Being

In your moment of admitting the present is complete, and all was always fully endowed

Scripture

The room is dark as a prison; the pearl shines of itself.

A thousand hands hang in silence; a thousand eyes are shut like windows.

Being is in completeness, is in rest; being is in readiness, is in forgetting.

The storehouse is full without a key; no begging, no donating.

Not stored, not piled—being is hidden, not flaunted.

The pulse is still, without panic; light sleeps like grain.

Wenzi · On Being

You ram your shoulder against that door with no keyhole, until it bruises. The darkness is thick as a prison (the room is dark as a prison); you cannot see your own hand. Fear rises: the key is lost, the light confiscated. You grope, pound, exhaust yourself. At last, you slump down, and in the absolute darkness, close your long-useless eyes.

At some instant when you give up struggling and wholly settle into this darkness—you “see.”

Not with your eyes. Under the dome of your consciousness, a bright pearl is shining of itself, with a warm, steady light (the pearl shines of itself). It has always been there, never dimmed in the least by the darkness of the room or the closing of your eyes.

“A thousand hands hang in silence; a thousand eyes are shut like windows.” The scripture whispers at this moment: though there are a thousand hands, at this moment they hang down in silence (a thousand hands hang in silence); though there are a thousand eyes, at this moment they are shut like windows (a thousand eyes are shut like windows). Every reaching and seeking has come to rest. You are in the state of “being complete in yourself” and “all conditions at rest” (being is in completeness, is in rest).

Stop every impulse to grab outward. That will only make you forget the inner pearl. Now, reverse direction. Move your whole attention, completely, away from the fact of “the dark room.”

Move it toward that “pearl” shining inside you. Feel its existence, its warmth, its self-nature light that depends on no outer light. “The storehouse is full without a key; no begging, no donating.” You find that your inner storehouse has long been piled full (the storehouse is full), yet needs no outer “key” to open (without a key). You need not “beg” from the world (no begging), nor “donate” to anyone to prove your wealth (no donating). Abundance is the default state of your existence.

“Not stored, not piled—being is hidden, not flaunted.” This abundance is not acquired through later saving (not stored), nor accumulated through effort (not piled). It is the base color naturally “hidden” in the depths of your existence, never deliberately “flaunted” (being is hidden, not flaunted).

“The pulse is still, without panic; light sleeps like grain.” And so the veins of your life grow still (the pulse is still), no longer panicking (without panic). That inner light, like sleeping grain, rests safely in the granary of your life (light sleeps like grain). You know it is there—never exhausted, never used up.

The dark room is still there, but the fear is utterly gone. You even begin to appreciate this darkness, because it makes the inner pearl appear so clear, so precious. You are not a prisoner in the dark—you are that pearl itself, that unquenchable light, needing no condition, complete in itself, illuminating its own existence. Being-Completeness: you are not the deprived one—you are abundance itself, the self-nature pearl still radiant in absolute darkness.