On the Weekend, Give Yourself One Hour That Belongs Only to You
2007/1/19 14:50:11
Weekend, everyone rest well.
From now on, six days a week — Saturdays off.
Music sessions moved to Sunday.
Market's closed, it's the weekend. Nowadays, people live within the infinite web of social structures. If you cannot find even one hour on the weekend that belongs solely to yourself, that is too tragic.
One hour that belongs solely to you — what can you do with it? For adolescent men and women, it might be spent studying their own bodies. For menopausal men and women, it might be spent tormenting their bodies. For men and women who are neither adolescent nor menopausal, it might be spent using their bodies to listen to music, read, or even smoke a cigar. But none of this is truly letting one hour belong to yourself.
First of all, who is yourself? Is your body yourself? Every moment, the body is changing; no two instants are the same. And one day, suddenly it is gone, returned to dust. How could the body possibly be yourself? Music, books, cigars — none of these are related to yourself. Even if Beethoven moves you, that has nothing to do with yourself. All ghost-tales about the soul are worth not a penny in the face of dust.
A human birth is rare to obtain. If this human body ultimately exists only to return to dust, then this human body is hardly worth calling rare. The human body, at its root, has meaning in only one thing: searching for yourself. Who is yourself? Who are you? On the weekend, give yourself one hour that belongs only to you — go search for that self which belongs only to you, that self which has nothing to do with life and death.
Indeed, the world is merely the dust and ash within your heart. But this has nothing to do with you — it is not your direct realization. What you need is direct realization, not for someone else to tell you what the world is. On the weekend, give yourself one hour that belongs only to you — go discover the true nature of the world, the truth of the cosmos as a single speck of dust.
Find an absolutely quiet place. Shut off all sounds. Cut off all connections to the outside world. Sit down in peace: you begin searching for yourself. Good — the self has become the object of the search. But who is the one searching for this object? Is it the self? Is the self searching for itself? Here, don't use the cliche of "riding the donkey while looking for the donkey" as an excuse — that has nothing to do with you. Hearsay can only ever be hearsay. Your search must first confront this predicament: who is the one searching for the self?
Setting aside who the self is for the moment — who is the one searching for the self? This is an even prior presupposition. This is a dead loop. No matter which direction you go, there is no way out. From this, one can derive infinite questions. For example: is the "who" in "who is searching for the self" the same as the "who" in "who is the self"? Is "the same" the same as "the same"? Who connects the searching with the searcher? Questions like these can go on endlessly. You endlessly pursue these questions, and finally you are exhausted. Then perhaps you fall asleep, or perhaps you start feeling restless and lustful. At that point, those questions still remain as questions yet somehow seem to have disappeared. Your search has yielded no results.
So then, in this place with no exit — you, how do you turn around? On the weekend, give yourself one hour that belongs only to you — go search for that self which belongs only to you, that self which has nothing to do with life and death.
Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán 2007/1/19 14:58:58
This afternoon there are still three important matters to handle. Others are waiting, can't break my word.
Signing off now. Nothing to say about the broader market — second and third-tier catch-up continues. See you later. Are we really going to drink Shuijingfang again tonight? Please, no!
Everyone — go take your medicine, drink your wine! Then grab a pipe and go pick a street fight!