"The Book of Life: 365 Days of Mindful Meditation [Douban Rating as High as 8.8! The great spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti of the 20th century, whose words and works cannot be attributed to any religion, neither Eastern nor Western, but belong to the whole world!]" Reading Notes#
Author: J. Krishnamurti
Reading Time: 7 hours
These are the notes and excerpts I recorded while reading "The Book of Life: 365 Days of Mindful Meditation [Douban Rating as High as 8.8! The great spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti of the 20th century, whose words and works cannot be attributed to any religion, neither Eastern nor Western, but belong to the whole world!]" on WeChat Reading.
Translator's Preface: The Unlocatable Liberator#
I believe that reality is untraceable; you cannot reach it through any religious sect or method. Since reality is infinite, unconstrained, and untraceable, it certainly does not require human organization. No organization has the authority to force people to follow a specific path. If you do this, reality will become a rigid dogma and will also become a plaything for the weak and dissatisfied. Reality cannot be bent to man; man must approach it through his own efforts. The mountain cannot move to your feet automatically; you must bravely traverse the valleys and climb the cliffs to reach the summit... I care about only one thing: to help humanity achieve unconditional ultimate liberation.
I believe that reality is untraceable; you cannot reach it through any religious sect or method. Since reality is infinite, unconstrained, and untraceable, it certainly does not require human organization. No organization has the authority to force people to follow a specific path. If you do this, reality will become a rigid dogma and will also become a plaything for the weak and dissatisfied. Reality cannot be bent to man; man must approach it through his own efforts. The mountain cannot move to your feet automatically; you must bravely traverse the valleys and climb the cliffs to reach the summit... I care about only one thing: to help humanity achieve unconditional ultimate liberation.
Introduction: You Are This Book of Life#
We sit like friends in a park on a sunny day, discussing life, our inner issues, exploring the nature of existence, and seriously asking ourselves why life is so full of difficulties? Why does our highly developed intellect make our lives meaningless? Is everything just for survival? Why does daily life become a torment? Perhaps we go to church or follow some political or religious leaders, but daily life is always filled with disturbances; although there are moments of fleeting joy or happiness, life is always shrouded in clouds. You and the speaker are discussing these issues in the spirit of friendship, so there is care and sincere emotion in each other's hearts. Let us see if it is possible for us to live in a state without worries.
We sit like friends in a park on a sunny day, discussing life, our inner issues, exploring the nature of existence, and seriously asking ourselves why life is so full of difficulties? Why does our highly developed intellect make our lives meaningless? Is everything just for survival? Why does daily life become a torment? Perhaps we go to church or follow some political or religious leaders, but daily life is always filled with disturbances; although there are moments of fleeting joy or happiness, life is always shrouded in clouds. You and the speaker are discussing these issues in the spirit of friendship, so there is care and sincere emotion in each other's hearts. Let us see if it is possible for us to live in a state without worries.
January: Listening · Learning · Authority · Self-Understanding#
Language often causes confusion; it is merely a superficial tool for communication. To enter into a communion that transcends language, your hearing must remain in a state of passive alertness. A heart filled with love may understand how to listen, but truly listening is extremely rare. Most people pursue results and achieve goals; we are constantly conquering and overcoming problems, and thus the ability to listen has vanished. Only true listening can hear the poetry in words.
We are always trying to do this and that, always wanting to reach a certain state, or fixated on one experience while rejecting another, which fills our hearts with delusions, preventing it from ever listening to its own struggles and pain.
When the speaker is talking, if you can quietly listen to your own heart, then from this listening, clear understanding will arise, and your heart will become healthy and robust. It neither submits nor resists; it becomes lively and fully focused—only such a person can create a new world.
Learning seems to be a very difficult thing, and listening is not easy either. We have never truly listened to anything because our hearts are not free: our ears are filled with known things, making it hard to hear anything new. If you can listen with your whole life, your listening becomes an element of liberation, but unfortunately, you never truly listen, so you cannot have real understanding.
Exploration and learning are inherent functions of the mind; thus, the learning referred to here is not about accumulating knowledge through memory, but rather the ability to think clearly, with a clear mind free of any illusions, seeing facts without viewing things through beliefs or ideals. If you hold onto a pile of prejudices, you will learn nothing. Simply acquiring information or knowledge is not true learning; learning refers to the desire to understand and to do something out of love.
Most people believe that learning must occur through comparison; in fact, the truth is just the opposite. Comparison only creates a sense of frustration, fostering jealousy, which is the so-called competitiveness. Like other forms of persuasion, comparison only hinders learning and fosters fear.
Learning is not an accumulation. You cannot turn learning into a warehouse of accumulated knowledge and then act from that stock; you can only learn while living, so there is no moment of regression or degeneration.
Understanding the nature of authority is very important. Authority often hinders our learning, and learning is not about accumulating knowledge into memory. Memory will always create fixed patterns of response, in which there is no freedom. A person bound by knowledge, who accepts guidance from others, will inevitably be burdened by what they have learned. They may become very knowledgeable, but the knowledge they acquire will only hinder the freedom in their hearts, preventing them from truly understanding.
After all, virtue or ethics cannot be imitated; once it evolves into a mechanical pattern, virtue disappears. Virtue, like humility, cannot be cultivated; you can only live them out in each moment. A heart that is not humble cannot learn.
After all, our hearts are always seeking—they always want to find a safe and undisturbed place.
To become aware of the entire process of submission to authority, to recognize the truth within, and to understand and transform the desire to know, one must develop awareness and insight. In fact, the beginning is liberation; it is not at the end that liberation is attained.
Therefore, what most people desire is merely different levels of satisfaction. But the point is not to discover who has attained enlightenment, but to understand yourself. No authority can help you know yourself; without self-awareness, you cannot free yourself from ignorance and suffering.
Knowing oneself requires an extremely alert mind because you are constantly changing in every moment. Keeping up with the changes in thought, you will not be bound by any dogma, belief, or specific behavioral pattern. You must have awareness to know yourself.
Understanding your own truth without distortion, whether beautiful or ugly, good or bad, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is the most important quality because it brings liberation.
Without self-awareness, our experiences often foster illusions; if we have self-awareness, we can immediately face the challenges that experiences bring without leaving behind the remnants of memory. Self-awareness is discovering your motives, desires, thoughts, and preferences in every moment. You cannot divide experiences into "yours" or "mine"; the phrase "my experience" represents ignorance and illusion.
Under the shelter of authority or a guide, you may temporarily find safety or happiness, but this does not truly understand the activities of the heart. The essence of authority is to obstruct complete self-awareness, and it will ultimately destroy inner freedom. Only when the heart has freedom can there be creativity. Only through self-awareness can creativity arise.
If you can be aware of yourself, you will find that living is a continuous process of revealing oneself.
If you want to quiet the mind, you cannot continue to accumulate, condemn, criticize, or measure. Only a pure heart can understand what reality is. A heart that is good at analysis and calculation is not pure; it is always filled with knowledge, information, and thoughts.
Therefore, understanding oneself, observing oneself without any selection, not interpreting one's activities, but simply observing the flow of thoughts, is the most important thing.
Creative emptiness is not a state that can be cultivated; it will arrive quietly without invitation. Only in this state can renewal and reform occur.
You and the external world are not two different existences, each with its own problems; in fact, you are this world, and your problems are the world's problems. You may develop certain tendencies influenced by the environment, but fundamentally, you are not different from others. Our inner activities are very similar; we are all driven by greed, improper will, fear, and ambition. Our beliefs, desires, and expectations share a common background. We are one, yet we are often fragmented by politics, economics, and various prejudices. Hurting others is equivalent to destroying oneself. You are the core of this whole; if you do not understand yourself, you cannot know reality.
Language often causes confusion; it is merely a superficial tool for communication. To enter into a communion that transcends language, your hearing must remain in a state of passive alertness. A heart filled with love may understand how to listen, but truly listening is extremely rare. Most people pursue results and achieve goals; we are constantly conquering and overcoming problems, and thus the ability to listen has vanished. Only true listening can hear the poetry in words.
We are always trying to do this and that, always wanting to reach a certain state, or fixated on one experience while rejecting another, which fills our hearts with delusions, preventing it from ever listening to its own struggles and pain.
When the speaker is talking, if you can quietly listen to your own heart, then from this listening, clear understanding will arise, and your heart will become healthy and robust. It neither submits nor resists; it becomes lively and fully focused—only such a person can create a new world.
Learning seems to be a very difficult thing, and listening is not easy either. We have never truly listened to anything because our hearts are not free: our ears are filled with known things, making it hard to hear anything new. If you can listen with your whole life, your listening becomes an element of liberation, but unfortunately, you never truly listen, so you cannot have real understanding.
Exploration and learning are inherent functions of the mind; thus, the learning referred to here is not about accumulating knowledge through memory, but rather the ability to think clearly, with a clear mind free of any illusions, seeing facts without viewing things through beliefs or ideals. If you hold onto a pile of prejudices, you will learn nothing. Simply acquiring information or knowledge is not true learning; learning refers to the desire to understand and to do something out of love.
Most people believe that learning must occur through comparison; in fact, the truth is just the opposite. Comparison only creates a sense of frustration, fostering jealousy, which is the so-called competitiveness. Like other forms of persuasion, comparison only hinders learning and fosters fear.
Learning is not an accumulation. You cannot turn learning into a warehouse of accumulated knowledge and then act from that stock; you can only learn while living, so there is no moment of regression or degeneration.
Understanding the nature of authority is very important. Authority often hinders our learning, and learning is not about accumulating knowledge into memory. Memory will always create fixed patterns of response, in which there is no freedom. A person bound by knowledge, who accepts guidance from others, will inevitably be burdened by what they have learned. They may become very knowledgeable, but the knowledge they acquire will only hinder the freedom in their hearts, preventing them from truly understanding.
After all, virtue or ethics cannot be imitated; once it evolves into a mechanical pattern, virtue disappears. Virtue, like humility, cannot be cultivated; you can only live them out in each moment. A heart that is not humble cannot learn.
After all, our hearts are always seeking—they always want to find a safe and undisturbed place.
To become aware of the entire process of submission to authority, to recognize the truth within, and to understand and transform the desire to know, one must develop awareness and insight. In fact, the beginning is liberation; it is not at the end that liberation is attained.
Therefore, what most people desire is merely different levels of satisfaction. But the point is not to discover who has attained enlightenment, but to understand yourself. No authority can help you know yourself; without self-awareness, you cannot free yourself from ignorance and suffering.
Knowing oneself requires an extremely alert mind because you are constantly changing in every moment. Keeping up with the changes in thought, you will not be bound by any dogma, belief, or specific behavioral pattern. You must have awareness to know yourself.
Understanding your own truth without distortion, whether beautiful or ugly, good or bad, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is the most important quality because it brings liberation.
Without self-awareness, our experiences often foster illusions; if we have self-awareness, we can immediately face the challenges that experiences bring without leaving behind the remnants of memory. Self-awareness is discovering your motives, desires, thoughts, and preferences in every moment. You cannot divide experiences into "yours" or "mine"; the phrase "my experience" represents ignorance and illusion.
Under the shelter of authority or a guide, you may temporarily find safety or happiness, but this does not truly understand the activities of the heart. The essence of authority is to obstruct complete self-awareness, and it will ultimately destroy inner freedom. Only when the heart has freedom can there be creativity. Only through self-awareness can creativity arise.
If you can be aware of yourself, you will find that living is a continuous process of revealing oneself.
If you want to quiet the mind, you cannot continue to accumulate, condemn, criticize, or measure. Only a pure heart can understand what reality is. A heart that is good at analysis and calculation is not pure; it is always filled with knowledge, information, and thoughts.
Therefore, understanding oneself, observing oneself without any selection, not interpreting one's activities, but simply observing the flow of thoughts, is the most important thing.
Creative emptiness is not a state that can be cultivated; it will arrive quietly without invitation. Only in this state can renewal and reform occur.
You and the external world are not two different existences, each with its own problems; in fact, you are this world, and your problems are the world's problems. You may develop certain tendencies influenced by the environment, but fundamentally, you are not different from others. Our inner activities are very similar; we are all driven by greed, improper will, fear, and ambition. Our beliefs, desires, and expectations share a common background. We are one, yet we are often fragmented by politics, economics, and various prejudices. Hurting others is equivalent to destroying oneself. You are the core of this whole; if you do not understand yourself, you cannot know reality.
February: Becoming · Belief · Action · Good and Evil#
However, no matter what state or realm we wish to transform into, there are always activities of blame, reaction, naming, and archiving involved. Therefore, "becoming" is a painful and competitive mindset, isn't it? It is an endless struggle: I am like this now, but I always want to become like that.
You do not like your current state; you want to become a state you prefer, but this ideal is at best a self-projection. The state we project seems opposite, but it is merely an extension or slight modification of the current truth. This projection is filled with contradictions; we strive to become something, yet that something is already a part of us. Can you recognize that this is a trick the mind plays on itself, and what you pursue is merely your projection, your shadow, and your delusion?
Love is without boundaries; you cannot gradually develop love in the absence of love; you can only indiscriminately become aware that you are not in love, and then transformation may occur. Deliberately creating a hierarchy of masters and disciples, distinguishing between saviors and sinners, and the gap between the enlightened and the unenlightened is to deny love. The exploiter is the exploited; he will always seek a hunting ground that brings him pleasure in the dark illusion. You have created a separation between yourself and God or reality because your heart has always sought security and certainty. This separation cannot be bridged by religious rituals, deliberate cultivation, or self-sacrifice; no guiding spirit or master can lead you to realize reality or dissolve this separation because the separation is created by yourself.
Any activity of the mind, whether positive or negative, is an experience that reinforces the self; can the mind avoid the activity of discernment? This can only happen when the mind is completely silent.
By "self," I mean all kinds of concepts, memories, conclusions, experiences, intentions that can or cannot be articulated, states of wanting or not wanting, or various memories accumulated in the unconscious—including racial, group, personal, or familial history. Everything we pursue is the self, and the self may project into external actions or spiritual virtues, including the competitive desire to become better.
A person with material wealth or rich education and beliefs can never discover what light is; he will only bring misfortune and disaster. But if you and I can understand the entire operation of the self, we will understand what love is. I can assure you that this is the only way to transform the world. Love is absolutely not a self-centered activity; the self does not recognize love at all. The moment you utter the word "love," you will experience it, and true love will vanish. When you truly realize love, the self has disappeared.
Just because we do not want to face and understand the truth of the moment, we have invented various ways to escape, and then we call it ideals or beliefs. Only by seeing the fictitious as fictitious can our hearts become aware of the truth of the moment. A person trapped by fiction can never discover what truth is.
Only when we want to escape reality and hide in illusion do we need beliefs.
In fact, beliefs are merely an escape from confusion and ignorance; they cannot help us face and understand the facts before us. Understanding the confusion and ignorance in our hearts does not require beliefs because beliefs only create a barrier between us and our troubles.
We only want to talk about the concept of peace, but we do not really want to attain peace. Clearly, the word "peace" is not true peace; only when your confusion with others ceases will peace truly arrive. What we often pursue is a new social and political system, not peace; we only consider superficial mediation, not thoroughly removing the causes of war. The answers brought by such pursuits are always constrained by history, and this limitation is what we call knowledge or experience, and then we interpret and translate the facts before us according to this knowledge. Thus, there will be constant conflict between facts and old experiences. Old knowledge and current facts are always in opposition; therefore, the problem not only remains unresolved but becomes more serious.
Only when we understand the entire activity of concepts will we know what love is. However, can we understand love by abandoning non-loving activities? Is it possible to abandon concepts and understand what love is? Because love is the only redemption. Love is not a theory; you must truly love.
This does not mean that there is no jealousy, resentment, cruelty, lack of compassion, or absence of love in the world; rather, why should life be divided into good and evil? Is the problem not a lack of awareness? Clearly, if the heart can be fully aware, remaining alert and vigilant, there is no distinction between good and evil; only a state of complete awakening exists. In this way, goodness is no longer a quality or virtue but the true manifestation of love. If love manifests, there is no such thing as good or evil. If you truly love someone, you will not think about the issue of good and evil; your whole being is filled with love. Only when love or focused awareness disappears will there be a conflict between truth and ideals. At this point, we will consider our current state to be evil and that the future should be a little better.
The opposition of good and evil in the world is something we have created, and hatred seems to generate a greater sense of unity against a common enemy. Only those who are wise can see the root causes of good and evil; they can liberate themselves from these opposing thoughts and feelings through deep understanding.
The past cannot be set aside; you can only observe it objectively without being occupied by it. This way, your heart can observe freely and without selection. If you make selections regarding the activities of memory, your heart will only be occupied by delusions. The moment the heart is occupied, it falls into past memories. A heart occupied by past memories cannot see the fresh, original, and untainted reality.
In this entire thinking process, we create the problem of excessive effort; do you understand? Effort leads to a discipline of deliberately controlling thoughts—"I must control bad thoughts; I must become a non-violent, non-jealous person," and so on. Whenever I come into conflict with what I want to control, I fall into a laborious or effortful activity. This is what actually happens in our daily lives.
However, no matter what state or realm we wish to transform into, there are always activities of blame, reaction, naming, and archiving involved. Therefore, "becoming" is a painful and competitive mindset, isn't it? It is an endless struggle: I am like this now, but I always want to become like that.
You do not like your current state; you want to become a state you prefer, but this ideal is at best a self-projection. The state we project seems opposite, but it is merely an extension or slight modification of the current truth. This projection is filled with contradictions; we strive to become something, yet that something is already a part of us. Can you recognize that this is a trick the mind plays on itself, and what you pursue is merely your projection, your shadow, and your delusion?
Love is without boundaries; you cannot gradually develop love in the absence of love; you can only indiscriminately become aware that you are not in love, and then transformation may occur. Deliberately creating a hierarchy of masters and disciples, distinguishing between saviors and sinners, and the gap between the enlightened and the unenlightened is to deny love. The exploiter is the exploited; he will always seek a hunting ground that brings him pleasure in the dark illusion. You have created a separation between yourself and God or reality because your heart has always sought security and certainty. This separation cannot be bridged by religious rituals, deliberate cultivation, or self-sacrifice; no guiding spirit or master can lead you to realize reality or dissolve this separation because the separation is created by yourself.
Any activity of the mind, whether positive or negative, is an experience that reinforces the self; can the mind avoid the activity of discernment? This can only happen when the mind is completely silent.
By "self," I mean all kinds of concepts, memories, conclusions, experiences, intentions that can or cannot be articulated, states of wanting or not wanting, or various memories accumulated in the unconscious—including racial, group, personal, or familial history. Everything we pursue is the self, and the self may project into external actions or spiritual virtues, including the competitive desire to become better.
A person with material wealth or rich education and beliefs can never discover what light is; he will only bring misfortune and disaster. But if you and I can understand the entire operation of the self, we will understand what love is. I can assure you that this is the only way to transform the world. Love is absolutely not a self-centered activity; the self does not recognize love at all. The moment you utter the word "love," you will experience it, and true love will vanish. When you truly realize love, the self has disappeared.
Just because we do not want to face and understand the truth of the moment, we have invented various ways to escape, and then we call it ideals or beliefs. Only by seeing the fictitious as fictitious can our hearts become aware of the truth of the moment. A person trapped by fiction can never discover what truth is.
Only when we want to escape reality and hide in illusion do we need beliefs.
In fact, beliefs are merely an escape from confusion and ignorance; they cannot help us face and understand the facts before us. Understanding the confusion and ignorance in our hearts does not require beliefs because beliefs only create a barrier between us and our troubles.
We only want to talk about the concept of peace, but we do not really want to attain peace. Clearly, the word "peace" is not true peace; only when your confusion with others ceases will peace truly arrive. What we often pursue is a new social and political system, not peace; we only consider superficial mediation, not thoroughly removing the causes of war. The answers brought by such pursuits are always constrained by history, and this limitation is what we call knowledge or experience, and then we interpret and translate the facts before us according to this knowledge. Thus, there will be constant conflict between facts and old experiences. Old knowledge and current facts are always in opposition; therefore, the problem not only remains unresolved but becomes more serious.
Only when we understand the entire activity of concepts will we know what love is. However, can we understand love by abandoning non-loving activities? Is it possible to abandon concepts and understand what love is? Because love is the only redemption. Love is not a theory; you must truly love.
This does not mean that there is no jealousy, resentment, cruelty, lack of compassion, or absence of love in the world; rather, why should life be divided into good and evil? Is the problem not a lack of awareness? Clearly, if the heart can be fully aware, remaining alert and vigilant, there is no distinction between good and evil; only a state of complete awakening exists. In this way, goodness is no longer a quality or virtue but the true manifestation of love. If love manifests, there is no such thing as good or evil. If you truly love someone, you will not think about the issue of good and evil; your whole being is filled with love. Only when love or focused awareness disappears will there be a conflict between truth and ideals. At this point, we will consider our current state to be evil and that the future should be a little better.
The opposition of good and evil in the world is something we have created, and hatred seems to generate a greater sense of unity against a common enemy. Only those who are wise can see the root causes of good and evil; they can liberate themselves from these opposing thoughts and feelings through deep understanding.
The past cannot be set aside; you can only observe it objectively without being occupied by it. This way, your heart can observe freely and without selection. If you make selections regarding the activities of memory, your heart will only be occupied by delusions. The moment the heart is occupied, it falls into past memories. A heart occupied by past memories cannot see the fresh, original, and untainted reality.
In this entire thinking process, we create the problem of excessive effort; do you understand? Effort leads to a discipline of deliberately controlling thoughts—"I must control bad thoughts; I must become a non-violent, non-jealous person," and so on. Whenever I come into conflict with what I want to control, I fall into a laborious or effortful activity. This is what actually happens in our daily lives.
March: Dependence · Attachment · Relationship · Fear#
If a wife or husband ignores us, we will react with jealousy. Jealousy is certainly not love, but there must be an element of jealousy in the small love recognized by society. Marriage is actually a form of self-defense and self-escape. Any form of defense will foster dependence. A heart that always wants to depend cannot be free. What you need is freedom; you will find that only a free heart is humble. A humble and free heart has the ability to learn. Learning is an extraordinary thing—just learning without accumulating knowledge. The knowledge we generally refer to is easily obtained. That way of learning still enters the known from the known, but true learning is entering the unknown from the known.
If people in society are all using each other, it will inevitably foster violence. When we use others, we are always thinking about the ultimate goal. This goal will certainly hinder the interaction of relationships and true communication. No matter how much comfort or satisfaction others can bring, there will always be fear in our hearts; to escape this fear, we want to possess more. From this desire for possession will arise jealousy, suspicion, and conflict. Such relationships will never bring happiness. If the social structure is based on needs, whether physiological or psychological, it will foster conflict, confusion, and unhappiness. Society is a projection of your relationship with others. If you use others to satisfy your needs, you cannot establish a true connection with that person. For your own comfort and convenience, you treat another person as furniture; in this case, how can you establish a true relationship with him? Therefore, understanding the meaning of relational interaction in daily life is the most important thing.
A higher spiritual realm refers to a more satisfying and lasting state. Because of the fear of not existing, there arises attachment and possessiveness. If what is possessed cannot satisfy us or brings pain, we will abandon it and pursue something more pleasurable. The ultimate possession is the so-called God or reality. As long as one is unwilling to be a nobody, it will inevitably foster pain and hostility. Willingness to be a nobody has nothing to do with renouncing the secular or ascetic aspirations, but is related to seeing the truth of the moment. Seeing the truth of the moment can free us from the fear of not having security, and this fear often fosters attachment and leads us to produce the illusion of wanting to renounce the secular. The love for truth is the beginning of wisdom; with this love, true communication and sharing can occur, but renouncing the secular and self-sacrifice is always an illusion of self-isolation.
You want to escape the pain of attachment, so you seek another thing to counter it, but you still fall into the activity of attachment. Therefore, only a foolish heart would deliberately cultivate a non-attachment attitude. All classics tell us to "not be attached," but what exactly is non-attachment? Observe your own mental activities, and you will discover an extraordinary truth—deliberately cultivating a non-attachment attitude will only make your heart attached to another attitude.
We are the same as what we possess. As long as there is attachment, there cannot be a noble spirit. Attachment to knowledge is no different from other addictive tendencies. Attachment is a form of self-indulgence or self-deception, whether at a low level or a high level, its purpose is to escape the sense of emptiness.
Attachment creates pain on one hand while pursuing a non-attachment state on the other, while also wanting to achieve a sense of vanity through renunciation. If you can understand these tricks of the self, wisdom will begin to sprout.
But if you can recognize that patching holes is futile—not just an intellectual understanding, nor deciding to do something after agreeing with this viewpoint, but thoroughly recognizing how absurd this is—you can face it. Therefore, the point is not about not depending, but seeing that not depending is merely a reaction against dependence. Why not face this fact and look at the truth before you?
The objects of our attachment become tools for escaping emptiness. Attachment is a form of escape, and escape will reinforce the limitations in the heart.
Only a heart that does not belong to any object can truly be empty, but emptiness is not a state that can be cultivated; can you recognize this? If you can recognize this, you are out of the game; you will never again be invited to a dinner by governors or presidents. In this state of emptiness, your heart will become humble. Only an empty heart can understand what love and power are. A heart filled with ambition, including religious figures or ordinary people, cannot know what love is. If you can recognize all this, you can live fully and act fully. Only through self-awareness can one enter this state.
As long as you still want to obtain satisfaction, then non-attachment will become a form of attachment. Therefore, what we truly seek is still satisfaction; we will use various means to satisfy ourselves. We become attached because it brings us joy, security, power, and happiness, even though pain and fear are buried within. Our pursuit of non-attachment is still for joy, to avoid being hurt. However, we must understand this entire process without any blame or excuses, because unless we have understanding, we will never escape the confusion or conflict in our hearts.
Relationships are a mirror; through this mirror, I will see my own truth, but most people do not like their own truth, so they begin to correct the state reflected by this mirror. I want to change this truth—this means I have set a pattern for how I should be. If we cling to this pattern, we will not be able to understand our own truth. Once there is an image of what we want to become or a state we do not want to become in our hearts, it is clear that I will not see the truth in that moment of relationship. I think it is important to understand this point because most people are lost at this point. Simply wanting to improve oneself will not lead to understanding the truth.
In fact, the most interesting part of relationships lies in their insecurity and uncontrollability. Pursuing a sense of security in relationships hinders their operation and leads to strange behaviors and unhappy outcomes. The interaction of relationships is meant to reveal a person's truth; relationships are the entire process of self-revelation and self-awareness. Self-revelation is very painful, so we must have the ability to adjust ourselves and the flexibility of thoughts and emotions. Relationships can sometimes bring pain and sometimes allow you to taste peace.
We are our own possessions. A person who possesses money has identified with money. Whether it is land, houses, or furniture, as long as you identify with it, you become it. If you do not possess anything, you may become an empty shell. If you do not fill your life with music, furniture, knowledge, or this and that, you will become an empty shell. This empty shell will create a lot of noise, and then we call the noise life, but we are satisfied with that. If an accident occurs that takes us away from all this, we often suffer greatly. At this moment, you will suddenly discover your truth—an empty shell of little significance. Therefore, being aware of the entire content of relationships is the action of liberation; from this action, true relationships will emerge, and the meaning, depth, and love of relationships can be discovered.
But the fact is just the opposite; true revolution is not achieved through collective activity, but by reassessing one's truth in the interaction of relationships. This itself is true reform and a radical, ongoing revolution.
But clearly, we must start solving problems from small things, and this small thing is "I" and "you." Once we understand ourselves, we can understand you, and from this understanding, love will arise. What we lack is love and the warmth and sincerity within relationships. Because we lack love, tenderness, compassion, and generosity, we escape into mass activities, creating more confusion and unhappiness. We paint blueprints for transforming the world in our hearts, but do not recognize that the only thing that can solve problems is love.
The external world is not something separate from you and me; the world and society are the interactive relationships we have established or wish to establish.
The world is not separate from us; our problems are the world's problems.
Living independently is impossible because life is the interaction of relationships. To perceive the truth of relationships requires a high degree of wisdom and keen awareness of self-exploration. Without this keen and fluid awareness, those controlling tendencies will become stronger, leading to inner imbalance.
Why do we always comply, follow, and imitate? Because we fear facing uncertainty. We want economic and moral certainty, a secure position, and approval; we never want to face pain and problems, only to close ourselves off.
However, if we constantly seek certainty psychologically, it will foster fear. A heart that constantly seeks certainty cannot be stable and will not taste eternity.
For example, during a military parade, a religious procession, or when one's country faces the threat of invasion, what kind of reaction will you have? At that time, you will certainly identify with your country, a certain person, or a certain ideology; at other times, you may identify with children, a spouse, or some form of action. Identification is a self-forgetting activity. As long as the sense of self exists, we will inevitably be aware of pain, struggle, and fear. But if we identify with something greater and more valuable, such as beauty, reality, faith, or knowledge, we can temporarily escape ourselves, right? Discussing national affairs allows us to temporarily forget ourselves, doesn't it? Talking about God can also help us forget ourselves. Identifying with my family, a certain group, a political party, or a certain ideology can all temporarily divert us from ourselves. Now do we know what fear is? What it cannot accept is the truth before it; therefore, we must first understand what "acceptance" means. Acceptance does not mean deliberately accepting something; it only arises when we cannot recognize the truth before us. Therefore, fear is the refusal to accept the truth before us.
"What should I do?" is an ideal, but ideals are fictitious; they are not my truth. Only when I understand the disorder caused by time will the truth before me truly change. Therefore, can I remove the fear in my heart in an instant? If I allow fear to continue, it will constantly create disorder in my heart; we must recognize that time is the element causing disorder; it is not a tool for completely eliminating fear.
Because time causes disorder, there is such serious opposition between people.
Thoughts are products of time, and time is also a product of thoughts. Thoughts often foster fear of death, and time is a mental activity filled with subtle and intricate fears.
The desire to become better and more accomplished will foster dependence, leading to fear. However, not fearing is not the opposite of fear, nor is it about deliberately summoning courage. If we can understand the causes of fear, fear will cease, but it is not about becoming brave, because the seed of fear still exists in the activity of becoming. Dependence on people, things, or ideas will foster fear; dependence arises from ignorance, lack of self-awareness, and a sense of lack. Fear makes our hearts feel insecure and hinders our understanding and communication.
The past history always tries to resurrect in the present, thus creating our identification with the "self." The self is the root of all fear.
If a wife or husband ignores us, we will react with jealousy. Jealousy is certainly not love, but there must be an element of jealousy in the small love recognized by society. Marriage is actually a form of self-defense and self-escape. Any form of defense will foster dependence. A heart that always wants to depend cannot be free. What you need is freedom; you will find that only a free heart is humble. A humble and free heart has the ability to learn. Learning is an extraordinary thing—just learning and not accumulating knowledge. The knowledge we generally refer to is easily obtained. That way of learning still enters the known from the known, but true learning is entering the unknown from the known.
If people in society are all using each other, it will inevitably foster violence. When we use others, we are always thinking about the ultimate goal. This goal will certainly hinder the interaction of relationships and true communication. No matter how much comfort or satisfaction others can bring, there will always be fear in our hearts; to escape this fear, we want to possess more. From this desire for possession will arise jealousy, suspicion, and conflict. Such relationships will never bring happiness. If the social structure is based on needs, whether physiological or psychological, it will foster conflict, confusion, and unhappiness. Society is a projection of your relationship with others. If you use others to satisfy your needs, you cannot establish a true connection with that person. For your own comfort and convenience, you treat another person as furniture; in this case, how can you establish a true relationship with him? Therefore, understanding the meaning of relational interaction in daily life is the most important thing.
April: Desire · Marriage · Sex · Passion#
The person who constantly seeks to escape emptiness, loneliness, and imperfection is no different from what he attempts to escape. In fact, he cannot escape himself; he can only try to understand that he is the loneliness and emptiness in his heart; as long as he separates these things from himself, he will fall into illusion and endless conflict. If he can experience the loneliness in his heart, he may be liberated from fear.
Although the thoughts generated from experience can analyze the emptiness in the heart, they cannot directly recognize emptiness. The name of emptiness can create painful and fearful memories and hinder us from directly experiencing the feeling of emptiness. Names are a form of memory; when the significance of a name is lost, the relationship between the experiencer and his experience will become entirely different. This new relationship is straightforward, and this unity of subject and object can liberate us from fear.
Desire must be understood, not destroyed. If you simply destroy desire, you may destroy life itself. If you shape desire, control it, or suppress it, you may ruin the incredible beauty of life.
For me, confusion or unhappiness seems to begin like this: when that face, that river, that cloud, or that mountain becomes a pleasurable memory, this memory will try to continue itself; we want to repeatedly enjoy such experiences, which is something we are all familiar with. Once we have enjoyed a pleasurable experience, we want to repeat it. Whether it is sexual, artistic, or intellectual pleasure, we want to experience it again and again—but at this moment, pleasure has begun to create false values, obscuring our hearts and preventing them from seeing the truth.
Whether in economics, society, or religion, various aspects continuously strengthen self-awareness, which creates conflict and contradiction. Clearly, you only have self-awareness when contradictions arise. The essence of self-awareness is conflict...
Because we have been living superficially, we only see superficial reactions. We are quite satisfied with this superficial way of living and the various troubles it brings, so as long as we continue to live in this superficial state—though we may identify with the universe, the nation, and other grander things—we remain limited within a self-centered scope. As long as we still live in the realm of the mind, we will inevitably produce troubles and various complex emotions.
Love cannot be known. Only when all that is known is understood and transformed can you know what love is. Therefore, we must understand love in a passive rather than active way. What is love for us? Our love always contains elements of possession, control, or flattery, and from possession arise jealousy and the fear of loss, and we even legitimize this instinct of possession. We are all familiar with the jealousy and various conflicts that arise from possession. But love is neither possession nor a feeling. Feelings and emotions do not contain love; they are merely sensations.
When disturbances arise in your heart, delusions are born—if you label these thoughts as love, you will constantly be disturbed. Clearly, love is not a mental activity; love disappears because the heart is filled with thoughts. The activity of the mind is nothing more than jealousy, ambition, the desire to become someone, or the desire to achieve certain accomplishments. These things fill your heart, and you still dare to call it love. If there is black smoke, can there still be pure flame?
Because you think of women as inferior beings, mere objects to satisfy your sexual desires, you invent terms like rights and obligations; when women rebel, you use these concepts to confine them. Only a corrupt society constantly emphasizes these concepts. Examine your thoughts, and you will find that there is no love in your heart.
Love is an existence; it is neither personal nor impersonal; it does not require adjustment or fusion. A heart that wants to merge with something greater is escaping unhappiness and confusion; such a heart is still incomplete. Love knows neither fusion nor non-fusion. It is neither personal nor impersonal; it is a state of existence that our minds cannot discover; the mind may describe it, name it, but names or descriptions are not love itself. Only when the heart is quiet can it understand what love is, and this state of quiet cannot be cultivated.
Before considering marriage, you must understand what love is. Clearly, love is simple; without love, you cannot become a simple person. You may live a life of abstinence, but without love, your heart cannot be simple or pure. If you hold onto the ideal of chastity and become a celibate, there will still be no love because you only want to become a noble person, thinking that this will help you discover reality. Promiscuity leads to unhappiness and degradation; pursuing spiritual ideals also brings unhappiness. Both states imply indulgence in something or the desire to become another thing. They exclude love and emphasize the importance of the self.
If the heart lacks love, you will want to connect with someone; lacking love, you will want to marry, and then you will try to adapt to each other in marriage. How beautiful the phrase "mutual adaptation" is, but it is still a mental activity, isn't it? The so-called "adaptation" is clearly a mental activity, but love has nothing to do with adaptation. Sir, you should be very clear that if you truly love the other person, you will not want to adapt to anything because you have already merged with the other person. Only when we lack love do we want to adapt to each other, and adaptation is what we call marriage. Marriage fails because it is the source of conflict, a war between two people. Marriage is a very complex issue; it is more complex than other issues because the desires and impulses involved are too strong. Therefore, a person who constantly adjusts their thoughts cannot be simple; a heart that pursues pleasure through sex cannot be chaste. Perhaps you can temporarily forget yourself in sexual activity, but a heart that pursues pleasure cannot be pure and simple. Only when love appears will your heart become innocent.
Love is not a thought; thought is merely a surface activity of the brain. Love is the most profound thing; the mystery of life can only be discovered through love. Without love, life is meaningless—this is the tragedy of our existence.
Only when love appears can chastity exist; without love, there is no such thing as chastity. Without love, chastity becomes another form of desire. The desire to be chaste is the same as the desire to become a powerful lawyer or politician. This is not chastity; it is the result of ideals, achieved through constant resistance. Once love appears, chastity is no longer an issue. Living fully in love is the true purpose of life. This transformation will bring a brand new world.
But if the heart lacks passion, how can it feel beauty, ugliness, sunsets, smiles on people's faces, or the wind blowing through the leaves? Without passion, how can one abandon the self? Sir, please listen to me; do not try to pursue this passion. I know you are very enthusiastic about finding a good job, despising some unfortunate person, or being jealous of someone, but the passion I refer to is something entirely different. It is a passion capable of love, and love is a state without a sense of self, where there is neither condemnation nor judgment about whether sex is good or bad. Love has nothing to do with these contradictions. Contradictions and love cannot coexist.
If there is no passion, how can there be love? Without passion, how can there be keen sensitivity? Keen sensitivity means being able to feel the people around you at any moment, to observe the city's pollution, noise, and poverty, and to see the beauty of rivers, seas, and skies. Without passion, how can one feel these things? How can one empathize with others' smiles and tears? I can say with certainty that love is a form of passion.
What I mean by passion is actually a complete thing. A person with strong feelings of passion will not be satisfied with a small job—whether that job is as a prime minister, chef, or any other form. A passionate heart is willing to explore, pursue, observe, question, and inquire; it does not merely seek to find something that can satisfy itself and then fall asleep.
Passion without reason is awareness without attachment. Once passion has a reason, there will inevitably be attachment, and attachment is the beginning of suffering. Most people have attachments; we are always attached to people, nations, beliefs, or concepts, and when the objects of our attachment disappear or lose their significance, we feel empty and deficient, and then we pursue other things to fill this emptiness. Please examine your own thoughts carefully; I am merely a mirror that allows you to see yourself clearly. If you do not want to look, that is fine, but if you want to understand some things, you must look at yourself clearly, ruthlessly, and with focus—without expecting to resolve your anxiety, sadness, or guilt, but rather trying to understand this immense passion that leads to suffering. Once passion has a reason, it will evolve into desire. If passion has an object—be it a person, concept, or some form of satisfaction—it will inevitably create conflict, contradictions, and effortful situations. You will struggle to achieve or maintain a certain state or to regain something you have already lost. The passion I refer to will not foster conflict and contradictions; it is unmotivated, so it is not a result.
The person who constantly seeks to escape emptiness, loneliness, and imperfection is no different from what he attempts to escape. In fact, he cannot escape himself; he can only try to understand that he is the loneliness and emptiness in his heart; as long as he separates these things from himself, he will fall into illusion and endless conflict. If he can experience the loneliness in his heart, he may be liberated from fear.
Although the thoughts generated from experience can analyze the emptiness in the heart, they cannot directly recognize emptiness. The name of emptiness can create painful and fearful memories and hinder us from directly experiencing the feeling of emptiness. Names are a form of memory; when the significance of a name is lost, the relationship between the experiencer and his experience will become entirely different. This new relationship is straightforward, and this unity of subject and object can liberate us from fear.
Desire must be understood, not destroyed. If you simply destroy desire, you may destroy life itself. If you shape desire, control it, or suppress it, you may ruin the incredible beauty of life.
For me, confusion or unhappiness seems to begin like this: when that face, that river, that cloud, or that mountain becomes a pleasurable memory, this memory will try to continue itself; we want to repeatedly enjoy such experiences, which is something we are all familiar with. Once we have enjoyed a pleasurable experience, we want to repeat it. Whether it is sexual, artistic, or intellectual pleasure, we want to experience it again and again—but at this moment, pleasure has begun to create false values, obscuring our hearts and preventing them from seeing the truth.
Whether in economics, society, or religion, various aspects continuously strengthen self-awareness, which creates conflict and contradiction. Clearly, you only have self-awareness when contradictions arise. The essence of self-awareness is conflict...
Because we have been living superficially, we only see superficial reactions. We are quite satisfied with this superficial way of living and the various troubles it brings, so as long as we continue to live in this superficial state—though we may identify with the universe, the nation, and other grander things—we remain limited within a self-centered scope. As long as we still live in the realm of the mind, we will inevitably produce troubles and various complex emotions.
Love cannot be known. Only when all that is known is understood and transformed can you know what love is. Therefore, we must understand love in a passive rather than active way. What is love for us? Our love always contains elements of possession, control, or flattery, and from possession arise jealousy and the fear of loss, and we even legitimize this instinct of possession. We are all familiar with the jealousy and various conflicts that arise from possession. But love is neither possession nor a feeling. Feelings and emotions do not contain love; they are merely sensations.
When disturbances arise in your heart, delusions are born—if you label these thoughts as love, you will constantly be disturbed. Clearly, love is not a mental activity; love disappears because the heart is filled with thoughts. The activity of the mind is nothing more than jealousy, ambition, the desire to become someone, or the desire to achieve certain accomplishments. These things fill your heart, and you still dare to call it love. If there is black smoke, can there still be pure flame?
Because you think of women as inferior beings, mere objects to satisfy your sexual desires, you invent terms like rights and obligations; when women rebel, you use these concepts to confine them. Only a corrupt society constantly emphasizes these concepts. Examine your thoughts, and you will find that there is no love in your heart.
Love is an existence; it is neither personal nor impersonal; it does not require adjustment or fusion. A heart that wants to merge with something greater is escaping unhappiness and confusion; such a heart is still incomplete. Love knows neither fusion nor non-fusion. It is neither personal nor impersonal; it is a state of existence that our minds cannot discover; the mind may describe it, name it, but names or descriptions are not love itself. Only when the heart is quiet can it understand what love is, and this state of quiet cannot be cultivated.
Before considering marriage, you must understand what love is. Clearly, love is simple; without love, you cannot become a simple person. You may live a life of abstinence, but without love, your heart cannot be simple or pure. If you hold onto the ideal of chastity and become a celibate, there will still be no love because you only want to become a noble person, thinking that this will help you discover reality. Promiscuity leads to unhappiness and degradation; pursuing spiritual ideals also brings unhappiness. Both states imply indulgence in something or the desire to become another thing. They exclude love and emphasize the importance of the self.
If the heart lacks love, you will want to connect with someone; lacking love, you will want to marry, and then you will try to adapt to each other in marriage. How beautiful the phrase "mutual adaptation" is, but it is still a mental activity, isn't it? The so-called "adaptation" is clearly a mental activity, but love has nothing to do with adaptation. Sir, you should be very clear that if you truly love the other person, you will not want to adapt to anything because you have already merged with the other person. Only when we lack love do we want to adapt to each other, and adaptation is what we call marriage. Marriage fails because it is the source of conflict, a war between two people. Marriage is a very complex issue; it is more complex than other issues because the desires and impulses involved are too strong. Therefore, a person who constantly adjusts their thoughts cannot be simple; a heart that pursues pleasure through sex cannot be chaste. Perhaps you can temporarily forget yourself in sexual activity, but a heart that pursues pleasure cannot be pure and simple. Only when love appears will your heart become innocent.
Love is not a thought; thought is merely a surface activity of the brain. Love is the most profound thing; the mystery of life can only be discovered through love. Without love, life is meaningless—this is the tragedy of our existence.
Only when love appears can chastity exist; without love, there is no such thing as chastity. Without love, chastity becomes another form of desire. The desire to be chaste is the same as the desire to become a powerful lawyer or politician. This is not chastity; it is the result of ideals, achieved through constant resistance. Once love appears, chastity is no longer an issue. Living fully in love is the true purpose of life. This transformation will bring a brand new world.
But if the heart lacks passion, how can it feel beauty, ugliness, sunsets, smiles on people's faces, or the wind blowing through the leaves? Without passion, how can one abandon the self? Sir, please listen to me; do not try to pursue this passion. I know you are very enthusiastic about finding a good job, despising some unfortunate person, or being jealous of someone, but the passion I refer to is something entirely different. It is a passion capable of love, and love is a state without a sense of self, where there is neither condemnation nor judgment about whether sex is good or bad. Love has nothing to do with these contradictions. Contradictions and love cannot coexist.
If there is no passion, how can there be love? Without passion, how can there be keen sensitivity? Keen sensitivity means being able to feel the people around you at any moment, to observe the city's pollution, noise, and poverty, and to see the beauty of rivers, seas, and skies. Without passion, how can one feel these things? How can one empathize with others' smiles and tears? I can say with certainty that love is a form of passion.
What I mean by passion is actually a complete thing. A person with strong feelings of passion will not be satisfied with a small job—whether that job is as a prime minister, chef, or any other form. A passionate heart is willing to explore, pursue, observe, question, and inquire; it does not merely seek to find something that can satisfy itself and then fall asleep.
Passion without reason is awareness without attachment. Once passion has a reason, there will inevitably be attachment, and attachment is the beginning of suffering. Most people have attachments; we are always attached to people, nations, beliefs, or concepts, and when the objects of our attachment disappear or lose their significance, we feel empty and deficient, and then we pursue other things to fill this emptiness. Please examine your own thoughts carefully; I am merely a mirror that allows you to see yourself clearly. If you do not want to look, that is fine, but if you want to understand some things, you must look at yourself clearly, ruthlessly, and with focus—without expecting to resolve your anxiety, sadness, or guilt, but rather trying to understand this immense passion that leads to suffering. Once passion has a reason, it will evolve into desire. If passion has an object—be it a person, concept, or some form of satisfaction—it will inevitably create conflict, contradictions, and effortful situations. You will struggle to achieve or maintain a certain state or to regain something you have already lost. The passion I refer to will not foster conflict and contradictions; it is unmotivated, so it is not a result.
May: Wisdom · Feeling · Language · Limitations#
Reality or true God—not the false gods created by humanity—does not want a narrow, superficial, limited, and trivial heart; it wants a heart that can appreciate it and is healthy, a heart that is abundant—not well-read, but innocent—without a trace of experience and without a sense of time. You have invented some false gods to gain some comfort. False gods can accept a dull and tormented heart, but the true God does not want such a heart; it wants a heart that is full, rich, clear, with strong feelings, able to discover the beauty of trees and the smiles of children, and also understand the suffering of a woman who has never had a full meal.
Wisdom arises from sensitivity and observation.
Therefore, you must understand that emotions, moods, enthusiasm, and feelings of being good have nothing to do with true passion or compassion. All emotions or moods are related to thoughts, which is why they cause pleasure and pain. Love has no pain or sorrow because it is not a product of pleasure and desire.
Do not attempt to change your thoughts and emotions, nor analyze them; just be aware of why you have specific thought patterns and what the motivations behind your actions are. Although you can discover the motivations behind your behavior through analysis, this is not true observation; only when you are fully concentrated and aware of how thoughts and emotions are operating can you see the truth; then you will recognize their complexity and subtlety. As long as you have thoughts of "must" or "cannot," you will never discover the rapid changes in thoughts and emotions. I am quite sure you all grew up in environments of "must" and "cannot," so your thoughts and feelings have been damaged, and you have been bound by various systems, methods, and teachers. Try to let go of those thoughts of "must" or "cannot." But this does not mean you should let yourself go; rather, you should be aware of the "should" or "should not" in your heart. Then wisdom will begin to operate like a flower blooming in the morning.
If you truly apply wisdom in business activities, where emotions and thoughts can operate harmoniously, your business may likely collapse. But you may let it collapse because you have felt the cruelty, absurdity, and profit-driven nature of this way of life. Unless humanity can handle life with wisdom rather than intellect, no political system can help humanity escape a life of striving.
For most people, deeply, strongly, and penetratingly feeling what is before them is very difficult because our troubles are too many. Anything can become a source of trouble for us. Clearly, human troubles are endless, and people seem unable to solve them. The more troubles there are, the lower our sensitivity becomes. What I mean by sensitivity is the ability to appreciate the beauty of twisted branches, observe the dust on the road, feel others' pain, or joyfully watch the beauty of a sunset. These are not merely emotions or moods. Emotions or moods can form cruel attitudes, used by society; as long as you fall into emotions and moods, you become a slave to society. But people must have strong sensitivity. Beauty, language, the silence between words, and awareness of sound all bring strong feelings. Only sensitivity can sharpen the heart.
Whether you are influenced by emotions or reason, the result will lead to despair. You must understand that love is not a pleasure, nor is it a desire. Sir, do you know what pleasure is? When you look at something or feel a certain feeling, you will keep thinking about this feeling and thus generate a sense of pleasure, and then you will want to repeat this pleasure. Ambition can also bring a person satisfaction in pleasure. If a person pursues power, status, fame, or seeks fame under the guise of the nation and ideals, it will bring pleasure. His heart contains no love at all, so he will only bring disaster to the world. He will bring war to both the inner and outer worlds.
Love is fundamentally different from emotions or feelings; there cannot be love in the realm of thought, and emotions and feelings arise from thought. Love is like a smokeless flame, always fresh, joyful, and creative. Such love poses a threat to relationships and society, so thought must intervene to turn love into something legitimate, to remove it from danger, and then that love disappears.
Life is a process of facing challenges and generating responses. Challenges are always new, while responses are old. Limited responses always stem from past history; you must understand it, not limit it or condemn it. This means that daily life must be experienced thoroughly and completely. Only when love appears and the heart feels complete can one live thoroughly and completely. Once there is love in the heart, there are no more memories in the mind. Thus, every moment's activity is a rebirth.
If I do not label a feeling, if I do not generate any images, symbols, or thoughts, what will happen? Clearly, at this moment, the heart is no longer a separated observer. When the heart does not fall into delusions, symbols, signs, or images, the thinker and his thoughts become one, and then the heart becomes quiet, right? This state of quiet is not deliberately created. When the heart is truly quiet, it can naturally face the underlying emotions. If emotions are labeled, they may be reinforced and prolonged; they will be repressed deep within and then prompt us to further label or reinforce and express them.
Although you want to live in love, your daily life is often filled with the aforementioned emotions. Since you often have the desire to hurt someone, such as treating him with an unfriendly attitude or harsh words, then try to coexist with that feeling.
But such peace cannot be cultivated because cultivated quiet is dead silence. The more you are interested in something, the more you want to understand it, and then your heart will become clear, free, and simple. At that moment, all thoughts will cease. The reaction to the challenges before us is what we call thinking; therefore, a chattering heart cannot understand the truth—truth in relationships, not abstract truths. Truth is very subtle; it will quietly descend in the night.
Only when you have no self-awareness can you know yourself. If your heart holds no thoughts, is completely open, and is not prepared to face anything, you will inadvertently see your own truth. At that moment, your heart has no defenses, calculations, control, repression, or desires to change.
Therefore, this spontaneity can only arise when the intellect is unguarded. This can only happen within the heart. This spontaneity is fresh, unknown, uncalculated, and creative, and it must be of your concern, but the will led by intellect must cease to operate. Observing your emotions, you will find that states of joy or bliss are often not planned; they occur unexpectedly.
We find that thoughts are always constrained by past history and then project into the future; if we acknowledge the past, we must acknowledge the future. But there is no such thing as past and future; there is only a state composed of consciousness and unconsciousness, including collective history and personal history. Collective history and personal history respond to the situation of the present moment, thus creating personal consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is always old, and it is the entire background of our existence. Once we acknowledge the past, we must acknowledge the future, but the future is merely an extension of the corrected past, so it is still old. Our problem lies in how to bring transformation to this process without creating another limitation, another old thing.
The thinker forms thoughts through habitual copying and recitation. Isn't habit a state of thoughtlessness? But awareness can create order; it does not create habits. Established tendencies only bring thoughtless habits. Why do people think thoughtlessly? Because deep thinking is a painful thing; it brings disturbances, creates dissent, and opposes established patterns. Careful exploration and indiscriminate awareness will lead us into deep unknown territories, and the heart will resist this unknown state; it will constantly move from the known to the known, from one habit to another, from one pattern to another, and such a heart cannot abandon the known to explore the unknown.
The thinker may categorize himself into various types of thoughts, but thought and thinker are the same thing. The thinker and the desire to become better are the causes of conflict and confusion.
The thinker is thought itself; the creator is the creation itself, and the doer is the action itself. The thinker reveals himself through thought. The thinker creates his own misfortune, ignorance, and struggle through his actions.
If you truly understand yourself, your heart will be complete, and thus conflict will not repeat itself. Repeated conflicts will only prolong the self of the thinker.
I wonder if everyone is aware that we all live in contradictions. We advocate peace while preparing for war. Although we promote non-violence, we are filled with violence at our core. Everything we say is kind, but the facts are otherwise. We emphasize love, yet we are always ambitious, eager to compete, and unwilling to rest until we achieve our goals. Thus, we have so many contradictions. Actions arising from contradictions will only bring defeat and further contradictions.
Knowledge is never complete; thoughts arising from knowledge are always limited and unfree. We can explore whether there is a freedom unrelated to thought, where there is only pure awareness—awareness of our conflicts and the impacts brought by the external environment.
I think you must have had experiences of immediately perceiving the truth, such as realizing that you cannot belong to any object; this is an insight: seeing the truth in things immediately, without needing analysis, logic, or any mental activity that delays insight. This is entirely different from the term "intuition," which we use thoughtlessly.
Understanding oneself does not require accumulating knowledge or experience because these are all memories. Knowing oneself must occur in every moment; if you only accumulate knowledge about yourself, it will hinder further understanding. The accumulation of knowledge and experience becomes a self-centered activity, which is focused thinking.
In our pursuit of knowledge, we have lost love, weakened our sensitivity to beauty, and become unaware of our cruelty. We have become increasingly specialized and increasingly unable to integrate. Knowledge cannot replace wisdom; no accumulation of explanations or facts can solve human suffering. Knowledge is necessary, and science has its place, but if the heart and mind are filled with knowledge while the root of suffering has not been explored deeply, life will become superficial and meaningless. Information and knowledge of stating facts are increasing, but essentially they are limited; wisdom is infinite, encompassing knowledge and correct action. However, we always see the tree but not the forest; this one-sided knowledge cannot understand the joy of the whole. Reason can never see the whole because it is incomplete. We have separated intellect from sensitivity; to develop intellect, we have sacrificed sensitivity. We are like a being with three legs, one of which is much longer than the other two, thus losing balance. Our education has always been about cultivating sharp intellect, insatiable curiosity for knowledge, and clever argumentative skills, yet wisdom is far more important; only it can integrate reason and love. Unless you have self-awareness and deeply understand the entire process of the self, true wisdom cannot arise.
What we call learning is fundamentally what? Is accumulating knowledge and information learning? Is this one of the ways of learning? If you study engineering, you must understand mathematics and acquire information in this area; thus, we accumulate knowledge for practical reasons. Your way of learning is to constantly accumulate knowledge, becoming addicted to knowledge, but does a heart that constantly accumulates truly have the ability to learn? Or is learning a completely different state? I believe what we call learning is not learning at all; it is merely recitation and rote memorization; a thing that operates like a machine cannot learn anything. Machines have no capacity for learning. What I mean by learning is something else. A heart that is always learning does not say, "I know." Learning is complete, while knowledge is partial. Learning is not about carrying a pile of concepts to learn something and then adding more knowledge on top of that; this is purely a mechanical operation. For me, learning is about recognizing oneself in every moment, so the process is fluid, lively, with no beginning or end. If I say, "I have recognized myself," then learning ceases in the context of accumulation. Learning is not about accumulating knowledge; learning has no beginning or end.
A heart that truly understands learning is pure, while a heart that accumulates knowledge is outdated, stagnant, and decayed. A pure heart can immediately produce insights; it can continuously recognize things without accumulating knowledge, and such a heart is mature.
There is no need to immediately accept what I say; feel free to observe for yourself.
Our daily routines operate like machines, repeating themselves over and over. The mind is very eager to establish a pattern of existence and clings tightly to this pattern! The mind is composed of a pile of concepts and then lives according to these concepts. It is neither free nor flexible; it always operates rigidly within its scope. It never dares to take risks; as soon as it does, it gets lost in fear. What it fears is not the unknown, but the possibility of losing all that is known. The unknown does not provoke fear; dependence on the known creates fear. Fear is always related to desire. A mind that constantly changes patterns is the creator of time; as long as there is time, there will be fear, hope, and death.
The mind always thinks according to a fixed pattern. In the past, human minds were shaped by religious organizations; now, government institutions have taken on this task, always trying to control and shape your heart. On the surface, the mind seems to resist these controlling forces, but deep down in the subconscious, it is still bound by time and tradition. A conscious mind can lead itself to a certain extent, but in the subconscious, you are still filled with ambition, impulses, superstitions, and unresolved issues. The entire realm of the mind is a product of time; it thoughtlessly accepts various messages, thus creating conflicts and a constant desire to adjust, which leads to endless struggles and contradictions. We all long to live happily, but in fact, we are not very happy. Because there is violence in the heart, we create the concept of non-violence. Our hearts are battlefields, constantly generating conflicts. We pursue security, but deep down, we seem to know that security does not exist. We do not want to face this fact, so we are always in pursuit of security, fearing that we will not be protected.
If you want to understand the mind, you cannot interpret it according to others' concepts; you must observe your own mental activities. Once you recognize the entire process—thought patterns, desires, motivations, ambitions, demands, fears, jealousy, and greed—you can transcend yourself and discover something new. That new thing will bring incredible passion, and this immense passion will lead to an inner revolution, a transformation that no political or economic system can achieve.
You will see that your heart is always oscillating between the past and the future; it never exists in the present. The past mind is a means of escaping the unpleasant present, while the future mind is a hope of escaping the present, so the heart is always filled with thoughts of the past and future. It either rejects and condemns the present fact or recognizes and accepts it; such a heart clearly lacks the ability to see the truth of the moment as it is. Bound by past history and the activities of deluded consciousness, it generates limited responses to the challenges posed by the truth; the more you greet this challenge according to past beliefs, the more you will reinforce those beliefs. The reinforced beliefs continue on to become what we call the future. Thus, our consciousness is always oscillating between the past and the future.
A heart filled with troubles cannot be serious; only a heart willing to understand troubles and capable of dissolving them immediately is serious.
The way of the heart is not bound by any authority; it is extremely difficult not to be bound by authority—including the authority of opinions imposed on us by others and the authority of past experiences or traditions. The way of the heart has no beliefs; it does not believe in any dogma but sees the facts of each moment, so the way of the heart contains a scientific spirit. However, a heart with a scientific inclination does not necessarily have the way of the heart. The way of the heart contains a scientific spirit, but a mind trained in science does not necessarily have the way of the heart.
October: Time · Insight · Mind · Transformation#
As a person, I have lived in this world filled with various theories and concepts for forty or fifty years, and the society before me is full of greed, jealousy, and competition. I am part of these things.
Everything from yesterday continues into today, thus creating the future; this is evident. A year ago, I had an experience that left an imprint in my heart, so I interpreted what is happening now according to that experience and constraints, thus creating tomorrow. I have been stuck in this vicious cycle, and this is what we call life, what we call time. You are filled with various memories, constraints, hopes, despair, and delusions of loneliness; all of this involves time. If you want to understand the realm that transcends time, you must explore whether the mind can completely free itself from experience and the sense of time.
Clearly, the essence of thought is time; as long as we turn time into a tool for evolution, the mind cannot transcend itself—only a mind that transcends time can transform itself. Within time, there must be fear; I mean that the psychological sense of time will inevitably bring fear, as well as create frustration and contradictions, but directly perceiving the facts before us does not require the element of time.
All of this involves effort; we have become accustomed to effort, and the "shoulds" we set are merely fictional concepts; they are not the facts before us. If you want to change the facts before you, you must understand the thoughts created by time.
I find that the sense of time is the element that creates chaos rather than a means of liberating fear; therefore, we cannot gradually free ourselves from fear, nor can we gradually eliminate the poison brought by nationalism. If you