Wei Wu Wei Famous Quotes & Sayings

Are you still thinking, looking, living, as from an imaginary phenomenal centre?
As long as you do that you can never recognise your freedom. — Wei Wu Wei

Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself - and there isn't one. — Wei Wu Wei

The practice of meditation is represented by the three monkeys, who cover their eyes, ears and mouths so as to avoid the phenomenal world. — Wei Wu Wei

Do not mistake the pointing finger for the moon. — Wei Wu Wei

Never forget, what your looking for is what is looking. — Wei Wu Wei

Past and Future are a duality of which Present is the reality. The now-moment alone is eternal and real. — Wei Wu Wei

Play your part in the comedy, but don't identify yourself with your role. — Wei Wu Wei

The qualities we possess should never be a matter for satisfaction, but the qualities we have discarded. — Wei Wu Wei

There is no mystery whatever - only inability to perceive the obvious. — Wei Wu Wei

The only real service we can render to that which we perceive and interpret in phenomenal existence as 'others' is by awakening to universal consciousness ourselves. — Wei Wu Wei

What is your trouble? Mistaken identity. — Wei Wu Wei

Doctrines, scriptures, sutras, essays, are not to be regarded as systems to be followed. They merely contribute to understanding. They should be for us a source of stimulation, and nothing more ... Adopted, rather than used as a stimulus, they are a hindrance — Wei Wu Wei

As long as subject is centred in a phenomenal object, and thinks and speaks therefrom, subject is identified with that object and is bound. As long as such condition obtains, the identified subject can never be free - for freedom is liberation from that identification. Abandonment of a phenomenal centre constitutes the only 'practice', and such abandonment is not an act volitionally performed by the identified subject, but a
non-action (wu wei) leaving the noumenal centre in control of phenomenal activity, and free from fictitious interference by an imaginary 'self.
Are you still thinking, looking, living, as from an
imaginary phenomenal centre? As long as you do that you can never recognise your freedom.

Could any statement be more classic?
Could any statement be more obvious?
Could any statement be more vital?
Yet - East and West - how many observe it?
So
Could any statement be more needed? — Wei Wu Wei

All comparison is based on memory, and memory is an image based on engrams. It follows that all judgement, evaluation, is an interpretation of images, for even the present is already a memory by the time we have seized it.
Therefore the unending process of finding things "good" or "not so good" is a work of imagination. Would in not be futile indeed to suppose that such judgments, that is any and all judgments, could have any absolute existence or value? — Wei Wu Wei

It is only with total humility, and in absolute stillness of mind that we can know what indeed we are. — Wei Wu Wei

Disciples and devotees ... what are most of them doing? Worshipping the teapot instead of drinking the tea! — Wei Wu Wei

As long as one accepts 'time' tacitly as such
he is dreaming a drea, not living a life. — Wei Wu Wei

The writer of these lines has nothing whatsoever to teach anyone; his words are just his contribution to our common discussion of what must inevitably be for us the most important subject which could be discussed by sentient beings. — Wei Wu Wei

In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is likely to hurt. — Wei Wu Wei

Do you realise that when you give a schilling to a beggar you are giving it to yourself?Do you realise that when you help a dog over a stile you yourself are being helped?Do you realise when you kick a man when he is down, you are kicking yourslef?Give him another kick, you deserve it! — Wei Wu Wei

The saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The sage is a man who rids himself of his ego. — Wei Wu Wei

THIS which is seeking is THAT which is sought,
and THAT which is sought is THIS which is seeking. — Wei Wu Wei

It is not for us to search but to remain still, to achieve Immobility not Action. — Wei Wu Wei

We ourselves are not an illusory part of Reality; rather are we Reality itself illusorily conceived. — Wei Wu Wei

What do you have to do? Pack your bags, Go to the station without them, Catch the train, And leave your self behind. — Wei Wu Wei

The seeing of Truth cannot be dualistic (a 'thing' seen). It cannot be seen by a see-er, or via a see-er. There can only be a seeing which itself is Truth. — Wei Wu Wei

The notion that human life has greater value than any other form of life is both unjustifiable and arrogant. — Wei Wu Wei

As long as there is a 'you' doing or not-doing, thinking or not-thinking, 'meditating' or 'not-meditating' you are no closer to home than the day you were born. — Wei Wu Wei

It is less what one is that should matter, than what one is not. — Wei Wu Wei

Are we not wasps who spend all day in a fruitless attempt to traverse a window-pane - while the other half of the window is wide open? — Wei Wu Wei

We imagine that waking-life is real and that dream-life is unreal, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this belief. — Wei Wu Wei

A man who is seeking for realization is not only going around searching for his spectacles without realizing that they are on his nose all the time, but also were he not actually looking through them he would not be able to see what he is looking for! — Wei Wu Wei

Transcendence implies the surpassing of two things, and the consequent attainment of a third thing. But there are no 'things' in reality, of any kind whatever: there is only the thing-in-itself, its suchness, which is Reality, revealed when the illusory dualism of inexistent qualities is dissolved. — Wei Wu Wei

Why aren't you happy? It's because ninety-nine percent of everything you do, and think, and say, is for yourself -- and there isn't one. — Wei Wu Wei

Realisation is a matter of becoming conscious of that which is already realised. — Wei Wu Wei

A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream.
'What are you?' I cried to them as they drifted by.
'I am a bubble, of course' nearly a myriad bubbles answered, and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed.
But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered,
'We are this stream', and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices, but just a quiet certitude. — Wei Wu Wei

Only an object can suffer, but phenomenally subject and object, being one whole, spin like a coin so that the intervals between pile et face (heads and tails) are imperceptible. Consequently pain, or pleasure, appear to be continual.

Noumenally, on the contrary, there is no object to suffer pain or pleasure. Noumenon is invulnerable, and cannot be otherwise. Noumenon is the unmanifested aspect of what we, sentient beings, are: Phenomenon is our manifestation. — Wei Wu Wei