Forgetting the Mind

Forgetting the Mind

The question of thought-versus-no-thought, which you raise again, is really a non-issue—when perceived from the standpoint of nonduality. Your primary focus needs to be to answer this question to your own satisfaction: what is the ultimate nature, the truth, of actuality? When the answer to that question is unquestionably clear to you, the minor issue of “How is one to progress, from the present state of thought, to the desired state of no-thought?” will automatically resolve itself. That which Wing-Shing Chan describes as “wunien” is awareness which is “empty of objects of the mind”; therefore it is also an awareness in which the subject is absent. You are the subject, the “thinker”; the objects in this case, are “thoughts” (including thoughts of concern about “thinking”). Hui Neng speaks (spoke) of “idea-less-ness,” or freedom from “idle thoughts.” All dualistic concepts are merely ideas about how the nondual actuality appears to be expressing itself. When the dual appearances have been resolved in your mind as the realization that—whatever you conceive— ”That too is It,” there is consequently only one thought, no “idle” thoughts. Hui Neng describes further “an attitude of…no attachment, toward all things.” That means not being attached to ideas of achieving some desirable condition, such as “no thought.” Chan elaborates on wunien:

“The mind does not fixate on any particular instance of thought… in any way that suffocates the free functioning of the mind…One does not hold a fixed pre-disposition…(wunien) is not the termination of the brain’s thinking function.”

Hui Neng is quoted on the enlightened mind: “When in use, it pervades everywhere.” Chan adds, “Lucid awareness and tranquility of mind are wunien…effortlessly sustainable in daily life, it is enlightenment itself.” The tranquility of mind is a consequence of having no “fixed predisposition”—such as a desire to control the mind.

Lucid awareness, permeated by tranquility of mind: “When the time is ripe…one realizes wunien [a mind unattached to either subject or object] and sees one’s true nature.” That does not mean to conceive of oneself as the “thinker” of “thoughts” (or the non-thinker of no thoughts.) “In wunien, thoughts arise but do not attach to any external [or internal] objects…” The wooden spoon is so composed as to hold any manner of things as its content; its purpose is to allow everything to be emptied out, and to be perpetually empty for its next function. Chan leads to the conclusion that he is referring to a presence in which “the mind switches from dualistic to nondualistic perception, with no boundary and no opposition.” (Thought-versus-no-thought: opposition.) This is where, he says, one “appreciates the inconceivable, simultaneous existence of…universal unification of all things. A person (at this stage) can use thoughts however they please; discursive thoughts will not…cause disturbance.”

In fact, he points out (as if it were a footnote), when one has “advanced” to a true emptiness of conceptual objectification, one “goes an extra step by…forgetting the mind”; it is now “effortlessly maintained…(with) no mind watching.” The watcher and the watched have disappeared. You remark, “I have been involved, caught up, in thinking… lost in duality.” The watcher and the watched are in no way divisible. The “I” and the “thinking” are the “simultaneous existence of the universal unification of all things.” Your left eye and your right eye see one thing. Your “true nature” is your present condition, at this very moment—whether you are thinking or not thinking! There is only one “true” nature, that which is the actual fact— which is always here and now.