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Inner Transformation

Ta Hui is penetrating into the deeper secrets of inner transformation. He says,

Though you may not fully know whether the teachers of the various localities are wrong or right, if your own basis is solid and genuine, the poisons of wrong doctrines will not be able to harm you…

He says it is useless to think who is right and who is wrong. There are thousands of doctrines, hundreds of philosophies, and if you go on searching for truth in those words, you will be lost in a jungle where you cannot find the path. All that you know is to attain to a solid basis within yourself.

… “Keeping the mind still,” and “forgetting concerns” included. If you always “forget concerns” and “keep the mind still,” without smashing the mind of birth and death, then the delusive influences of form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness will get their way, and you will inevitably be dividing emptiness into two. Let go and make yourself vast and expansive….

It is not a question of controlling yourself separate from existence; it is a question of letting-go and becoming vast – as vast as existence itself. And in watchfulness you become infinite: that is the only thing within you which has no limits.

Just have a look at your watching, witnessing. It is unlimited. No beginning, no end…it is formless.

This absolute stillness of the mind is exactly no-mind or mindlessness. It is not control, it is not discipline; it is not that you are putting all your pressure on your mind and keeping it silent. No, it is simply not there. The house is empty. There is nobody to control and there is nobody to be controlled. All concerns for control have disappeared into a simple watchfulness. This watchfulness is expansive. Once you have tasted it a little, it goes on expanding to the very limits of the universe.

When old habits suddenly arise, don’t use your mind to repress them. At just such a time, it’s like a snowflake on a red–hot stove.

He is reminding you that even when you are moving on the path of watchfulness, sometimes old habits may revive. But don’t be concerned; they are like snowflakes on a red–hot stove, they will disappear of their own accord. You simply watch. Don’t get concerned, don’t get disturbed, don’t be worried.

Sometimes there will be anger, sometimes there will be a desire, sometimes there will be an ambition, but they cannot disturb your watchfulness. They will come and they will go without leaving a trace on your mirror–like purity. But you have only to remember one thing: not to start fighting with them, smashing them, destroying them, throwing them away. It comes very naturally to the mind that if something wrong is happening, jump on it and destroy it. This is the only thing you have to be aware of, because this is what never allows a man to get beyond the mind. Old habits will come – and old habits are very old, many, many lives old. Your awareness is very fresh and very new; your mechanicalness is ancient, so it is very natural that it will come back.

Somebody insults you – you don’t have to be angry, but suddenly you find anger arising. It is not an effort, it is just an old habit, an old reaction. Don’t fight with it, don’t try to smile and hide it. Just watch it, and it will come and it will go…. Like a snowflake on a red–hot stove.