There Is Within You That Which Knows … That Is Your Teacher, by Justin F. Stone (August 2018)

PULL QUOTE: it is all there with you, in your actions and your thoughts

Con’t…. from the May issue of The Vital Force

I remember one teachers’ training course in which a fine young man, who had many terrible habits, made a real breakthrough. At the end of the six-day course, he suddenly realized he had not indulged any of these habits during the week. I doubt that he subsequently indulged these habits, though it is not easy to break away from habitual thought patterns.

My advice is to trust your inherent, intuitive wisdom rather than the accumulated knowledge we all pile up. There is no end to adding facts and filling our heads with knowledge, which serves a very real purpose in its place. Whether you call it God, Prajna, your own true nature, or whatever, my advice is to know it and listen to it. This means to come to know “who” and “what” you are.

The Lotus Sutra says: “From state of emptiness.” The key is the “emptiness,” like an empty cup that can hold tea.

Da Hui is talking about Prajna as opposed to knowledge when he says: “The great teaching must flow out point by point from within your own breast to cover heaven and earth; only then will it be the action of a man of power.” That which flows out from one’s own breast, as he calls it, is one’s own beginningless present awareness, fundamentally complete of itself. As soon as you arouse a second thought, you fall into comparative awareness. “Comparative awareness” is something gained from external refinements (that is, acquired knowledge). “Present awareness” is something from before your parents were born. (Don’t get hung up on “before” and be literal; just sense the meaning.) I call this “present awareness,” the real power, Prajna or Prajna Paramita. The names we use are not important, yet wars are fought over them (Allah vs. Jehovah, Krishna, Jesus). How infantile.

Da Hui goes on to say: “With strong power one can enter both enlightenment and delusion. If one’s power is weak, he can enter the realm of enlightenment, but not the realm of delusion.” (I call this “merging sense with essence.”)

I say to have faith in this power, this Prajna (which is certainly related to Prana or Chi) and to let it function for you. Don’t let delusionary thinking dull or obliterate it for you. In an interesting book I’ve been reading, “Do You See What I See?”, the author says to have faith in Life and let it function freely. Thus he equates Life with God, Truth, etc. and rightly points out that it is all here now, not to screen it out.

It is easy to tell people that this very moment is the transcendental and equal to infinity. Here is Da Hui’s answer to that: “In the conduct of their daily activities, sentient beings have no Illumination (that is, Prajna). If you go along with their ignorance, they’re happy; if you oppose their ignorance, they’re vexed.”

So, I can make you happy by saying what you want to hear. But I’m unwilling to talk down to people. I won’t use clichés such as “All is One.” Do you live as though “All is One” or do you see others, some opposed to you? Do you live in the transcendental or do you have to pay the rent?

Zen Master Danxia said: “In the ‘function which is identical to essence,’ holding still and letting go rest completely in one’s self. In the ‘Essence which is identical to Function,’ bringing forth and throwing away depend on no one else.”

He is saying that it is all there with you, in your actions and your thoughts. You are complete. T’ai Chi Chih is helping you uncover that completeness. I say learn to live with and in that completeness and have absolute faith in it.