Wisdom of the Masters
Wei Wu Wei ~ Only an Object can be Bound ~ Non-Duality, Taoism, Zen
28 May 2023
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
you
Chapter 2: What does Wei Wu Wei mean by 'Only an object can be bound'?
Only an object can be bound. Subject can neither be bound nor freed, hurt nor flattered, touched nor neglected. I cannot possibly be an object ever, anywhere, in any circumstances I can only be subject always everywhere in every circumstance but as subject there is no always for there is no time There is no where for there is no space. There are no circumstances for there is no movement.
I am only eternal subject and neither in eternity Nor in apparent time could I be known. Nor could there be anyone to know me.
Chapter 3: How does non-duality relate to the concept of subjectivity?
For no such entity as I could ever be. I, subject, cannot see, hear, feel, smell, taste or know. For only an object can have organs or attributes. And there is no one and no thing to be sensorially apprehended. The apparent universe is a dream structure informed by subject and therefore can be nothing but I-subject.
For that reason, nothing that happens therein can touch or reach the subject which it is. Both seer and seen, hearer and heard, injurer and injured, a subject Not as dualities, but as unities. The man who hates me and hits me and the me that is hated and hit are both I. Not as two, but as one.
Chapter 4: What insights does Wei Wu Wei provide about perception and reality?
I who hate him and hit him in return and he whom I hate and hit back are both I. For every possible phenomenal manifestation is informed by I-subject. and every possible phenomenal manifestation is objective, whereas I am totally devoid of any element of objectivity. Then I am pure subjectivity? Indeed, no.
Subjectivity is a state, some kind of conceptualized condition, if not an entity, and therefore an object. I am nothing of the kind, no thing of any kind whatever. I cannot be conceived or stated, supposed or suggested, indicated or known. As that I am, I am not.
Yet there can never be a moment during which I can be anything but I. Nor you anything but I. Nor the beetle anything but I. I am eternally awake and I am a non-entity.
Chapter 5: How does the concept of 'I' function in the context of non-duality?
There has never been a hen who laid an egg but vast numbers of eggs have been laid by hens. There has never been a man who wrote a book but vast numbers of books have been written by men. No body has ever done anything, but innumerable actions have been performed.
being or living numinally, subjectively, is not ceasing to objectivise, for that is the functional aspect of subject, but ceasing to objectivise oneself and thereby ceasing to regard one's objects as independent entities, as other than an aspect of oneself as their subject. That of course implies that one is profoundly aware that one is not at all as any conceptual object, even a being,
That integral absence, both phenomenal and numinal, is the necessary awareness of is-as-it-is-ness, commonly called awakening. The sought is the seeker, the observed is the observer thereof. That which is heard is the hearer of what is heard. The odor is who inhales it. The tasted is who savours what he tastes. That which is touched is the feeler of it.
The thought is the thinker of the thought. In brief, the sensorially perceived is the perceiver whose senses perceive. And no perceiver of any sense perception or performer of any action is to be found. Let us take an example. You enter a restaurant. You see a table. You hear people talking.
Chapter 6: What examples illustrate the relationship between the dreamer and the dream?
You taste what is on your plate. You smell the aroma of the wine in your glass. You feel the knife and fork in your hands. and you know that you are having lunch. All this you sensorially perceive, and I have just pointed out to you that all this only took place in your mind, whose senses appeared to perceive it.
and therefore that none of it actually happened as a series of external events experienced by you. And finally, I have stated that you yourself, as an independent entity, whose senses appeared to experience these events, cannot be found anywhere. How can this be? Let us recall the answer of the sixth patriarch, Hui Neng,
to the monks who were arguing whether it was the flag or the wind that was flapping. He pointed out to them that it was their mind only that was responsible and they recognised at once that he had understood the truth. As Huang Po said, there are no sentient beings to be delivered by the Tathagata. If even self has no objective existence, How much less has other than self?
Thus neither Buddha nor sentient beings exist objectively. There is no such thing as a dream or a mirage, an illusion, an hallucination. The dream as a thing in itself is not such. There is a phenomenon and apparent dreaming.
Chapter 7: How does awakening change one's perception of self and others?
Just as there are 10,000 phenomena due to apparent seeing, apparent hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting, apparent knowing. But the objects apparently perceived by the senses are not entities at all. There is only a perceiving of apparent objects moving in apparent space in the apparent seriality of time. In daily life, the apparently other sentient beings
who sensorially perceive the same phenomena that we perceive, synchronized in the same apparent time, are themselves also phenomena, mutually perceived or mutually not perceived, But there is nothing but the perceiving. As in a dream, there is nothing but the dreaming. If the dreamer awakes, the dreaming ends.
And there is no question regarding the beings or other phenomena in the dream as to whether they are still pursuing their dream activities or are awake also. So in living, The awakened does not consider whether their fellows in the living dream are now awake or carrying out their living dream.
But they now know that neither these nor that one of them that appeared to be themself was anything but a phenomenal object of the supposed dreamer. In both cases, the apparent reality of the event dreamed has disappeared forever. Where second degree dreaming is concerned, this is obvious to all of us. For we were the supposed dreamer and we are now awake.
But in the first degree or living dream, which is essentially identical we have difficulty in seeing it for we are still participants in our dream and as such we are unaware that we are being dreamed However, in our first degree or living dream, we have the possibility of becoming aware of this.
And then each of us who does so can recognize that they are not the apparent entity in their particular dream that they believe themselves to be. but the apparent dreamer of their own dream. That recognition too is called awakening. But they cannot then awaken the others in their late dream.
For they were only the objects and were not entities in their own right, any more than the person was in the dream. Therefore, each dreamer can only awaken from their own dream, from the dream in which they themselves participated as themselves. For even if their living friends appeared in their dreams, They did so only as their objects, which is as they happen to visualize them.
Others, therefore, are nothing but our objects as we know them. They are not entities in their own right.
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of recognizing the non-existence of the dreamer?
and they only appear to be such, each as dreamer of their own dream. That is, subjectively, Awakened, however, each dreamer finds that they were the apparent subject of all the objects in their late dream of living. But now is still not an entity, for they no longer exist as an object. except in the living dream of others.
They are the pure, unconditioned subjectivity by means of which they were dreamed. As all other apparently sentient beings are dreamed, and whose apparent sentiency is nothing but that. When the dreamed awakened from their sleeping dream, they were never the dreamer, but was themself still being dreamed. There has never been a dreamer at all. There is just a phenomenon of dreaming. That then
is what the living dream is an objectivization in mind in which the apparent entities are not such and whose dreamer has never existed as an object and can never be an object in their own right for there could never be any such thing.
. . Thank you.