartes' "am" is epistemological and therefore dualistic and has not yet touched the rock-bed of existence, the source of all things.

The "I am" must preserve its totality and viability if we are to come to the idea of the Unborn.


---D. T. Suzuki

the Unborn for Bankei was not a static concept

The Unborn was the content of Bankei's satori which sprang up from his whole being, and enveloped it, so that he felt as if he were living in and with the Unborn all the time. The Unborn with him, therefore, was not a static conception. He did not intuit it spatially but temporally; he lived it, and while living he knew he was it---which is satori.


---from "Living by Zen" by D.T. Suzuki

the Unborn

What every one of you has got from your parents in no other than the Buddha-mind, and this mind has never been born and is full of wisdom and illumination. As it is never born, it never dies...and by this unborn Buddha-mind all things are perfectly well managed.

When you were coming this way to hear my sermon, or as you are actually listening to it, suppose you hear a bell or a crow. You at once recognize that the bell is ringing or the crow is crying, and you do not make any mistake. It is the same with your seeing: you pay no attention to a certain thing, but when you see it you at once know what it is.

It is the Unborn in you that is performing all these miracles, and as long as you are all like that, you cannot deny the Unborn, which is the Buddha-mind, bright and illuminating.


--- Bankei

When a kitten succeeds

in catching its tail,

what has it gained?

continuum (continued)

Satori is the continuum becoming conscious of it[self].

When it perceives itself as it is in itself, there is a satori.

Therefore there is in satori no differentiation of subject and object.


--- D.T. Suzuki

continuum

What is given us

primarily, immediately,

is a continuum

which is not divisible into atoms;


but as we "experience" it,

it divides itself

into an infinity of atoms.


--- from "Living by Zen" by D.T. Suzuki

'conceptualized percepts'

From the first,

not a thing there is,

except what you have made

out of your own illusive mind.


---Ch'an text quoted by D.T. Suzuki

all is

There is no one to look.

There is no place to look.

There is What IS.


--- Wayne Liquorman

a non-finite mirror reflecting everything

Q: What exactly do you mean when you say, or imply, that everything perceived is a "reflection of the perceiver?" Of the self of the perceiver?

A: Could there be such an entity---other than as a phenomenal reagent apparatus? All perception is presumably a reflection of what appears in what is conveniently referred to as "pure mind," commonly compared to a non-finite mirror which reflects everything, retains nothing, and has no cognisable existence.

Q: Whose notion is that?

A: To my knowledge Chuang Tzu described it first, and the T'ang dynasty Masters and their successors used the simile freely. "Mirror-Mind" has proved a helpful appellation.

Q:Does the "Mirror-Mind" perceive "ill-mannered bastards?"

A: The "Mirror-Mind," or what the term represents, perceives no thing whatever. Perception is phenomenal, and "ill-mannered bastards," or "sanctity" for that matter, is a conceptual interpretation on the part of what may be called a psychic complex.

Q: Then what is there really?

A: Why, no thing, of course! You are making figments and hurling them at one another--- like clowns with custard pies.

Q: What fools you make us out to be!

A: That, too, is a custard pie. "Self and other" are the oldest and most ubiquitous pair of clowns---the very archetypes of all clowns and of all clownishness.


--- Wei Wu Wei

Undivided, mind IS Apperceiving

Wei Wu Wei used a term I like very much: apperception.

The pointer of this term was to suggest perception without a perceiver, knowing without a knower.

This apperception is a knowing beyond the organism, a knowing that is TOTAL...not relative.


--- Wayne Liquorman

mirror mind (direct non-volitional apperceiving)

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection:

The water has no mind to receive their image.


--- Chuang Tzu

Just the no-facts, ma'am

There are no facts,

only interpretations.


--- Nietzsche

I AM ALL !

Like an electric light discovering

that it, itself, is shining;

the awareness that is intrinsic,

discovers itself.


--- Sokei-an

the gateless gate

The layman Vimalakirti has asked each of the assembled Bodhisattvas to define non-duality. After each of them has given his view, he asks Manjusri to express his.

Manjusri says, "As I understand it, when there is not a word to utter, not a sign to see, nothing to take cognizance of, and when there is complete detachment from every form of questioning, then one enters the gate of non-duality."

Manjusri then asks, "O Vimalakirti, what is your view?"

Vimalakirti remains silent and does not utter a word.

"Well done, well done, indeed O Vimalakirti!" cries Manjusri. "This is really the way to enter the gate of non-duality, which no words can explain!"


from "Zen and Japanese Culture" by D.T. Suzuki

intimate answer

If you want to be intimate with Reality,

no questions need to be asked---

for the answer is where they have not yet been raised.


--- D.T. Suzuki

doesn't it ?

Doesn't it "take time"

to "be present" ?

an absolute point where no dualism obtains

If you want to understand Zen, understand it right away without deliberation, without turning your head this way or that. For while you are doing this, the object you have been seeking for is no longer there. This doctrine of immediate grasping is characteristic of Zen.

If the Greeks taught us how to reason and Christianity what to believe, it is Zen that teaches us to go beyond logic and not to tarry even when we come up against "the things which are not seen." For the Zen point of view is to find an absolute point where no dualism in whatever form obtains.

Logic starts from the division of subject and object and belief distinguishes between what is seen and what is not seen. With Zen all these are swept aside as something veiling our insight into the nature of life and reality.


--- D.T. Suzuki

forget yourself

The art of the sword consists not in vying for victory, nor in testing strength;

it consists in your not seeing me and my not seeing you.

The swordsman does not see "this' or "that"

and yet knows well what's what.


He now has no sword, no body. But this does not mean

that all has vanished into a state of nothingness,

for there is most decidedly a something

that is moving, acting, and thinking.


The main point is to forget yourself as well as your opponenent

and to let the myo work itself out.


--- D. T. Suzuki

no room here

Myo is a Japanese word signifying a mode of activity which comes directly out of one's inmost self without being intercepted by the dichotomous intellect.

The act is so direct and immediate that intellection finds no room here to insert itself and cut it to pieces.

Freedom, creativity, and myo are synonymous.


--- from 'Zen and Japanese Culture' by D.T. Suzuki

What is there

to be wanted,

or feared,

by any one?

no way

How can we point to "THIS" that includes the very act of pointing?

it takes two to tango

Because everything is, in essence, oneness,

all reference points in the appearance

are false.


--- Sailor Bob

The pointer is

that Awareness, or Subjectivity is ALL-including,

and thereby,

is the dissolving of all objectivity,

as such.

this knowing which we are

"Non-dual Truth" is this knowing which we are,

not any knowledge that we can claim to possess.

Truth cannot be possessed

There is no PERSON that "contains" this universal consciousness.
--- Robert Wolfe

Because Truth cannot be possessed, the I-possessor...is a role we simply stop playing...Reality is already ALL. --- William Samuel

Why isn't there a self?

Because it would need another to find the one.


--- Wei Wu Wei

One-Only-Reality

One-Only-Reality "loves" (knows and is aware of) Itself.

That Love in action is this Awareness-we-are.


--- William Samuel

Isness being Itself

The One Identity am I;

and there is no other "I"

but Isness being Itself!


--- William Samuel

suffer > L ferre (to bear), sub (under)

The "human organism" is naturally, functionally "self-referencing."

This is necessary for survival and is not, in itself, the "delivery system" for suffering.

It is the mistaken sense that this organism has the additional ability to somehow STAND APART from itself - to create its thoughts, feelings, and actions - that puts it in position for carrying the burdens of guilt and shame when things don't go as planned (or of pride and conceit when they do).

This "mistaken sense" is chimerical, and may be exposed as such, in the "all -inclusiveness" of present awareness.

a rather special kind of noticing

The kind

wherein

there is nobody to notice

that

there is nothing to be noticed.


--- Wei Wu Wei

the answer

The "answer"

is where

there is no question.

What IS (ALWAYS-ALREADY) IS

The real state must be effortless.

It is permanent.


--- Ramana Maharshi

not-two

'Who' can stand apart from 'the body-mind'

to then,

identify with 'it'?

tzu-jan, by itself so

So the Tao goes along of itself. And since there is always a basic element of life that cannot be defined---in the same way the Tao cannot be defined---it cannot be controlled. In other words, you cannot get outside yourself to define yourself or control yourself.

--- Alan Watts, "Eastern Wisdom"

people, places, and things

Are people, places, and things,

independent objects

or,

aspects of whatever we are?

Occasionally, the question gets raised...

Is there any "one" to be any "thing"

Or

Any "thing" for any "one" to be?

who am I ?

"You" cannot get out of

or into

What IS.


So, how can "you"

BE

an independent entity?

what what?

When Nan-yueh visited his teacher

he was asked,

"what is it that has thus come?"


He could not respond,

and was plagued by the question

for years.


Finally it dawned on him,

"Even to say it is anything

doesn't hit the mark."

not two

There was (is) just THIS,

with no way of knowing

anymore

what THIS is.


---Jeff Foster

The Functioning of Totality

The belief that you

are the subject of any object

is mistaken;

it's a "false claim."


The quasi-subject

and quasi-object

"arise together."

Mind Only

"Your actions" are neither yours,

nor are they actions.

Noumenal Living by Wei Wu Wei

BEING (or living noumenally, subjectively) is not ceasing to objectivise (interpret)--- for that is the functional aspect of subject---but ceasing to objectivise oneself, and thereby ceasing to regard one's objects as independent entities, as other than an aspect of oneself as their subject.

That, of course, implies that one is profoundly aware that one is not at all as any conceptual object, even a 'being'.

That integral absence, both phenomenal and noumenal, is the necessary awareness of is-as-it-isness---commonly called Awakening.

interpretation

What does "separation" depend on? What makes perception "indirect"?

The answer, in a word, is interpretation.

Consider that a newborn also receives "sensory data" BUT has not yet learned how to interpret "what it signifies."

There is only "perceiving."

Freedom from suffering simply means not being identified anymore, which means not being separate anymore. We only suffer when we're identified, and we're only identified when we're separate.

When we perceive directly, there is no separation. There is only perceiving.


---Jon Bernie

no Wayne (or Fred) separate from the Whole

Q: Is Wayne, with a body-mind mechanism, aware that he is not the doer?

A: There is no longer a Wayne WITH a body-mind mechanism. There is only the body-mind mechanism with the name Wayne. There is no separate Wayne there to be aware that he (is or) is not the doer, or that the sense of personal doership is gone. The whole issue is gone. There is simply doing.


---Wayne Liquorman

'subject and object' is a game of "Let's pretend."

Our real nature

can never be

asserted or denied.


---Jean Klein

'Liberation'

What is the use of trying

to climb out of a hole

we have never been in?


---Wei Wu Wei

Source-Inconceivable by Wei Wu Wei

WE ARE UNABLE TO CONCEIVE ANYTHING THAT DOES NOT 'LAST', including time itself. Conception, that which is conceived, is in total subjection to the concept of duration.

From this it follows that the act of conceiving must be outside time and that conception itself, therefore, is temporal.

What we are as 'conceiving' is thereby seen to be inconceivable, and inconceivability can be said to be a definition of This-which-we-are.

This-Here-Now, which is I, is inconceivable because it is intemporal and non-finite. 'Conceiving' cannot conceive 'conceiving', therefore since whatever is conceivable cannot be what we are, what is inconceivable must necessarily be the inconceivable that cannot conceive itself.

Therefore our very inability to conceive what we are may be apprehended as a direct expression of what-we-are, and perhaps the only one we can know.

Concepts are merely the results, rendered permanent by language, of a previous process of comparison.---Sir W. Hamilton

Are you still bound

by concepts -

such as believing that

there is a world out there

with you in it?

forget about it

Never can you

make or lose contact with

What IS.

think about it

You don't perceive

what's happening.


"You" are part of "what's happening"

perceiving itself.

an absolutely transparent moment

What we think of

as the present

is really made of the past.


The present is

an absolutely transparent moment

that only great saints

ever see,

occasionally.


---W.S. Merwin

"Know-ing" undivided into knower and known

Where perfect knowledge is,

there is nothing

(dualistically) existent.


---Lankavatara Sutra

Noumenal Godhead has no separate bits.---Wei Wu Wei

How could "Totality" or "What IS"

be some thing

for some one

to refer to?


Who could stand

somewhere apart

even from

the smallest "part"?

release

"grasp-ING"

is

un-

graspable

no boundary

Discovering

that nothing is yours

is Wholeness.


---Jeff Foster

echoes of Ramana

Because 'I', or 'Whole-Mind' - IS "All-Pervading",

'I' does not move.

'I' has no where to go to.

no "where" to go

You stand at the edge
Ready to throw yourself in.

What a shock to discover

There is nowhere to go
And no one to throw.


---Wayne Liquorman (Ram Tzu)

objectivisation is the only obstacle

Phenomena are extended in 'space' and have duration in 'time',

without which they could not be perceived,

and without which there could be no perceiver:

both must 'last' in order that anything can be known at all.


Such is the essential characteristic of phenomenality,

whereas noumenality,

HAVING NO CHARACTERISTICS WHATEVER,

knows no such limitations.


---Wei Wu Wei

genetic inheritance + subsequent conditioning = the "programming" of the body-mind apparatus

Can you find a place,

independent of the programming,

to operate from?


---Wayne Liquorman

there is no PHENOMENAL way out

There's no place to stand

to remove yourself

from this conceptual existence.


---Wayne Liquorman

when in doubt

By knowing

that this self-arising

pristine awareness

is buddhahood itself,

you will free yourself,

when in doubt,

from the obstacle

of hoping to obtain something

in the future.


---Longchenpa

Awakeness is All there IS

Awakeness awakens to Itself!

Awakeness is ALL there IS!

Is this what you meant by perfect?

Ram Tzu knows this...

You are perfect.

Your every defect
Is perfectly defined.

Your every blemish
Is perfectly placed.

Your every absurd action
Is perfectly timed.

Only God could make
Something this ridiculous

Work.

Direct, unobstructed experiencing is all that really arises.

Look nakedly at whatever appears at the moment it appears!


By relaxing in that state,

awareness,

in which there is no grasping at appearances as something,

arises non-dualistically---

intrinsically freed.



---Longchenpa

the essence of Dzogchen in six lines

The nature of phenomena is non-dual,

but each one, in its own state, is beyond the limits of the mind.

There is no concept that can define the condition of "what is"

but vision nevertheless manifests: complete as it is.

Everything already IS, and so, without the need for effort,

one finds oneself in the self-perfected state: this is contemplation.

this which you see before you---Huang Po

"The TRUTH" can not be hidden at all.

"Where" could "Totality" be hidden,

and from "whom" ?

non-objective existence

There is no "one" Here,

And "Here" is not a location

For any "thing."

pointers, not things

Consciousness (capitalized)

is not the awareness of something;

Consciousness is pure existence.

Existence and Consciousness

are one and the same.

---Steven Norquist

"grokking"

Losing oneself in what is Here

Is finding that "Here" is what one IS.

---Wei Wu Wei

What IS...the eternal, intemporal moment

It matters not if your preferred Teacher/Teaching calls it Consciousness, Heart, Mind, Love, God, Intemporality, What IS, Tao, Source, Beloved, Noumenon or a thousand other names...all are pointers to this one immutable Truth that is ALL that exists and from which you could not possibly be separate.---Wayne Liquorman

just this

There's nothing to get,

And no one to get it.

no "us" to have or do any "thing"

"Enlightenment" does not exist phenomenally

at all,

and "we" cannot have it---

because it is what-we-are!

---Wei Wu Wei

The being of separate beings is non-separate being---Chuang-Tzu

Without the stories, what can actually separate us?


Can you find anything, in this moment,

That can separate us?

And it's ALWAYS this moment.

---Jeff Foster

"Enlightenment/What IS" is not ABOUT any thing.

It is as it is,

that's all one can say.

---Ramana Maharshi

"Enlightenment/What IS" is not ABOUT "me"

Why are you unhappy?

Because 99.9 per cent

Of everything you think,

And of everything you do,

Is for yourself---

And there isn't one.

---Wei Wu Wei

Everything is allowed (not by you) to arise because it IS arising!

True freedom is to be just whatever's happening in the moment;

e.g. "a busy mind".

---Jeff Foster on Never Not Here

leave out the word "entirely"

...the assumption of (separate) self-existence

is not entirely necessary

to the function

of operative consciousness.

---Robert Wolfe

Volition ?

Volition is as conditioned

as any other factor

in the performance

of an action.

---Wei Wu Wei

The Soft Answer

It takes two to quarrel...

And there is nobody here.

---Wei Wu Wei

extend-ING from a false reference point

I call it "self-ING" (a verb).

There never was "A" self !

---Paul Hedderman

every "thing" equally IS

EQUANIMITY is incompatible with an I-concept.

An I-concept reacts as "volition,"

Equanimity acts but does not re-act.

Equanimity---"mind that is equal"---is NEITHER positive NOR negative.

Reacting is re-action between positivity and negativity, between Yes and No.

If you reveal equanimity "you" cannot "have" it; you must be it.

Then Yes and No have no meaning.

---Wei Wu Wei

Bondage?

Objectifying what I am as a subjective entity is making a "self" of what I am.

As soon as this concept becomes a reflex-action I am in bondage to that concept.

Liberation requires the abolition of that reflex-action, and the absence of the positive or negative objectification of what-I-am.

When what-I-am ceases to be a concept no bondage can remain--- for then there is no longer a conceptual entity to be bound or to be free.

Such is the meaning of "I AM THAT I AM."

---Wei Wu Wei

mutual aspects of NO THING

'Why are we friends?'

'Because, of course, relatively speaking, we are aspects of one another,' the owl explained.

'So that is it?' mused the rabbit. 'So different---and yet mutual aspects of something!'

'Nonsense!' the owl screeched, swivelling his head and turning his great eyes towards her. 'Mutual aspects of NO THING!'

'Is there really any difference?' asked the rabbit; 'I mean between "some thing" and "no thing"?'

'Of course not,' answered the owl, 'if you understand that.'

'Because what I am---you are, and what you are---I am?' queried the rabbit.

'Quite so,' the owl remarked, 'but, if you know that, why say it?'

'I know it a little,' said the rabbit, humbly, 'but I am never sure if I really do!'

'You necessarily know it,' the owl corrected,'but you are so conditioned that you can hardly believe what you know. Why do you ask?'

'I picked a particularly luscious thistle just now, and I found myself saying "but you are what I am"!'

'And wasn't he?'

'Yes, but it took away my appetite!'

'Conditioning! Conditioning!' hooted the owl. 'He is what you are as I, not as "me"!'

'What is the difference?' inquired the rabbit, puzzled.

'All and none', explained the owl;'"difference" appears relatively---absolutely there cannot even be appearance.'

'But relatively...?'

'Relatively, for instance, your offsprings are an aspect of "you" as "me", as well as being what you are as I, but absolutely there can be no difference whatever.'

'The Pure in Heart'

'"Blessed are the pure in heart---for they shall SEE God"!' quoted the unicorn, 'does that not apply to us?'

'Thank you,' concluded the owl, bowing formally, 'so you shall, so indeed you would be doing now if your "hearts" WERE "pure".'

'How can "hearts" be impure?' the rabbit inquired, scratching one ear.

'"Heart" in basic languages,' the owl replied, 'usually means what today we call "mind".'

'And our minds are not pure?' she continued, lowering her eyes.

'The word "purity" means undiluted, or wholeness, and nothing else whatever,' the owl explained patiently, 'but you are split, and so "impure".'

'So that is why I cannot see God,' mused the rabbit.

'"Seeing God" is "being God with mind which is whole",' the owl insisted, 'so that "the Whole-in-Mind shall be God, and so shall be blessed", as so perfectly stated; also the word "whole" is the same word as "holy"--- as our friend here would probably prefer to call it.'

'That is so,' confirmed the unicorn, 'holy it is indeed.'

'Then you mean...?' suggested the rabbit.

'Such is what God is,' the owl hooted,raising his great wings, 'and only God is WHOLE.'

more from Unworldly Wise

'Do you see who's coming?' asked the rabbit, wide-eyed. 'Open your eyes!'

'Unnecessary,' replied the owl, 'I see just as well when they are closed.'

'Well, who is it?' she asked.

'It's the unicorn,' he replied nonchalantly.

'And who on Earth is he?'

'Not "on Earth",' the owl murmured, 'a religious beast.'

'Does he understand how things are?' she inquired dubiously.

'He does,' the owl answered, 'basically at least, but he is currently misunderstood.'

'Will he talk sense?' she inquired.

'Does anybody?' he replied. 'To you---probably not: according to what he thinks you may understand.'

'Better for you to do the talking, then' the rabbit murmured modestly.

'Probably prefer to talk to you about God,' the owl hazarded.

'Can't you talk about God?' asked the rabbit.

'Talk? Yes, of course,' the owl replied, 'but really I have nothing to say about what I am.'

'And why is that?' asked the rabbit.

'Because there could not be anything to say,' the owl replied with finality.

---Wei Wu Wei

"This-which-I-am is not a concept."

The "Space" in which everything supposedly "appears, stays awhile, then disappears" is metaphorical. "Space", as such, and "time", which enables "it" to last, are concepts.

"act-ING" with neither actor nor act

Our every self-conscious act is a REACTION to a stimulus (via the sensory mechanism).

Therefore WU WEI means "not-REacting,"

And WEI WU WEI means acting (that is) "not-REacting,"

Which is spontaneous acting,

Which is non-volitional acting,

Which is the essence of Taoism.

---Wei Wu Wei

"Nothing I say is the Truth."

Truth can't be spoken. All of these words, all of these concepts are simply pointers, indicators of a Truth that is right here---that is ever-present---as clear, and as unmasked as it could possibly be.---Wayne Liquorman

"in" or "whole-see-ING"

Wayne Liquorman: Though you may have insight, the moment that insight is translated into a fact or a bit of knowledge, you've taken a step away from the insight itself.

Q: Are you saying that we may not be consciously able to get to the Truth, that there is something that we can feel but not think?

Wayne: Exactly. The difference between transcendent Knowing and the articulation of a truth, is the difference between a meal and its description on a menu.

---from "Enlightenment is not what you think"

"your" mind is not "yours"

When you look at me it is in "your" mind that I appear to exist.

When "I" look at you it is in "my" mind that you appear to exist.

When each of us looks at the other it is in the mind of the "looker" that whatever is seen appears.

Everything we may think of one another only appears to exist in the mind in which it appears.

And nothing we attribute to one another exists objectively at all.

"Your" mind is only apparently "yours."

It is not "yours" but what you are, all that you are.

Its "looking" is all "looking", see-ing-as-such manifesting relatively as subject perceiving object.

---Wei Wu Wei

One without a second

What is there that could be missing (or not)?

"just this"

"no thing is hidden"

why? well...

there IS no "thing"

to hide any "where"

from any "one",

nor any "time"

for any "hiding"

to "occur".

no separation

Every "thing" is a part

or aspect of

This-which-I-Am

or Awareness,

so the "parts"

are not truly "apart".

"the concepts of a concept"

How could anything

E x t e n d e d

In the concepts of "space" and "time"

Be other than a fabrication in mind,

As a dream is?

---Wei Wu Wei

Huang Po on "time" and "things"

If there's never been a single thing---

Past, present, and future are meaningless.


And vice-versa one may say,

Things are meaningless---

Because there's never been

A past, present, or future.

"all is"

"Immediacy is all"

Means

That nothing has ever happened,

Or EVER WILL!

" Presence"

As the "media"

Of space and time

Are conceptual,

"IM-MEDIA-CY" is All!

This which always is

Q: What is that reality?

A: That which always is, is the reality. Peace is another name for it. All that we need to do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it. We are not going to create peace anew. There is space in a hall, for instance. We fill up the place with various articles. If we want space all we need to do is to remove all those articles, and we get space. Similarly if we remove the rubbish, all the thoughts from our minds, the peace will become manifest. That which is obstructing the peace has to be removed. Peace is the only reality.

People all realise, or regard as real what is unreal, and all they have to do is give that up. When you do that you will remain as you always are and the Real will be Real.

--- Ramana Maharshi

"being-aware"

It is only with total humility,

and in absolute stillness of mind

that we can know

what indeed we are.

---Wei Wu Wei

I am awareness of all that is aware.

I am the seeing of whatever is being seen,
The hearing of whatever is being heard,
The perceiving of whatever is being perceived,
The knowing of whatever can be known,
The doing of whatever can appear to be done.

For I am awareness of everything whatsoever
Of which any sentient being can be aware.

And beyond awareness no thing is,
For no thing can be anything but awareness,
And there has never been anything that has existed
Otherwise than as its awareness.

This is the whole truth
And every sentient being can be aware of it,
For "being aware" is all, absolutely all
That he is as a sentient being.


This simple and unstudied statement is a commonplace expression of what all of us must know in our hearts, in the silence of a fasting mind, which represents what we think of as "humility" or the absence of conceptual I-ness, whereby each of us is free to apperceive what he is.---Wei Wu Wei

Non-Being

Unextended conceptually in "space,"

Unprotracted conceptually in "time,"

Formless, therefore, and without duration,

Unborn, therefore, and undying,

Eternally we are as I.

---Wei Wu Wei

How could you live or die when you ARE as I?

"Sad about that poor old pheasant!" sighed the rabbit, "he had such a lovely tail!"

"What happened to him that makes you sad?" asked the owl.

"Shot by one of those bipeds."

"Sad for you, and silly---but neither for him."

"Why not sad for both of us?" asked the rabbit, surprised.

"What difference could there be between 'living' and 'dying'?"

"Well," said the rabbit, "'living' is being alive, so to speak, and 'dying' is---well---being dead!"

"I do not apperceive the difference," the owl declared; "a phenomenon is an image in a psyche, and psychic images are appearances, whether perceived in dreams, hallucinations, or in what is called 'daily living.'"

"If you say so, but I think it matters to you nevertheless!" insisted the rabbit.

"That is only sentiment in relativity," the owl hooted. "Can it matter whether such images appear to 'live' or appear to 'die'?"

"Sentimentally indeed it CAN!" the rabbit persisted.

"That is part of the living-dream," the owl stated. "Besides, and this is the point, I cannot die."

"Can you live?" asked the rabbit.

"'Living' is only psychic imagery extended 'spatially' and in 'time'," the owl patiently explained; "I can neither 'live' nor 'die.'"

"Then what CAN you do?" asked the rabbit, courageously.

"Nothing whatsoever," answered the owl, "nor is there anything whatever to be 'done.' I AM."

from "Unworldly Wise" by Wei Wu Wei

"If you could say it simply," observed the rabbit, "perhaps I might understand."

"Eight words will suffice," snapped the owl.

"As you think," sighed the rabbit; "what are they?"

"I, WHO AM NO THING---AM EVERY THING," said the owl.

seeking?

If no "thing" exists,

"what" could "you" hope to find?

Or lose?

Why Are We Unaware of Awareness?

THE ANSWER is that split-mind, cognising by means of a subject cognising objects, cannot cognise its own "wholeness" as its object.

There is no need to cognise our "wholeness," and it is forever impossible to do so, for there is no "thing" here to cognise and no "thing" there to be cognised.

Any attempt to cognise what is cognising---and is thereby incognisable---forbids apperception of what-we-are. Such apperception is not a function of split-mind. It can only be an im-mediate apperception released by some sensorial stimulus---auditory, visual, tactile, or of an unrecognizable origin.

---Wei Wu Wei

"non-referentiality"

There is no one separate to know what "this" is.

"This" is not a what to be known by any one.

"dualism"

So long as there's the sense of being an entity, separate from the rest of totality, there will be the sense of undergoing experience as something that happens to or for that entity.

"what is, is"

The being of separate beings is non-separate being.---Chuang Tzu

"Undifferentiated Being"

"seeker": what's the difference between you and me?

"sage": you think there's a difference.

absence of an entity to conceive either

Ultimately, the non-difference of all pairs of opposites lies in the absence of an experiencer of them.---Wei Wu Wei

from The Education of Little Tree

She looked at me steady and said, "What happened---where?"
I tried to get it out. "Granpa's dying..."
I whispered, "rattlesnake...creek bank."
Granma dropped me flat on the floor.
She grabbed a sack and was gone. She could run!
She had not said anything, "Oh Lord!" or nothing.
She never hesitated nor looked around.
---Forrest Carter

there IS no entity to suffer

Identification with that("entity") which is suffering experience(as something separate) is what constitutes bondage, whereas "being-this-experience," devoid of entity, cannot be bound.---Wei Wu Wei

no place BUT home !

"We" don't have to look

In order to "see" that "this"

Is wherever "we" happen to be.

---Wei Wu Wei

no place to go

"We" cannot be apart from "What IS" so that "It" can be our "object."

a peek inside Ramana's "tool box" of pointers

In the beginning one has to be told that he is not the body, because he thinks that he is the body only. Whereas he is the body and all else. The body is only a part. Let him know it finally. He must first discern consciousness from insentience and be the consciousness only. Later let him realise that insentience is not apart from consciousness.---Ramana Maharshi

(and no one to come back)

You stand at the edge
Ready to throw yourself in.

What a shock to discover

There is nowhere to go
And no one to throw.

---Ram Tzu

"apperceiving-mind is not divided"

The "true Dharma" is

that there is no one to have a "Dharma"

--true or untrue--

nor any Dharma to have.---Wei Wu Wei

from Creativity and Taoism by Chang Chung-yuan

Lu's method may be called comprehending the fundamental, i.e. reducing one's knowledge, and having confidence in one's self.

"The ultimate truth is so simple."---Ramana Maharshi

Of "This-Presence-Now," there is no doubt.

"direct-non volitional-apperceiving"

You don't awaken; what has been eternally awake realizes itself. That which is eternally awake is what you are.---Adyashanti

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN AN OBJECTIVE "BEING"

The perfect understanding of that is perfect understanding itself. And that is because only non-objectivity itself can know it.---Wei Wu Wei

"voidness of apperceiving"

Every "THING" that "we" perceive and conceive

CAN be disputed.

"THIS-NO-THING-NOW" can not.

harsh words ?

Tibetan Dzogchen features a two-pronged approach, of which one prong is missing(or weak) in most contemporary non-dual pointing. Many people, these days, are pointing to what the Tibetans call "spontaneous presence" using terms like Awareness, Being, Oneness, etc. However, most give very short shrift to what the Tibetans call "cutting up solidity", which I would call "deconstructing duality." Without a thorough exposure of the invalidity of the perceptual/conceptual basis for the dualistic worldview, these "non-dual" pointers CAN largely serve as a new belief structure(necessarily dualistic) for the intact, "individual knower" or "experiencer" OF "Awareness", "Oneness", "Presence", etc.

"Consciousness becomes aware of Itself."

My feeling is that the witnessing state happens every day to everyone.
Let us ask: does that witnessing state happen when consciousness is fully engaged in something? No. At that moment you will not be able to taste the beauty and peace of that state, because that state of witnessing is then filled with perception and activity. Only when not too many things are happening in perception, will you feel the intensity of that witnessing state. Consciousness then becomes aware of its natural state.
So, this is possible when a certain calmness prevails, and not too many sensations occur. Peace of mind could happen when you go for a walk in nature, or at sunset, or on waking up in the morning. It doesn't necessarily have to come about through meditation or detachment.---Marc Beuret

"I am This, Here, Now !"

If the imaginary forest (of concepts) has been cleared
We only have to look in order to apperceive
What, when, and where we are,
That it is not what we KNOW, but what "I AM",
And that unborn, unliving, undying,
It is here and now and forever.---Wei Wu Wei

Unextended in conceptual space-time, we cannot not "be"---we ARE.

The abolition
Of conceptual extension
In space-time
Does away with relativity,
Revealing what-we-are:
Timeless and infinite,
Void in non-extension,
And so, absolute.--- Wei Wu Wei

I am, but not as an object.

Teacher: "You can have everything---if you don't want more than you already have."
Comment: Relax, you already ARE everything !

total release

Realization is not OF What IS. "Realization" IS What IS !---Wayne Liquorman

"Totality"

Grasping can only be of a part. What is sought INCLUDES the grasping.

I see directly, and then, "I" am absent.

In my conceptual absence
Everyone and everything
Is welcome HERE, where I AM,
And where they will be
Absolutely at home!---Wei Wu Wei

"perception of absolute inseparability"

Is there a perception available to us that does not depend upon a relative perspective?---Robert Wolfe

Samsara

Perception is Creation.---Francis Lucille

"apperceiving what we are"

When "mind" is sufficiently still, it can recognize itself in the "mirror" of its own "manifestings".

from Posthumous Pieces, ch.64

We are conditioned to regard the phenomenal as existent, but in order to apprehend what we are, such conditioning has to be discarded; what is sensorially perceived is then seen as the purely conceptual structure in mind which is all that it can be.---Wei Wu Wei

from ch. 8 of "All Else Is Bondage"

To per-ceive means "thoroughly to take hold of", but metaphysically there is no one to take hold of anything and nothing to take hold of. Therefore 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.---Wei Wu Wei

"there's no room (or time) for anything else"

In the immediacy, what you're seeking, you already are.---Sailor Bob

identity is a concept

There is nothing in what I am to be bound. Bondage, and the consecutive suffering---which is all suffering---is entirely dependent on the idea of an objective I, that is a "me". But no such contradiction-in-terms has ever existed, exists, or ever could BE. Moreover, no object could exist as such either, so how could I exist as an object?---Wei Wu Wei

actual

Ordinarily one thinks, "I am living my life." However, the "I" and "my life" are concepts. Only the "liv-ING" is actual.

"You're seeing things."

Perception(cognizing things) is a constructing in space and time. Without an extending from some reference point, there is no "space" or "time" and thus, no basis for "perception".

"knock, knock"

Wei Wu Wei tells us that no such "thing" as a "self" exists, or ever could exist.
Why?
Because it would require a second self to know the first!

"The Absolute"

It is often said that "the Absolute" is hidden, but nothing could be more untrue.
What we are as "I" is everywhere and always. "I" cannot hide: from whom could "I" be hidden? To play hide-and-seek with myself is a game that even small children do not play.---Wei Wu Wei

"spontaneous presence"

The Negative Way demonstrates that there is nothing to grasp, and no one to try.

Who wants to know?

"There's a difference between understanding this stuff...AND TRULY LETTING GO; and letting everything be. It's obvious."---Suzanne Foxton on Conscious TV

"Oneness"

In direct-timeless-apperceivING, no central point of reference ("me") can become established---that takes "time", and there isn't any.

nothing to get... or lose

In Non-duality, there isn't anything.---Wayne Liquorman

Would you believe, "a conceptualized percept" ?

There is no such thing as a thing.

from "Open Secret", chapter 70 (cont.)

There is no other apart from self,
No non-being apart from being,
No non-manifestation apart from manifestation,
Not because that is conceptually inevitable,
But because their mutual existence is Apperceiving.---Wei Wu Wei

There's no there there.

Where do you stand to assert that this is not real?---Wayne Liquorman