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ECHOES - I

The idea of a separate individual, an ego, self or I-concept, is an object. I become an object - inevitably - every time I think of my self. Also, every time I act as my self it is an object which acts.
Once in a while, however, I act directly - but then no 'I' acts.

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'I' am not conscious of anything: never. 'Consciousness' as such is all that I am.

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The Positive Expression


Noumenon is the sub-stance of phenomena, whose being it is, the being of Noumenon being the being of Being as such - which is the absence of Non-being.


Void is the sub-stance of form,
Form is the manifestation of Void.

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Again


There is no cogniser apart from the 'thing' cognised; there is no 'thing' cognised apart from the cogniser of it. But the 'cogniser' is only an act of cognition (a cognising), of which the 'thing' cognised is the counterpart.
Therefore the 'cogniser' and the 'cognised' are not different, 'not two': they can only be the 'function of cognising', the functional aspect of pure potentiality, which, as such, has no phenomenal or objective existence apart from its manifestation as cogniser-and-cognised.
The observer cannot observe the observer.

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The Asker is the Answer.

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'If you suppose that anything is NOT Prajna, let me hear what it is.' - Hui Hai, p. 118.

So why call it 'Wisdom'?

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Definition of 'Noumenal Living'


To be in non-objective relation with all things is to live noumenally.
To live without volition is to be in non-objective relation with all things.
Ceasing to objectify, or pure thought antecedent to 'name and form' (interpretation) is living without volition.
That is the nien of wu-nien, the hsin of wu-hsin, the wei of wu-wei, 'moved only by the Will of God.' (Chuang Tzu).

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You have no objective existence (as 'you'),
Nor any subjective existence (as 'you'),
Because 'existence as subject' would make subject an object - which it could never be.
You only exist as existence itself.

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Hara-Kiri

If attachment must be renounced, renunciation itself must also be renounced.
But renunciation, being also an act of volition, it is volition that must renounce itself.
Can we renounce what we have never possessed?
What is there to 'do' or to 'have' anything?
Let us start by locating this 'we'.

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Inseeing

Everything is what we are: every object is its subject, and what we are is 'our' subject.
Noumenal seeing is enlightened seeing, phenomenal seeing is unenlightened seeing: that is the only difference between them.
How so? Because noumenal seeing sees phenomena noumenally - and then phenomenon is as noumenal as Noumenon itself.

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Identified with non-being, you can only be a mirror. 'One must become identified with non-being and mirror the whole, for the truth is one and final.' - Hsieh Ling-yün (A.D. 385-453).


(©HKU Press, 1965)
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