Chapter 15: The Primordial Spirit Is Still
I don’t know if any of you have experienced meditation, or if you truly understand the real meaning of meditation.
Here, I will borrow a saying from the old master Zhang Zhishun to explain the meaning of meditation.
“Meditation is not about keeping your body still, but about keeping your primordial spirit still.”
The primordial spirit not moving in the sense of meaning is that your thoughts, your cognition, will not wander or be influenced or pulled by external things.
Instead, it remains immovable, not being stirred by anything.
When nothing is happening, your spirit and your attention will not follow the thoughts that arise from your habits of thinking.
When the heart does not move with the thoughts, it is called the primordial spirit not moving.
Because you know that thoughts, in different environments and circumstances, are in a state of uncertain change, lacking a normal state, so there is no need to take them as real.
Today you think someone is good, and tomorrow you think someone is bad. It’s not the person’s problem, the problem itself lies in your thoughts changing.
When you think someone is good, even if that person does something wrong, you will still think they are good.
When you think someone is bad, no matter what that person does, you will still think they are bad.
What cultivators practice in meditation is this: not being disturbed by anything, not being swayed by anything to draw conclusions based on their thinking habits.
Then some people say, when they encounter nothing and are alone, their thoughts wander wildly, thinking about this one moment and that the next, what should they do?
The principle is the same: it’s about practicing the primordial spirit not moving, which means standing outside of your thoughts and watching, or allowing your thoughts to change freely, not following their habits, meaning not being moved by your own thoughts.
What does it mean not to be moved by thoughts? To put it more simply, it means not taking what you think as reality, because it is just a habit of ours.
For example, you clearly don’t want to think about something, but you can’t control yourself from thinking about it. At this time, who is making you think about it?
It is your habit that makes you think about it. When others tell you, they will also say this is your karmic creditors. In reality, it is your habits from this life and past lives.
After living beings come into this world, they do not bring memories from past lives, because the spiritual sense or conscious spirit of past lives, that is, the thinking consciousness, has already dissipated.
However, the primordial spirit, that is, the subconscious, still contains your past habits, and they continuously manifest as you grow.
Just as everyone has different talents for different things, these are all due to habits from past lives, or you could call them habits from past lives.
Perhaps some friends will ask again, in ancient times there were no pianos, so how can people in later generations have a talent for the piano?
There are two explanations: one is that they have come into contact with similar things. The other is, are you sure they have come to this world in every life? Is it possible they brought it from other spaces?
But this is not important, let’s not discuss it for now. Let’s return to the topic of the primordial spirit not moving.
The primordial spirit not moving does not refer to the subconscious not moving, nor the thoughts not moving. It means standing outside of the thoughts, in the space between consciousness and subconscious, standing in this position and not moving.
People have two hearts: the outer heart is your thinking consciousness, and the inner heart is the one that stands outside of your thoughts.
The primordial spirit not moving in meditation means that your inner heart does not move with your outer heart.
Here, we must mention the topic of seclusion.
The so-called seclusion is not about shutting a person up somewhere and not letting them out. If that were called seclusion, wouldn’t a pig shut up in a pigsty have become an immortal long ago?
The so-called seclusion is also called closing the three gates, which are your eyes, ears, and mouth. As the saying goes, “With eyes not perceiving colors, ears not hearing, and mouth not speaking, one attains longevity.”
Seclusion closes these three gates. However, everyone should note that closing the three gates mentioned here does not mean closing your eyes and not looking, blocking your ears and not listening, or not opening your mouth to speak.
Its true meaning is that your attention will not be stirred by these three points, that is, these three gates.
For ordinary people, when they see something, their attention will be attracted by it. This is the primordial spirit moving.
It’s the same with listening to something; hearing a rumor and believing it, and so on.
Not speaking with the mouth actually means not speaking according to your habitual thoughts, not that people should not speak at all.
When these three gates are closed well, your attention will not wander, and this will nourish the spirit. The spirit mentioned here refers to the primordial spirit.
Some people, after they start cultivating, often go down the wrong path. Not only do their own habits not change, but they also accumulate a lot of trouble.
For example, seeing someone fishing, they will go up and try to admonish them, recite sutras. If the person doesn’t listen, they force them to listen, and then say bad things about this person, saying things like, “You are committing sins!”
“Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will punish you, and you will go to hell after death!” and so on, to scare them.
These kinds of people, at this moment, have actually fallen into demonic ways. Because they want to forcibly instill their own cognition into the fisherman.
Why are there so many children nowadays with depression, who particularly like to be alone, and are reclusive?
It is all caused by parents who do not understand. There is a saying that it is brought about by the family of origin, which means the same thing.
It means that parents forcibly instill their own perceived correct cognition into their children, causing psychological distress to the children.
This prevents them from expressing their true selves, leaving them to be manipulated by their parents. Some children, even after becoming adults, are in a dazed state, not wanting to do this, not wanting to do that, and having no interest in anything. This is because, from their subconscious, they dare not express themselves, believing that even if they say it, it’s useless, and no one can understand. This is all caused by their parents from childhood.
Whatever you want to do, it’s all denied. Whatever you want to do, you don’t get support. They will use their own perspective to judge whether you are good or bad.
People can’t live as themselves, and gradually they lose interest in everything, or even start to have a resistant psychology towards the world.
If you don’t understand this point, even if you cultivate for a lifetime, you won’t reach the true way, and you will still be revolving in the circle of habits and cognition.
What is cultivation? It is to allow them to be themselves, and to allow you to be yourself, without imposing your personal will on others. Are children not human? Are others not human?
You always try to force others to think and act the way you think, and then you dislike it if they do it, and you are unwilling if they don’t.
Think about it, are you sick or are they sick?
Similarly, if a cultivator, with their own cognition, forcibly tries to change others, then it is like falling into the demonic way.
If all worldly people were as you wished, wouldn’t all worldly people become your replicas? How is that possible!
If what you believe is right is right, and what you believe is wrong is wrong, then what is heavenly justice for?
Wouldn’t there be no business for heavenly justice at all???
Wake up, stop persecuting others. What they experience is what they need to experience, and what you experience is what you need to experience. Your experience does not represent them, and their experience does not represent you.
Your thinking cognition belongs only to you, and similarly, theirs belongs only to them.
There is empathy, but it is not entirely the same.
