Being
In your moment of being reborn from the old shell, gaining new life at the edge of death
Scripture
The rainbow-feathers bathe in fire; the scorched bones sing like a qin.
The form melts in the blaze; the spirit is cast into golden sound.
The old body is the boat; being is transforming, is ferrying across.
Being is burning, is casting; being is dying, is being born.
The ash blooms like a lotus; the wings beat, breaking the scroll.
The dust-shell falls of itself; the light rises toward the clouded peak.
Wenzi · On Being
You have been cast into the fire. Not a metaphor—an all-directional burning perceived by the soul. You see your brilliantly colored “rainbow-feathers” (the rainbow-feathers) curling and charring in the flames. You hear your hard “bones” (the scorched bones) ringing in the high heat with a sound like qin-strings snapping and reweaving (sing like a qin). Your “form” is melting (the form melts), but some more refined “spirit” substance is being cast, giving out a metallic clarity (the spirit is cast into golden sound).
“The old body is the boat; being is transforming, is ferrying across.” Your old body and cognition (the old body), at this moment, have become the “boat” carrying you across this blaze (is the boat). You are in the midst of “melting” and “crossing over” (being is transforming, is ferrying across). This is not destruction—it is a ferrying at high temperature.
“Being is burning, is casting; being is dying, is being born.” You are at once experiencing “burning” and “casting,” “death” and “new birth” (being is burning, is casting; being is dying, is being born). The old dies in the flame; the new is cast in the flame. The two are two faces of one process.
Do not try to flee the fire. The fire is exactly your only reality at this moment. Sink your consciousness completely into this “sense of burning.” Trust that this fire comes from the core of your life, and that what it burns was never what you truly needed. Feel the sharp pain of the peeling; listen to the ringing of the bones; trust the “casting” of that formless hand.
Even murmur in your heart: burn. Cast.
“The ash blooms like a lotus; the wings beat, breaking the scroll.”
At the very peak of your merging with the flame, the miracle appears: the “ash” that should have been the end gathers itself and blooms into a burning “lotus” (the ash blooms like a lotus). And from the heart of this lotus, a wholly new existence “beats its wings,” breaking through every old scroll and bondage (the wings beat, breaking the scroll). The dust-like shell falls of itself (the dust-shell falls of itself); one pure beam of light hastens toward the high clouded peak (the light rises toward the clouded peak).
The flame goes out; the high heat recedes. You stand where you are—or are no longer where you were. The old body has passed, but you feel a lightness and wholeness never felt before. You are not a sacrifice in the fire—you are that fire itself, that boat sailing through the fire, that lotus reborn from the ash, and even more, that light beating away on wings. Being-Transformation: you are not the one refined—you are that sacred burning and rebirth itself, which must happen, so that the undying may be reached.