Being

In your moment of realizing life is a dream, and all its splendor a phantom

Scripture

The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon; the flower in the mirror is not a flower.

Being is in illusion, in dream; the city, seen, is sand.

Splendor for one instant; at the eye’s bottom, crows fly up.

Where does the true abide? The shadow is draped in gauze.

Grasp it and it shatters; grip it and it slips.

At the extreme of illusion, the true sprouts as from a seed.

Wenzi · On Being

You have just come from a feast, or just achieved a goal. The laughter is still in your ears, the applause seems not yet faded. But at the very center of the bustle, a chill suddenly climbs your spine.

You look at the delicate glass in your hand, at the vivid faces around you, and a thought surfaces coldly: is all this real? Or am I only an actor too absorbed, forgetting that I am on a stage?

“The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon; the flower in the mirror is not a flower.”

The scripture splashes cold water on your face:

The finger points at the moon, but the finger is not the moon. The mirror reflects a flower, but the reflected image is not the real flower. All the splendor you experience and cling to (the moon and the flower) may be only that “pointing” finger, only that “reflecting” mirror. The substance lies elsewhere.

“Being is in illusion, in dream; the city, seen, is sand.” You begin to re-examine life with this gaze (being in illusion, in dream). The achievements once unshakable, the affections once tangled and tender, the grand edifice of goals—seen now, they are as unreal as a sand-castle (the city, seen, is sand). The tide (awareness) has not truly arrived, and they are already loosening.

“Splendor for one instant; at the eye’s bottom, crows fly up.” Indeed. That splendid scene, like a film sped up, races and deforms before your eyes, and at last, like a flock of startled crows, leaves only scattered black shadows and a shrill after-echo (crows fly up before the eyes). You cannot catch it, cannot keep it.

“Where does the true abide? The shadow is draped in gauze.”

You panic, and ask urgently: where, then, is the true existence? The scripture points at the very phantom before your eyes: the true, draped in a layer of gauze, stands before you in the form of a “shadow” (the shadow is draped in gauze). You are not to disperse the shadow to find the real body—you are to look through the shadow, and see the light-source casting it.

Good. Stop the questioning.

Make a reverse movement.

Do not “grasp” the true, and do not “break” the illusion.

“Grasp it and it shatters; grip it and it slips.”

Because the moment you grasp, the illusion breaks, and you fall into the nothingness of “there is nothing there.” The moment you strain to hold something, you feel the deviation and the loss at once.

This is not a method. Now, please choose any object before you—that wine glass, say. Gaze at it. Not to think about it—to drown it with all your senses: see the cold light of its curve, feel the slickness of its wall, imagine the texture of its weight. Shrink your world until only this “illusion” remains, in absolute clarity. At the very peak where the senses sharpen to the utmost, suddenly ask back: who is this, “perceiving so clearly”?

Not to throw yourself into the plot, but to savor the whole event of “the plot being performed.” “At the extreme of illusion, the true sprouts as from a seed.” When you no longer resist “this is illusion,” but immerse completely in the texture, color, and flow of the “illusion”—the miracle happens.

At the moment the illusion is seen to its extreme, admitted to its extreme, something solid quietly sprouts from beneath the illusion (the true sprouts as from a seed).

That is no longer another object, but that very capacity-to-experience which “can experience all this—including experiencing the unreal.” It abides, thus, and yet lets the ten thousand illusions arise and perish.

And so the glass still glitters, the laughter still moves you. But you know: you are no longer the protagonist weighing gain and loss in the plot. You are that bright mirror-stand reflecting the joys and sorrows, yet stained by no plot.

Being-Illusion: you are not the dreamer—you are the lucid background on which the dream rises and dissolves.