Spiritual Practice Is a False Concept
I. “Subduing the Mind” Is a False Concept
The mind possesses innate wholeness. The mind itself is Buddha. The mind heals itself. The phrase “subduing the mind” makes it sound as though the mind were something bad.
Then why do so many people have no sense that the mind heals itself? Why do they feel only the abyss dragging them down? Why, despite working so hard at “spiritual practice and recuperation,” do they wait in vain for self-healing, or experience only a little of it?
The reason is that karmic obstructions obscure the mind, and the mind is constantly clearing them away. Is this process of clearing them away something people can intervene in? Believing that people can intervene, calling this “spiritual practice,” and continually “working hard at spiritual practice” and “advancing diligently” are also forms of delusion about awakening—the “spiritual practitioner’s ego” clinging to its obsessions.
II. Reversing Cause and Effect, Misattributing Causes: The “Spiritual Practitioner’s Ego” and Its “Cargo-Cult Spiritual Practice”
Physicist Feynman’s story of “cargo-cult science”:
A group of cargo-cult islanders lived on small islands in the South Pacific. During World War II, Allied aircraft used these islands to transfer supplies. The islanders saw planes land and unload package after package of good things. After the war ended, the planes stopped coming. The cargo-cult islanders missed the good old days. So they built something resembling an airstrip and put up a little thatched hut. Inside sat a person with two coconut shells strapped to his head to imitate headphones, with bamboo sticking out of the shells to imitate antennas. This person was imitating the air traffic controller in the control tower. Then they waited for planes to land and bring supplies. Everything they did looked right, but no planes came.
Feynman used this example precisely to criticize certain delusions in education and psychology, though that speech did not explore them in depth.
It is the true self’s “high-energy state” that enables people to become aware of the ego, to look down from a height upon the ego, emotions, and thoughts, to gain new insights, to recognize the truth in “classic” books, and to have better experiences when “sitting quietly or meditating.” Reading classics, sitting quietly, and meditating do not bring people into a “high-energy state.” People mistakenly believe that this “high-energy state” has been summoned by their own “hard work at spiritual practice,” creating a new attachment.
Hard work is useless. Someone who has only just reached an intellectual understanding strains to make fire by rubbing sticks, becoming more tangled up the harder they try. The spiritual practitioner’s ego, with its persistent attachments, leads them further astray. The moment you apply force, you go wrong. Spiritual practice is instead about letting go of all striving and ego, allowing the true self to heal itself.
III. The Question of “Stages in Spiritual Practice and Inner Change”
Does an ordinary person living in pain and mediocrity become, in a single instant, a perfect person or sage whose true self is radiant and supremely good? Or is there a process with stages? How should those stages be divided?
Can people intervene in these stages? By what methods, and through what efforts? So many accomplished spiritual practitioners, enlightened eminent monks, and great teachers have not reached supreme goodness. Is that a problem with their methods? Have they not worked hard enough?
Does “the true self becoming aware of the ego” really require effort? Is failing to become aware of the ego merely a matter of not trying hard enough?
Since we believe that innate wholeness is the final answer, and everyone has experienced innate wholeness, why has it still not cleared away the karmic obstructions, swept away the dust, and dispersed the dark clouds?
IV. The Four Stages of Inner Change
The First Stage: Rock Bottom and the Abyss
Living at rock bottom or even in the abyss, with karmic obstructions blotting out the sky and sun, without a glimmer of daylight. Unawakened states such as habitual living, obsession, and becoming possessed by something. Entangled in pain, emotions, dreams and illusions, greed, anger, delusion, attachments, and ego. “Switching seamlessly” between different egos and states, in a “dream within a dream” from which one never wakes.
The Second Stage: “Sunlight Through a Break in the Clouds” at Rock Bottom
- Sunlight Through a Break in the Clouds
Various movements of the true self within and chance events outside lead people to recognize “meditative stillness”: the eternal tranquility of the true self, the unity of humanity and nature. It is like sunlight through a break in the dark clouds. Stillness has never been far from us; it is simply that, for the first time, we value the “light” and “warmth.” In this light, the world looks entirely different. This is “seeing the mind and realizing one’s nature.”
Can the light appear again? How can it be brought back? People believe it resulted from their own “efforts and actions.” They begin drawing conclusions about “spiritual practice” and studying theories, continually “performing rituals to summon the light”: Buddhist practices of entering meditative stillness through observing precepts, seated meditation and counting breaths; Daoist practices that turn Zhuangzi’s “sitting in forgetfulness and fasting of the mind” and “the empty chamber fills with light” from results into “methods”; mindfulness meditation in spiritual circles; therapists’ recommendations to get sunlight, exercise, and make friends; inspirational social media posts recommending walks in the park, reading, and so on. All are essentially about “subtracting,” continually reducing the interference of karmic obstructions so that the clouds will part and the sun will emerge.
These recommendations do indeed “work.” Sometimes, after “performing the rituals,” the light really is “summoned.” People even come to believe that this is “making fire by rubbing sticks.” The “spiritual practitioner’s ego” begins to immerse itself in “ritual practices.” Some people practice seated meditation for decades; others meditate for decades, believing this to be their “secret.” In reality, it is often “the elevator push-up theory of success”: people doing push-ups, squats, or clapping inside an elevator believe that these actions have taken them to a higher floor. Zen speaks of the attempt to “polish a brick into a mirror.”
The “spiritual practitioner’s” ego also often monitors and psychologically manipulates itself, having forgotten that it came to seek stillness, not to “find fault.”
- Airing the Bedding When the Sun Comes Out
As entering stillness becomes increasingly likely and “sunrise” comes more often, people begin airing their bedding when the sun comes out. They “observe” themselves “continually digesting” old attachments. This makes it look even more as though “working hard to make fire by rubbing sticks is paying off,” as though they have actively secured the “sunrise.”
The Third Stage: The “Safety Rope, Swim Buoy, and Pacemaker” on the Mountainside
On the mountainside, one has gradually left many karmic obstructions behind and can see more light and scenery.
One becomes more at ease, enters stillness more readily, and frequently remains in a state of stillness and awakening.
It is like a safety rope when rock climbing, a tow float when swimming in open water, or a pacemaker for the heart. Whenever something feels wrong, it is there to catch you, to “wake you up.” It will not let you fall into the abyss.
Or perhaps stillness is more like a highly skilled dance partner taking the lead. When we occasionally lose focus or make a mistake, he gently leads us back into mindful enjoyment.
The Fourth Stage: “My Heart Is Radiant” at the Summit
You climb to the summit and discover a plain, filled everywhere with sunlight and warmth. There is no need for matches here, no need to make fire by rubbing sticks. This is what human beings “normally” look like. It is what Feuerbach and Marx called humanity’s “species-being.”
The light of the true self’s “stillness” is continuously present, but obscured by karmic obstructions.
Spiritual practice requires no effort. There is no need to practice deliberately. Instead, when all ego, striving, and deliberateness are absent, awareness naturally guides people into situational awareness in a high-energy state.
(My own level is limited; the later stages are merely what I imagine them to be.)
V. Can the Stages and Their Progress Be Controlled? What Seems Free and Self-Directed Is Actually All Within Fate
The preceding theory of “stages” makes things seem free and self-directed, as though a person continually “gets better” through their own “efforts.”
But is the pace of this change—the pace at which the true self dissolves the ego—really something “I” can control?
Some people have deep karmic obstructions, others shallow ones. Is that something they can decide for themselves?
All karmic obstructions are misfortunes and have nothing to do with “oneself.” This proposition is easy to accept, but it leads to deeper, more “difficult to accept” reasoning. Countless people and sentient beings are trapped by karmic obstructions and cannot awaken; some even become bad people. Of course this is not a matter of “effort.” Is it “choosing to fall”? It is the misfortune of karmic obstructions. Are bad people born bad, or do they become bad later? In other words, are they unfortunate from birth, or do they become unfortunate later?
Some people attain enlightenment early, awaken early, and reach a high spiritual state. Is this due to talent, effort, intelligence, or insight? Luck is the only explanation.
The depth of karmic obstructions is the degree of misfortune; the progress of “enlightenment” is the degree of good fortune. Otherwise, is failing to attain complete enlightenment merely a matter of not working hard enough? If one has the ability to accelerate this process, why not work hard to reach supreme goodness and perfection in three years, one year, six months, or that very day?
The luck of karmic obstructions is unequal. Life is unequal to begin with. Are people with disabilities equal to people without disabilities? Some say that disability does not prevent someone from becoming wealthy and happy or from practicing spiritually. The inequality in the depth of karmic obstructions is even greater than the inequality involved in disability. Yes, people have conditions more severe than disability, yet do not know it—the condition itself is “not knowing.” That shows just how severe it is.
Once we accept that we cannot control the “stages of inner change” ourselves, and become aware of the attachments of the “spiritual practitioner’s ego,” we also let go of our attachment to “changing others” and “enlightening others.” Everyone has the rhythm of their own “fate.”
VI. Innate Wholeness Means That People Are Always Doing Their Best: Their Current Progress and Pace Already Reflect All They Can Possibly Do
They have simply had bad luck.
I have written a great deal about this before, in thematic articles such as “Innate Wholeness” and “A Thematic Discussion of Effort.”
Here I will make just one small point:
I suggest keeping a diary of the times when you feel happy, internally motivated, positive, full of energy, and tranquil.
This is actually also the process of gradually entering stillness. Everyone has experienced it.
It is, in fact, a record of each person’s innate wholeness. You will discover that all true happiness is actually “the same”: a kind of “tranquil bliss.” That is the feeling of “entering stillness, of the true self.” It is simply too fleeting and too “ordinary,” so we overlook and dismiss it.
To be specific, these days I shoot a few baskets in relaxed games at a basketball court in the county town, trading passes with everyone—old, middle-aged, young, and younger still—and I already feel “innate wholeness,” tranquility, and bliss. I ask for nothing else.
This is actually the most important function of a diary. For more than ten years, I mainly used mine to record notes, stray thoughts, and self-criticism. The strategy was mistaken, a sign of being unawakened. But that is all in the past.
VII. Daoist “Trust in Fate”: Human Limitations and the Complexity and Uncontrollability of Fate
- “Go along with human affairs, and rest content with heaven’s decree.” Not “exhaust every human effort”: the word “exhaust” still carries “striving and unwillingness to accept.” We naturally respond as we do; “we” merely follow along with “our own actions.” Think back to secondary school: we all simply “did” what came naturally, whether that meant tying our hair to a beam and pricking our thighs to stay awake studying, living in anxiety, affecting disdain, skipping school for internet cafés, or considering ourselves geniuses.
- “Trusting in fate” does not mean “being predestined.” Fate is always changing, and human effort cannot alter it. Precisely because fate is not predetermined, many people suffer. Precisely because it is not complex and difficult to predict, it seems all the more “not predetermined,” as though “human resolve can overcome heaven,” as though “performing rituals to summon the sun” or “the elevator push-up theory of success” worked.
- Trusting in fate is not “resigning oneself to fate.” The future is unknown; there is no fate there to resign oneself to in the first place.
- Still less does trusting in fate mean “fortune-telling.” Fate cannot be calculated.
- Fate is uncontrollable; it cannot be grasped. “Take your fate in hand” is a line creepy old men use when sexually harassing someone.
VIII. Life Flows Naturally Like a River
Life flows naturally like a river. The true self is like a fish, simply living peacefully in this river, at ease with its time and circumstances, free of worry. The mind naturally does things; life naturally flows forward. Where interaction with the outside world is involved, there is also the uncertainty of fate, and the need for acceptance and adjustment. Life and mind have always flowed naturally. There has never been any such thing as effort. “Effort” is merely the ego moving itself with its own performance and claiming heaven’s achievements as its own.
People are actually no different from animals or plants; they cannot “change” anything. Ants store food, bees accumulate honey, swallows build nests, cats and dogs seek mates, peacocks spread their tails, lions lick their wounds, plants turn toward the sun, great trees put down roots, and Venus flytraps catch insects. Like other living things, people live within nature and the biosphere according to biological, physical, and historical laws, and then die. Human thought “overestimates” itself, mistakenly believing that human beings are gods who can be omnipotent, immortal, turn stones into gold, “change” the world, change history, and change others.
Zhuangzi speaks of living like fish, butterflies, and trees. This means accepting the nature and life the universe has arranged for us.
Life has always been governed by external, uncontrollable forces and randomness. Whether a tree can grow to maturity, and what shape it takes, depend on fate. Yet this does not make it feel unfree, nor does it impede its innate wholeness, completeness, equality as a living being, or unity with nature. A tree has no ego; it does not envy other trees for growing tall or beautiful.
IX. Where, Exactly, Is Freedom?
Does freedom exist, then, and where exactly is it? Human beings are forever bounded by physical laws and finite lives. We have always been a tiny part of the universe, a tiny part of nature. Humanity transforming nature is nature transforming itself.
What people call freedom, ability, and human resolve overcoming heaven is often merely the ego’s greed, anger, and delusion.
“Non-non-free” is a kind of freedom. Freedom is what the true self feels when unfreedom has diminished to a certain degree. Likewise, happiness is what the true self feels when unhappiness has diminished to a certain degree, and tranquility is what it feels when untranquility has diminished to a certain degree. “In pursuing the Way, one diminishes daily”; “the empty chamber fills with light.” The more we are “fortunate enough” to follow fate, the fewer “karmic obstructions of the ego” we have, and the less “unfree” we feel.
X. Not Practicing and Not Striving Mean Accepting Karmic Obstructions, Fluctuations in Our State, and Fate, Without Pursuit
The “spiritual practitioner’s ego” does not accept fluctuations in its state, or the mediocrity, karmic obstructions, setbacks, and pain of the present. It clings to “ritual practices” and to an imagined beautiful future. This is itself a karmic obstruction. See “The Birth of a New Ego: The Spiritual Practitioner’s Ego.”
“I am not happy enough or sufficiently immersed in stillness because I have not worked hard enough at my practice, and my spiritual methods and spiritual teacher are not advanced enough.” What a terrible attachment this is. It is simply bad luck.
Effort = the ego becoming obsessive; I call it the “striving ego.” It is a very common and frightening ego. I have already systematically criticized effort in “A Thematic Discussion of Effort.” The “spiritual practitioner’s” ego is a variant of the “striving ego.”
Ever since I became conscious of “spiritual practice,” I have always been “working hard” at it. The “spiritual practitioner’s ego” and “striving ego” have constantly monitored and psychologically manipulated me. Once I completely killed off the “striving ego,” I gave up striving altogether and became completely natural and spontaneous.
Seeking within is a false concept. Have no desires and seek nothing; let things take their natural course.
An online reader asked, “How does one become first-rate: through effort, persistence, choices, or talent? How can ordinary people break out of their predicament?” Ordinary people will, in all likelihood, remain ordinary people. There is no need to blindly pursue being first-rate. Being ordinary does not mean being mediocre. With innate wholeness, all souls are equal; tranquility, happiness, and joy have nothing to do with whether one is first-rate. Of course, this state cannot be reached through effort either; it also depends on luck. Once someone reaches this state, even an “ordinary person” is often “first-rate.” Be at ease with your time and follow your fate; let things take their natural course.
XI. Accept Fate and Let Things Take Their Natural Course
The ultimate answer is that human beings cannot find an ultimate answer. Stop searching for any answer. The other shore is right here, right now; simply live quietly.
Everything is fate. Live whatever life presents, and let things take their natural course.
Will people consider this article negative? Even Zhuangzi himself has been considered negative; what standing or ability do I have? Accept being misunderstood, and let things take their natural course.
Appendix:
I. Further Remarks on Effort:
Previous article: “A Thematic Discussion of Effort: Stop Trying So Hard”
A. What About a Therapist’s “Efforts” and “Interventions”?
A therapist is a gardener, not a surgeon. Can a gardener claim all the credit for a rose blooming?
Can a therapist bring about a “qualitative transformation” in someone, from “mediocrity and karmic obstructions” to “radiance and perfection”?
Therapists themselves, along with their “knowledge” and “therapies,” are products of historical development and organic parts of society. A person’s struggle between “true self and karmic obstructions” has its own rhythm. Whether they actively seek out a therapist, and how much help the therapist can provide, are all part of that rhythm. Someone was beginning to improve, then was laid off and became unemployed, and deteriorated again. Is that something a therapist can decide?
When can individual will intervene in this rhythm?
B. Are Scientists Always Working Hard?
Some people ask: scientists are always “working hard and striving,” so science keeps advancing, knowledge becomes ever more developed, productive forces and humanity’s fate continue to undergo enormous changes, and human civilization keeps progressing. Yes.
But parrots can talk, and cats and dogs have learned to accommodate humans, too, and their lives keep getting better. Are they also working hard, or are they simply adapting?
And can individual will intervene in human history?
How are the world’s six billion proletarians doing? Who can change that? Are proletarians not “working hard”? What are people emphasizing when they emphasize scientists’ effort?
How are scientists themselves doing, and what are their karmic obstructions like? Historical materialism is, even more, a matter of fate.
C. When a Small-Town Exam Ace Rises from Rural Destitution to Study in Beijing, Gets Promoted, Earns More, and Becomes a CEO, Isn’t That Defying Heaven and Changing Fate?
Then why, throughout the thousands of years before the founding of the People’s Republic, could so few small-town exam aces achieve this, while after 1990 so many could? This is the historical process, not individual effort. Did those who failed really just fail to work hard enough to defy heaven and change their fate? Are they cowards and fools in the face of fate? Then why can billions of children in Asia, Africa, and Latin America not do it?
It is precisely these people, with their superstitious belief in “hard work,” who frantically push their children to achieve and drive them to breakdown. Do these children have fortunate lives? When they become mired in psychological problems, bad schools, and bad jobs, is it simply because they do not work as hard as their parents? These are their karmic obstructions. Everything is fate.
The psychological problems of both generations are part of fate and their era. Whether they can be healed also depends on fate. Aren’t many mothers “working hard” to heal these two generations? Even more mothers lack awareness themselves; they simply suffer without knowing what the problem is. Countless people are tormented without realizing it.
Awakening others is a false concept, as though the greatest revolutionaries, educators, and psychologists had never tried it. Historical materialism and fate.
Oh, right—when these elites are laid off and become unemployed at forty, why don’t they “work hard to change their fate”? Why don’t they “stop complaining about the broader environment and look harder at their own shortcomings”?
An online reader asked: Is there any way for university students to break out of their predicament? A predicament is precisely something you cannot break out of. Everyone has done their best; everything is fate. Accept mediocrity, accept everything, accept not accepting, and let things take their natural course. “Work hard and do something” makes it sound as though this person is not already working hard enough.
D. Shouldn’t Bad People Work Hard to Change?
What if I discover that I am a bad person and have made a complete mess of the lives of everyone around me? Shouldn’t I actively work hard to change?
Even people like this often realize that they need to change, and succeed in doing so. This precisely demonstrates human innate wholeness, the strength of the true self, and the strength of its capacity for self-healing.
Moreover, people with especially deep and heavy karmic obstructions cannot even realize that they have a problem and need to change. This “realization” is the true self’s awareness.
Is whether someone awakens something people can simply intervene in? Humanity has had laws, judges, and teachers for thousands of years. Have they been able to intervene?
As productive forces and relations of production have advanced, war, famine, cannibalism, and serious violent crime have all decreased substantially. This is history at work.
E. Aren’t Peasant Uprisings, Rebellions, and Revolutions Examples of Working Hard to Change Fate?
No. Uprisings and revolutions are all products of their times. Individual effort never plays a role. Do uprisings and revolutions change history, or are they products of history itself?
Then does that mean there is no need to overcome inequality between people, and we can only accept it passively? Well, yes, that really is the case.
Then is Marxism-Leninism wrong? Marxism-Leninism is a scientific theory. It scientifically explains how the inequality brought about by private ownership inevitably leads to revolution, explains the laws of history, and teaches people how to follow history’s course. It is not magic that eliminates every inequality or accelerates historical change.
People will always differ in height and weight. Marxism is concerned with ensuring that differences in height and weight do not lead to one person enslaving another.
F. Losing Weight Has Nothing to Do with “Effort”
On the surface, losing weight means I overcame a whole bunch of things and then managed to do a whole bunch of unpleasant things, such as exercise. In reality, the ego’s greed, anger, and delusion, along with the karmic obstructions of binge eating and staying up late, weakened. I was able to do what my body and mind had wanted all along: exercise and eat light meals until about seventy percent full.
It is all the work of the true self, and it happens because the true self happens to be able to overcome the karmic obstructions, while external conditions also allow me to eat lightly and get enough sleep.
Losing weight has less to do with effort than almost anything else. We often see people unable to resist their karmic obstructions becoming more frustrated, dejected, and heavier the harder they “work at losing weight.”
G. What Is Frightening Is When “Effort” Pays Off
Catering to unwritten rules, fraud, deception, opportunism, and betrayal bring rewards.
“I” “work hard to overcome” my heart’s instincts, suppressing my disgust to accommodate people I dislike and do illegal or legally dubious things, and I make money. This is a deepening of karmic obstructions. It is the negative ego exerting itself, while social alienation rewards and reinforces that negative ego.
In many industries and organizations, bad money drives out good. Karmic obstructions resonate with one another; Hitler and the Nazis are a typical example.
If the true self cannot counteract such effects, life becomes a continuous descent. That descent is not the direction of life itself. It is external alienation, an unfortunate fate.