Being

In your moment of understanding energy is never lost, that losing is another kind of having

Scripture

The tripod’s feet tread the earth; its belly embraces one fire.

Ten thousand spokes turn the wheel; the axle sleeps like a fetus.

Being is guarding, is releasing; being is in the pivot, is in the embrace.

The fuel is spent, the ash flies; the primal yang breathes itself warm.

Guarding at its extreme; the tripod rusts, the flame is a buddha.

Neither cooking nor sacrifice—embracing the one is the form.

Wenzi · On Being

Before you is an ancient bronze tripod. Its three feet tread firmly on the earth (the tripod’s feet tread the earth); in its round belly, it embraces a quietly burning flame (its belly embraces one fire). Around the tripod turn countless wheels, their spokes spinning dizzily (ten thousand spokes turn the wheel). But all the wheels connect to one still “axle,” sleeping like a fetus (the axle sleeps like a fetus).

You watch the flame: it burns, consuming the fuel in the tripod. The fuel turns to ash, the ash flies (the fuel is spent, the ash flies). But the flame itself—that “primal yang energy”—tends itself within its spending, continuing without cease (the primal yang breathes itself warm). It is “releasing” light and heat, while at the same time “guarding” that undying core (being is guarding, is releasing).

“Being is in the pivot, is in the embrace.” You feel that this fetus-sleeping “axle” (the pivot) is exactly the “embrace” in which the flame can rest (is in the embrace). Movement and stillness, spending and keeping, have reached perfect balance here.

Now, let yourself become that tripod.

Feel the steadiness of the feet on the ground; feel the warmth of the flame in the belly.

Feel the burning and spending of your life-energy (the flame),

and at the same time, feel more deeply that thus-abiding “axle”—

that “being” which is never consumed, even as the consuming happens.

“Guarding at its extreme; the tripod rusts, the flame is a buddha.”

When your awareness of this “guarding” reaches its extreme (guarding at its extreme), the image is sublimated: the outer bronze body will rust and decay (the tripod rusts), but that flame in the belly seems to have turned into a silent “buddha” (the flame is a buddha)—bright, warm, beyond the frame of flesh. What is guarded was never the perishable shell, but that unquenchable light itself.

“Neither cooking nor sacrifice—embracing the one is the form.” So this is not for cooking, nor for sacrifice (neither cooking nor sacrifice). The only “form” of this tripod’s existence is “embracing that one undying core” (embracing the one is the form). You pass through gain and loss, spending and growth and aging, yet you always embrace that thus-abiding “one.”

The flame brightens and dims; the wheels spin on.

You rest calmly at the center of every change,

knowing that what burns will in the end turn to ash,

but the “primal yang” that lets the burning happen

has never increased and never diminished.

You are not a miser guarding possessions—

you are that tripod, that flame, that axle,

that cosmic law itself, in which movement and stillness, spending and keeping, dance perfectly together.

Being-Guarding: you are not the guard—you are that eternal balance, written together by an undying burning and a thus-abiding embrace.