Being

In your moment of collapsing faith, discovering that all you clung to was delusion

Scripture

What was called a jade mountain was always gathered sand.

What was held as the standard is now a palmful of north wind.

The pillar is softening; the glaze is shattering.

It was always a phantom feast, mistaken for a true banquet.

Being is in delusion, is collapsing; being is waking, is aching.

The ruins become a bright mirror, reflecting the original face.

Wenzi · On Being

That jade mountain you always looked up to and climbed, at the very instant you touched its summit, turned to quicksand beneath your fingertips. Not a collapse—a “revelation.” It was never jade—only an exquisite phantom, gathered from grains of sand (what was called a jade mountain was always gathered sand). The standard you once held as an absolute rule, now held in your palms, lets only the north wind pass through your fingers—nothing there (what was held as the standard is now a palmful of north wind).

“The pillar is softening; the glaze is shattering.” The pillar supporting your worldview has begun to soften and weather from within (the pillar is softening). The crystal-glaze of cognition you thought unbreakable is shattering before your eyes into ten thousand pieces (the glaze is shattering). You realize that all that has passed was only a lifelike “phantom feast” (it was always a phantom feast), which you took for the one “true banquet” (mistaken for a true banquet).

“Being is in delusion, is collapsing; being is waking, is aching.” You are in the midst of the delusion revealing itself and the old world collapsing (being is in delusion, is collapsing), and at the same time in “waking” and “aching” (being is waking, is aching). This is not an easy realization—it is a birth accompanied by the pain of broken bones.

Do not try to cover your eyes, or pick up the pieces and glue them back.

Allow this collapse to happen.

Even find a piece of still-solid ruin and sit down,

and watch all this fall apart.

At this very moment, take the thought “everything is delusion” itself as the only solid ground you can stand on. Stand firm on this ground of “seeing through,” and watch how the sand flows away, listen how the glaze tinkles as it breaks.

Live this experience of “witnessing illusion” as the most important reality. “The ruins become a bright mirror, reflecting the original face.” When you wholly, unflinchingly live through this collapse, the scripture reveals the ultimate value of the ruins: this ruin made of delusion (the ruins) becomes of itself an incomparably clear “bright mirror” (become a bright mirror). It no longer reflects any illusion—it directly “reflects” that “original face” of yours, long veiled by illusions (reflecting the original face). You have lost everything—and at last seen yourself.

The wind-sand settles; the fragments glitter. You sit at the center of the empty ruins, possessing nothing. But the mirror cast from the ruins in your heart reflects a face never so clear, never so true. You are not a wanderer whose faith collapsed—you are that magnificent shattering which must happen, so that the true face may be seen. Being-Delusion: you are not the deceived one—you are that true, bright mirror, at last condensed from all the fragments of delusion.