Wu Hsin Quotes

An event becomes
An experience through
Personal involvement.
Collecting experiences can be
Helpful with the daily aspects of life,
But it is not
The road to happiness.

Regardless of how fast one runs
There is no escape
From oneself.
The impetus of this escape is
This state which is
Believed to be unsatisfactory.
To succeed, one must relinquish
The smaller for
The greater.

Only the fool
Seeks to stop
The shaking of
The moon’s reflection on the water.
The acceptance of what
Cannot be changed
Paves the way to
The changeless.

The trance of separateness is
The jail.
The imagination is
The jailer.
When one no longer believes
What one imagines oneself to be,
The cell door opens and
The realization dawns that
A life filled up with being somebody is
An empty existence.

Do not divide
Do not label or categorize.
Rather than seeing the many
Within the One,
See the One
Inherent in the many.

Real contact is made when
There are no persons,
No personalities,
No individuals to meet.

Life is experienced
As a series of events
Happening to an individual.
Wu Hsin says:
Life is happening.
The individual is merely
One of the series
Of events.

Do not mistake birth
For beginning.
Likewise, Death is not
An ending.
Prior to birth is Existence without limit.
This is the quality
That is masked By incarnation.
Remove the mask and
Remove the bindings.

Each being is a moment in time
With a name and
A form and
A script
To be performed
In this play called
Life.
None chose the name
Nor the form
Nor the script
Yet each believes himself to be
The master of his destiny.
Once their sight clears,
They, too, will laugh.

In seeing,
Both the seer and the seen are experienced.
Identification with the seer is
An error of the mind.

All conflict
Between friends, lovers,
Family or states
Begins as conflict inside yourself.
Freeing yourself from conflict
Frees the world of conflict.

The present stands outside of time;
Lacking in duration,
It cannot be measured.
To be timeless is
To be present.

Once the mountain peaks have been viewed,
Even from far away,
There is an implicit invitation to
Go there.
Wu Hsin extends his invitation:
Stop limiting yourself to yourself,
Stop identifying yourself with what is thought.

A thought arises and it is perceived.
What makes it my thought?
The bird sings and it is perceived.
Does one make it my song?

The mind does not see.
Nor does it hear, taste, or smell.
It labels and interprets.
It discriminates,
Setting this against that.
What sees, hears, tastes, and smells?
All words are inadequate.

A thought arises…..
I know not where it came from
I only know what it came through.
There is a response to this thought
Because I am
What I am
And then an action occurs.
At what point in this process
Was the notion of my action born?

Embracing change is
Embracing What-is
In every moment.
It is saying “yes”
To Life,
Not Life as one would have it
But life as it is.
It is understanding that
There is no one
Doing anything
Other than
The Doer
And that each is an actor
On the stage.
The script is written
The sets arranged.
Watch the play,
Enjoy it.
Laugh, cry,
But never make the story
Your own.

Understanding is not necessary.
The end to misunderstanding is sufficient.

Every day, become, at the least
One gram lighter.

It is understood that
Sleep is the desire for
A period of rest
For the body.
It is less understood that
Sleep is the desire for
A period of rest
Away from the body.

How many eyes are required to
See the appearance of Being?
To change the world
One need only change
The color of the glass
One looks through.

Weren't you a small baby, some years ago? Where is the baby now?
It is gone forever and it is impossible to bring it back.
It, in a sense, died while you continued on to become a child,
unaffected by its passing. The child too is gone
and you continued to become a teenager, then a young adult and
now a full adult. Each died to give way to the next.
Soon the adult will give way to the aged.
All these deaths keep succeeding one another.
It is the natural course of the form's journey through the world.
Therefore, why fear this impending death?
It is no different from the previous deaths.
You have known them but you are not them.
Only the name and form die.
That which knows the name and form continues.
Fight with all your strength against the idea
that you are describable and death cannot touch you.

The two great delusions are that life is controllable and
that there is an entity, me, who can exercise said control.
You cannot experience yourself because what you are
is so subtle that it cannot be experienced.
Witnessing is the registration of the presence or
absence of experience.
Presence is Being, not being here now.
No effort is required to be.

You say "I am speaking", "I am working".
Is it not illusion to believe that the actions occurring
via the functioning of the Conscious Life Energy are yours?
Are they anything more than the music
that emerges from the instrument?
Make the "I" and the "am" a single word and
follow each instance with "is".
We now have I-am is speaking, I-am is working.
This is the true state of affairs.

Q: Master, how can you assert that I am eternal?
A: Did you not exist prior to this birth,
dormant in the seed of your father
in the same way that the
sunflower lies dormant in the sunflower seed? And
was your father not dormant in the seed of his father?
This regression leads back to the so-called beginning.
As such, you have always been, in potential,
awaiting the right time and place for your arrival.

Both the mind and the body are discontinuous.
During a single day,
they come and they go.
Yet, there must be something
that is continuous
to register the discontinuity.

Q: Master, am I to be totally alone
and unsupported in this quest?
A: Not at all.
That which you are accompanies you to the goal
because It is the goal.

You are conscious of your individual existence
and therefore must be something prior to it.

No-mind is when mind has nothing to say.
Not wanting is not indifference.
Not wanting is having no preferences.
It is welcoming whatever arrives.

It is only by theatre of the mind
and its transient displays that the world shines.
Thus, the Knower of the mind
holds true knowledge of the world.
The screen does not see what appears on it.

When we are unwilling to accept life on its terms,
when we want things to be different from what they are,
when we define ourselves by our preferences,
all of these sow the seeds of conflict.

What one is conscious of is "of consciousness" only.
That is to say that in order to know itself,
consciousness objectifies itself.

Thus duality births experience.

Every thing is consciousness.
It is that which underlies and unifies all.

Be this and be still.

It needs to be acknowledged that there is a
dysfunctional relationship with the body.
That which you are has become enmeshed with it.
To use the term "your body" means that there is a relationship
between an as-yet-to-be-defined you,
and the object it possesses, body.
They are not one and the same.
Your quill is an instrument for writing; it is not you.
This body is an instrument for perception and action; it is not you.
It is only because you believe that you reside inside the body that
you refer to a sapling as outside the body.
If your viewpoint shifted so that you, too, were outside the body,
the sapling would no longer be outside the body
because the body is no longer the central reference point.

Everything contributes to everything else. No effect has a single cause.
Assume that Y causes Z. If X causes Y, then is X not also a cause of Z?
Can you see how the regression is endless?
When one considers all the conditions that must be satisfied for a single
action to occur, the notion of a single cause is revealed as flawed.
If you concede that everything is connected,
then it becomes obvious that everything has numerous causes. Yet,
if everything causes everything, the notion of cause seems without point.
We only believe we understand causes, but it's self-deception.
We conclude that the leaves falling from the trees are the cause of winter, that lightning causes thunder ............. and we're self satisfied.
The interconnectedness of everything is such that
discerning a single cause for an event is impossible.
We tell ourselves we understand and
it is this very misunderstanding that keeps us ensnared.

Consciousness turned outward is mind;
mind turned inward is consciousness.

The preoccupation with the objective must be
replaced with a preoccupation with the Subject.
Instantly, everything clarifies.