Free Sample issue of The Empty Vessel - CommunityAwake

merge with it to “feel” the manifestation initiated by thetransforming force of great nature — the spontaneouscirculation. One famous Taoist scripture, called the 100-Word Monument, reads “sit to listen to non-chord song,run unimpeded into the core mechanism of Creation byridding yourself of the obscurity of illusion. Peacefullyplaying a gentle tune that tells of more than any happiness.”Up to now, can you perceive something from thesewords or something beyond these words?For illustration, let us consider the poem “Admonitionon Regulating Breathing” by Zhu Shih (a greatphilosopher in the Ming Dynasty).Nose white, I have sight of it;Relaxed, and at ease, come join with it and enjoy the accord.Becoming quieter and quieter, it seems it spreads widely,expanding out like the spring marsh where fish roam;For a long time immersed in constant motion, whereuponall then seems to converg , like insects gathering togetherto sleep through winter.In diffusion, opening to accommodate all, and in turn,closing to hibernate,The wonder of it is beyond words!Who, then, is the master of it all?Only the dominance of non-mastery is worthy of such greatness.At this time the dominance of non-mastery begins toplay its part and, of its own accord, the situation arisesof being “No longer driven onwards by the whip, freeas the air.”7. Following the natural courseWillow bank and green ripples dissolve into the sunset,Leisurely fingers of gray fog stretch out, grass spreads invelvet green .Hunger is served with food, thirst quenched with drink,at all times true to the manner and affinity of their occurance.Stretched out on the stone, the ox-herd boy lies soundly asleep.Here, “sleeping” lies at the core of the meaning behindthe words, which in turn, correlate with the maincharacteristics of immortality study. From the perceptionsof the initial stage, to the later state of oblivion,from the combination of Shen and Chi to the involvementin the spontaneous motion of ‘unified oneness’,success lies upon the precept which directs us “tofollow the natural course,” without any intervention.Eventually, this brings about “natural evaporation,natural convergence and natural cessation.” (if thereis nothing at all, what is left for us to follow around?)At this point, the practitioner has reached the stagewhere the heart-mind stops at the natural concordance,and the listening stops at the ears. Accordingly, we cansay that all perception and consciousness graduallycome to an enduring standstill, or reach a state whichis dominated by ‘constant standstill’. You may construethis to mean a state of sleep. However, the fact is thatwhen ordinary people sleep, they are in the companyof dreams; when practitioners sleep, they are completelyfree of dreams, since all consciousness comesto a standstill. It rests, or “is deprived of all functionality”.Or, to express it in other words, the differencebetween the awakened state and the sleeping statedisappears. So, the ox-herd boy falls soundly asleep.Here we borrow a passage from Chuang Tzu for betterunderstanding (translated by Victor H. Mair)“How do I know that love of life is not a delusion? How doI know that fear of death is not like being a homeless waif whodoes not know the way back home? When the state of Chin firstgot Pretty Li, the daughter of the border warden of Ai, she wepttill her robe was soaked with tears. But after she arrived at theking’s residence, shared his fine bed, and could eat the tendermeats of his table, she regretted that she had ever wept. How doI know that the dead may not regret their former lust for life?“Someone who dreams of drinking wine at a cheerfulbanquet may wake up crying the next morning. Someone whodreams of crying may go off the next morning to enjoy the sportof the hunt. When we are in the midst of a dream, we do notknow it’s a dream. Sometimes we may even try to interpret ourdreams while we are dreaming, but then we awake and realizeit was a dream. Only after one is greatly awakened does onerealize that it was all a great dream, while the fool thinks thathe is awake and presumptuously aware. ‘My excellent lord!’‘Oh, thou humble shepherd!’ How perverse they are!“Both Confucius and you are dreaming, and I too amdreaming when I say that you are dreaming. This sort oflanguage may be called enigmatic, but after myriad generationsthere may appear a great sage who will know howto explain it and he will appear as though overnight!”16 Summer 2011