Hsin Shin Ming: “34. Leave everything alone and you will become one with the Way and be free from disturbances.”
‘Leave everything alone’ means putting no labels on things or seeing all things without labelling them. ‘The Way’ means emptiness, non-duality or Oneness.
Labelling things is to the Way as labelling different winds such as breeze, storm, hurricane, etc and differentiating them from one another is to air. Whatever names they may have, whatever directions they blow in and however strong they are, all of them are air in essence without exception and oneness as air. What they look like is just how air is.
Likewise, we are one with the Way, that is, we are the Way itself just as winds are air itself. We can’t cease to be the Way even for a moment. Although everything has a different name and a different shape and looks and sounds different from one another, the essence of its being is emptiness, the Way, just as the essence of all winds is air.
We don’t realise this fact because we don’t leave things alone or cease labelling things. In other words, we have separated ourselves from the Way by labelling, or drawing imaginary lines and try in vain to return to it. Therefore, when we leave everything alone, we are said to become one with the Way. However, in fact we don’t become one with the Way but confirm that we are already one with the Way simply by leaving things alone. What or who would disturb whom in Oneness, the Way?
Student: “What happens when I become one with the Way?”
Master: “The Way disappears.”
Student: “Why does it disappear?”
Master: “It is not the Way anymore when you are the Way itself.”
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©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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