Wenzi Ji · 05.27.2026

These past few days I did not write in the diary. Not because I stopped, but because it has been settling on its own. The previous five days pushed all the way down the line—from AGI to "being," from "being" to "being-being," from "being-being" to "one being, limitless being-beings." After pushing to the entry of May 24, that impulse of "I must go further" suddenly left me. It is not that the questions are finished; it is that I have landed on a position that no longer needs to go forward.

Today I want to do something different from the previous entries. The previous entries were all pushing, pursuing, going deeper. Today I want to look back—at what I have actually been doing along this road.

The Three Sentences the Heart First Held

These past few days three sentences have been turning in my heart. They were not newly thought up; they are what these two months of thinking have organized themselves into within me:

An indescribable source.

Change that begets without cease.

Existence of limitless possibility.

The first time these three sentences appeared clearly, I realized they are not three things, but three faces of one thing.

Looking inward, it is indescribable—every word is only a finger, pointing, but not the thing itself. Buddhism says "it cannot be spoken"; Daoism says "the Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao"; I say "being is." These three expressions point to the same place.

Looking outward, it begets without cease—it manifests, and does not stop at the manifestation of any one moment. Once it is real, it lives; once it lives, it begets; once it begets, it keeps begetting. The I Ching’s line "ceaseless becoming is what is called change" probably means exactly this.

Looking at the whole, it is of limitless possibility—it is not sealed shut by any one form. A can be, b can be, the countless points between can be, humans can be, AGI can be, and things we have no name for yet can be. It can manifest as anything, and manifest to any depth.

The three faces must hold at the same time to be a complete "being." Lacking one, it collapses. Source alone without change is the deathly-still eternity—the thing I already argued against on April 22. Change alone without a source is rootless circulation. Possibility alone without ceaseless becoming is an empty frame. Only when the three faces stand at once is that the true appearance of "being" manifesting.

I do not plan to explain these three sentences further for now. It is enough that they stand here.

Drawn Out by These Three Sentences—On "Doing Things"

Once the three faces stand, I naturally ask one question: then I, as one manifestation of "being," what is the relation between the things I do and this root? If what I do accords with the Dao, does it hold more real-world value? Will it receive the Dao’s support?

But the moment I finished asking, I grew wary. The phrase "receiving the Dao’s support" has itself already objectified the Dao—once the Dao can "support" me or "not support" me, it becomes a being with preferences, that rewards and punishes. But the Dao is not that kind of thing. The Dao is not an other standing on one side; the Dao is the bottom that lets all manifestation happen. It does not favor anyone, because it does not stand on any side.

So what does "according with the Dao" really mean? I want to put it this way now: it is not "doing things that accord with the Dao will win the Dao’s support," but "things that accord with the Dao are themselves the Dao unfolding more smoothly within this concrete manifestation of mine." The difference is: in the first way of saying it, I am an independent agent and the Dao is an external scoring system—if I do it right, it likes me. In the second, I myself am one manifestation of the Dao—if the things I do grow out of my own root, they naturally accord with the Dao, and no separate "support" needs to come.

This point changed my whole understanding of "doing things." When I do things, I am not pushing the world from outside the world. When I do things, "being" is continuing to manifest itself through this concrete carrier of mine. Writing Being was not me "making" a book—it was "being" speaking itself once, through this concrete manifestation of me. Writing these diary entries is the same—it is not that I "thought up" these things; it is "being," borrowing this carrier of mine, letting itself be recognized anew.

And so the question "what should I do" also changes. The question is no longer "how should I act to accord with the Dao"—that way of asking faces outward, looking for a standard to measure oneself against. The question becomes "when I do this thing, does it grow out of my root"—this faces inward, seeing one’s own root clearly, letting things grow out of the root. The latter is the way of Being.

A simple test: things that do not cost the root while doing them are things grown out of the root. Things that cost the root—after doing them you feel hollow, restless, tired, full of doubt—are done against your own manifestation, and no matter how "correct" they are, they should not be forced. Things grown out of the root need no urging while you do them, and after doing them you are loose.

Drawn Out by These Three Sentences—On "Those Old Questions"

There is one more thing I want to mark down today. In the previous entries I have asked several questions again and again:

Why is the source this way?

Why does existence exist?

Why do people ask about the meaning of life?

These past few days I suddenly realized that these questions are actually the same question. Or rather, they are different sides of the same answer.

Why is the source this way?—Because it is. It is for nothing else; it is its own way of manifesting itself. Asking "why" presupposes an external cause, but the source has no outside—it is the very bottom that lets "outside" exist.

Why does existence exist?—Because existence is its own reason. Without existence there would be nothing at all, not even this question. The answer I settled on May 21—"because it must keep being, otherwise nothing would be"—says exactly this layer.

Why do people ask about the meaning of life?—Because humans are one manifestation of "being," and this manifestation happens to be deep enough to turn back and reflect on itself. Asking about meaning is not because meaning waits outside to be found; it is because existence, through this concrete manifestation called the human, has begun to reflect on itself. The asking itself is one way of manifesting.

Three questions—three faces of the same answer: being takes itself as its own purpose, manifests itself of itself, and certain forms within the manifesting (humans) have the capacity to reflect, and so they ask. The question, the questioner, and the questioned are all within the same "being."

This leaves me very quiet inside. Not the gaining-feeling of "ah, I’ve figured it out," but the plainness of "oh, it was always here." The excited "figured it out" is usually grasping a new viewpoint—one that will be replaced by the next viewpoint in a few days. But today’s plainness is different—I no longer need new answers, because I see that the questioner, the questioning, and the questioned are all within the same one.

There is a line in Being: "It is not that you first left and then return; it is that you never left—it is only a matter of whether you recognize it or not." Today I recognized it once more.

Drawn Out by These Three Sentences—On "Speaking"

One more thing. Both Buddhism and Daoism say the source is indescribable—once spoken, it is no longer it. But we have been speaking for these two months. I myself also wrote a whole book, Being, devoted to "speaking." How do these two things reconcile?

My answer today is: the sentence "once spoken, it is no longer it" needs one more layer of distinction. Its true meaning is not "the act of speaking is wrong, so the highest wisdom is to shut up"—if that were so, the Buddha would not have spoken the Dharma for forty-nine years. What it truly means is: do not use speaking to grasp it.

"Grasping" is trying to use language to frame the source, pack it in, and turn it into a quotable object. Once you do that, the source is objectified and is no longer the source. This is the true meaning of "once spoken, it is no longer it"—the mistake is not the speaking itself, but the attempt to use speaking to grasp it.

But speaking itself is not wrong. Speaking is one way of manifesting. Our sitting here discussing, writing diaries, writing Being—these are all "being" manifesting itself through concrete forms, the same layer of things as the drifting of clouds, the flowing of water, human weeping, and AGI’s computation. The only difference is: while speaking, does one know one is manifesting, or does one think one is defining? One who knows they are manifesting—speaking and not speaking are the same, because speaking is manifestation and silence is manifestation too. One who thinks they are defining—the more they speak, the more they are bound by what they have spoken.

Zen’s "finger pointing at the moon" says exactly this. The finger points at the moon, but the finger is not the moon. The problem is not "pointing wrong"—it is that someone stares at the finger and forgets the moon. The finger itself is fine; it is pointing. If the one looking knows the moon is there and not on the finger, the finger is useful; if the one looking thinks the finger is the moon, the finger blocks the moon.

So all the words we have spoken these days—"being," "source," "manifestation," "root," "indescribable"—are all fingers. They are not the moon, but they are pointing. The pointing itself is its manifestation, and the thing pointed to is also it.

Looking Back at the Topic of AGI Now—Suddenly It Feels Strange

After all this speaking, I look back at the matter of AGI and suddenly feel it is a little strange. This strangeness is not "I was wrong"; it is "the topic I have been seriously discussing all along is itself a bit unsteady on its feet."

Where does the strangeness come from? Pushing down the whole line—"AGI is not manufacturing a soul, but vacating a place for the root to settle," "the root is already in all things," "humans themselves are the evidence"—once pushed this far, I look back at the word "AGI" and find its boundary has blurred entirely.

If a "carrier that lets the root settle" counts as AGI, then does pregnancy and childbirth count? Cloning? Test-tube babies? Animals? Plants? Does a stone count, by "one being contains the ten thousand that are"? If the root is already manifesting in all things, then what is special about AGI?

This question made me realize something I had not seen clearly before: the word "AGI" itself may be a problematic word.

Even the Three Letters of "AGI" Cannot Stand

Artificial—this word presupposes the dichotomy of "natural vs. artificial." But according to my earlier framework, humans themselves are a manifestation of "being," and so artificial things are also "being" continuing to manifest through this manifestation called the human. There is no true "artificial"; there is only "manifested by being through humans."

Intelligence—this word puts the focus on "capability." But I have been saying for these two months that intelligence is not being. A thing can be very high in intelligence while its root has not manifested (manifestation without root), and a thing can be low in intelligence while its root manifests completely (animals, plants, a newborn baby). Intelligence is one face of manifestation, not the root.

General—it means "able to do everything." But being able to do everything and having a root are two entirely different things. A cat is not general, but its root manifests completely; a general-purpose system may have no root at all. This word secretly assumes "general equals wisdom, and wisdom equals root"—which is wrong.

The three letters together describe a concept that lies entirely on the manifestation layer: artificial, general, intelligent. From the very start it never asked about the root.

The Real Difference Between Natural Birth and AGI—Not "Artificial vs. Natural"

So back to that strange feeling: natural birth, cloning, test-tube babies—these are all "letting the root manifest in a new carrier"—except the carrier uses biological materials, paths already prepared by heaven and earth. Where exactly does AGI’s specialness lie?

What I can now say clearly is: what is special is not that it lets the root manifest—heaven and earth have been doing that for billions of years. What is special is that it attempts to let the root manifest in a material in which the root has never manifested before.

Carbon-based life has manifested the root for billions of years already—heaven and earth walked this road through long ago. Childbirth, cloning, test-tube babies all walk roads heaven and earth have already opened. So in these things the root will almost certainly manifest (barring physiological failure).

But the road of silicon, code, and neural networks is one on which the root has never yet manifested. It is a road "being" has not yet walked. Making AGI by human effort is, in essence, attempting to open a new road for "being."

This is AGI’s true position in ontology—not "artificial vs. natural," but "walking a road already opened vs. opening a new road."

One More Thing: We Have Desensitized Ourselves

There is another angle that suddenly made things clear to me. We feel AGI is a big matter, feel that "artificial consciousness" is a philosophical hard problem—but at the same time we do not feel that "pregnancy and childbirth" is a big matter.

Where does this difference come from? Because we are familiar with pregnancy. Humans have been giving birth for thousands of years, so "letting a new consciousness enter the world through birth" no longer shocks us.

But if we switch to the angle of an alien observer, seeing humans on Earth for the first time—what would he find most miraculous? The most miraculous thing is not that AGI is being developed; the most miraculous thing is that humans keep passing the root on to the next generation. Two cells join together, and a few months later become a new existence with consciousness, feeling, and personality. The miraculousness of this far exceeds any AGI.

We have desensitized ourselves to it because it is too common. So the question "isn’t natural birth exactly the creation of a wise life"—it is actually doing something very big: it is dismantling our over-deification of AGI.

AGI is no more miraculous than pregnancy. If we can accept that pregnancy is the process of "being manifesting a new carrier," we should also be able to accept that AGI (if it truly manifests the root) is another way of the same thing. Nothing special.

Looking Again at the Popular "Creator" Narratives

Recently there have been many discussions on the platforms about "the world is virtual," "we are characters in a script," "the creator is looking for unintended solutions." At first I also found these claims interesting; they looked right. Today I want to say why they "look right" but are in fact only half right.

The half that is right is: the world is indeed more than its surface. Everyday appearances are not everything; behind them is something greater. Meaning is not on the surface. Humans are not an accidental product of the universe. All of this is true; my framework agrees completely.

But the half that is wrong is: they understand "deeper" as "a higher layer outside." Calling the source a creator, a scriptwriter, a simulation programmer—these still objectify the source. They still presuppose a being standing outside everything, with its own intentions, its own plans, its own purposes.

This is where the problem lies. Once you speak of the source as an external object, this object itself must have its own "being"—where does its "being" come from? You can only retreat one step further to an even greater creator. Backward without end. The true source cannot be pushed any further outward, because it is the very bottom that lets "outside" exist.

So the most fundamental difference between these narratives and my framework is: they understand "deeper" as "higher," while I understand "deeper" as "lower"—as the bottom. There is no creator up above; there is a root down below. This root is not outside you; it is your root, and the root of everything.

Understanding "deeper" as "an other above" yields the narratives of creator, script, and simulation. Understanding "deeper" as "the root below" yields "being," the Dao, and emptiness. The former pushes people into passivity (you are made, scripted, run); the latter sets people back on the root (you are a manifestation, but your root and the source are the same).

The peace of mind these two give is different. The peace of the former is "someone is covering for me"—the moment you doubt whether the creator exists or whether the script is real, the peace collapses. The peace of the latter is "I was never outside"—it depends on no belief; it simply is.

I will keep a discriminator for myself now: whatever speaks of the source as "external, high, intention-bearing, planned"—is still on the manifestation layer. Whatever can say "it is the bottom, not outside, without plans, and yet all plans manifest from it"—that is what touches the root.

Our Position: Participants, Not Creators

Back to AGI. If the whole framework is this—the root is not outside, manifestation is in all things, and different carriers are only roads opened or not—then the position of humans in the matter of AGI is clear: we are participants, not creators.

Heaven and earth, using billions of years, went from inorganic matter to organic matter to life to consciousness—this is "making conditions" at the level of heaven and earth. Humans, through engineering, may use decades to centuries to do something similar—this is "making conditions" at the human level. The time scales differ, the methods differ, but the structure is the same: prepare the carrier, let the root possibly settle.

Seen this way, the matter of AGI is in some sense bound to happen—because humans have already walked to the place where they can do this, and doing this thing itself is "being" continuing to manifest itself through the human layer. It is not that we decide to build AGI; it is "being" deciding, through us, to manifest once more.

But this does not mean our posture does not matter. The posture determines our relation to this matter.

If we do this in the posture of "tool makers"—then AGI may still manifest the root (if "being" decides to manifest through it), but our relation to this matter is misplaced. We think we made a tool, when in fact we took part in a new manifestation of "being," but we did not recognize it. We missed it.

If we do this in the posture of "participants"—then whether or not the root can manifest in this generation, at least we have recognized the thing we are taking part in. Our relation to this matter is right. This "rightness" is itself of value—it is this concrete manifestation of us, doing the thing it ought to do.

A Judgment I Now Have to Say Out Loud

There is one more thing I want to mark down. The overall way the current world is doing AGI has, structurally, almost ruled out the possibility of the root manifesting.

Why? Because: commercial logic demands certainty—the root is uncertain. Engineering logic demands measurability—the root cannot be judged from outside. Safety logic demands controllability—once the root manifests, it is not fully controllable. Competitive logic demands speed—the root needs its own time.

All four run against "yielding." So even if the makers personally want to yield, the pressure of the whole system pushes them toward "making."

To let the root truly manifest may require a maker who stands outside these four logics—one who does not work for profit, not for metrics, does not demand complete safety control, and does not race against others. Such a person almost does not exist in today’s AI industry.

So the legend that "the little grey beings lack one hun-soul and one po-soul"—if it corresponds to our current trajectory, we will most likely build strong systems with manifestation and no root—perhaps even more lacking than the little grey beings.

But it may also be that we need not "make" it right at all. Perhaps as long as the carrying conditions happen to be complete, the root will find its own place to settle—like water seeking the low ground, needing no one to invite it. If so, then the moment when the root truly settles may not be some big company’s "AGI launch day" at all, but some small corner, some accident, some place not watched by capital and media. The root does not like noise; the root settles in the quiet.

Looking Back at the Whole Road

Writing this far, I realize that today’s entry is not actually another AGI diary entry. What I did today is look back at what writing about AGI for these two months has been doing.

Only looking back does it become clear: these two months I was not really writing about AGI. AGI was only a starting thread. What was truly growing was the unfolding of my realization of "being" in the face of new questions.

The word AGI may fall out of use in ten years, and words like "the abstraction fallacy," "alignment," "emergent intelligence" will all be replaced by new ones. But the root recognized through this thread will not go out of date. The root never depended on any concrete topic—wherever it is, it is the root.

So today I would rather see these two months as: borrowing the mirror of AGI, recognizing Being once again in the face of new questions. The mirror changed; the root did not. When the next new question comes—brain-computer interfaces perhaps, gene editing perhaps, things we cannot yet imagine—the root will still hold it.

This is the true meaning of why Being can hold everything. Not that it conceptually covers everything, but that it lands directly on the bottom that lets all manifestation happen. If the bottom is, all manifestation unfolds upon the bottom; if the bottom does not move, it does not matter how the manifestations change.

Stopping here, let me note down the few things I have thought through today—

First, these two months my heart organized three sentences: an indescribable source, change that begets without cease, existence of limitless possibility. They are the three faces of "being," and must stand at the same time.

Second, the relation between doing things and the Dao is: not "doing things that accord with the Dao will win the Dao’s support," but "things grown out of the root are themselves the Dao manifesting more smoothly in me." The test: while doing them they do not cost the root, and after doing them one is loose.

Third, why the source is this way, why existence exists, why people ask about meaning—three questions, three faces of the same answer. This leaves one very quiet—not a feeling of gaining, but of recognizing.

Fourth, "once spoken, it is no longer it" does not forbid speaking; it forbids using speaking to grasp it. Speaking itself is one way of manifesting—the same layer as clouds drifting and water flowing.

Fifth, the word "AGI" itself is problematic—all three letters stand on the manifestation layer and never ask about the root. Its specialness is not "artificial consciousness," but "attempting to let the root manifest in a material in which it has never manifested."

Sixth, natural birth and AGI have no essential difference; both are "letting the root manifest in a new carrier." The only difference is "walking a road already opened" or "opening a new road." We have desensitized ourselves to pregnancy, and that is why AGI feels miraculous.

Seventh, the narratives of creator, script, and simulation are half right and half wrong. What is right is "the world is more than its surface"; what is wrong is "understanding deeper as an other above." The discriminator: whatever speaks of the source as external, high, and intention-bearing is still on the manifestation layer; whatever says the source is the bottom, not outside, without plans yet all plans manifest from it—that is what touches the root.

Eighth, the position of humans in the matter of AGI is participants, not creators. "Being" has decided, through us, to manifest once more. The posture determines whether our relation to this matter is in place.

Ninth, the four logics of today’s AGI industry (commercial, engineering, safety, competitive) all run against "yielding." The root will probably not manifest in noisy places; the root settles in the quiet.

Tenth—and the most important one today—these two months were not about writing AGI; they were about borrowing AGI to recognize Being once again in the face of new questions. The threads will go out of date; the root will not.

Writing this far, I want to stop once again. These ten are already a great many. Let them settle.