" ractitioners thus strive to access what they call P pure experience or "sitting in oblivion of everything"by letting go of all ordinary perception while strengthening intuition, the potency of the inborn, natural mind-a pure reflection of original cosmos in human beings. Posture and body control become essential; all analytical, dualistic thinking as well as connection to deities are radically overcome."[p6]
Thus Chan masters speak of "sudden"enlightenmentunlike Daoists who emphasize the slow, one-by-one overcoming of inherent patterns in gradual progress."[p 114]
Livia further elaborates on what is zuowang by going to an ancient commentator on the Daode jing and the Zhuangzi, Guo Xiang, in his Commentary and Subcommentary to the Perfect Scripture of Southern Florescence:
" uowang is to sit and forget. What we forget is the Z thing we hold most dearly: self, with all its opinions, beliefs, and ideals. We can be so caught up in the concept of self that we see the world as a place to fulfill personal ambition and desire."[p 14]
S" itting in oblivion-what could one not be oblivious of? First one abandons outward manifestations, then one becomes oblivious of that which causes these manifestations. On the inside one is unaware that there is a body-self; on the outside one never knows there are Heaven and Earth. Only thus can one become fully vacant and unify with the changes, and there will be nothing that is not pervaded."[p17]
So now, let's see how the practices or advice given by the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing are so similar to the zuowang definitions we've encountered so far.
In another context, Livia compares zuowang to Zen or Chinese Chan meditation. Her comparison also introduces the break through experience, what I refer to as the experience of cracking the matrix. (see my article, Cracking The Matrix) She says: " han practice, like sitting in oblivion, reduces conC scious activity and sensory meditation to zero in order to break through to this underlying connectedness, to the pure existence of mind-only. On the way to this breakthrough, practitioners work hard and sit intensely, undergoing a variety of distracting experiences: from heat and cold through trembling and shaking to hallucinations of light, visitations by specters, and visions of divine beings ... The eventual breakthrough, then, is often experienced as a sudden opening of consciousness and not as the gradual emergence of a new state.
sakhorn38 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
May-June 2012
Monday, 3:17 pm Here is a last reference to zuowang in Livia's book. It is by Shi Jing, a western Daoist priest and leader of the British Taoist Association. Livia quotes him:
The first thing to understand about this Christian classic is that there is a cloud of unknowing and a cloud of forgetting. The author of The Cloud explains what he means by calling it a cloud of unknowing: " he first time you practice contemplation, you'll only T experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing. You won't know what this is. You'll only know that in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do."[pXII] As for the cloud of forgetting, the author says: I"f the cloud of unknowing makes you feel alienated from God, that's only because you've not yet put a cloud of forgetting between you and everything in creation. When I say "everything in creation,"I mean not only the creatures themselves but also everything they do and are, as well as the circumstances in which they find themselves. There are no exceptions. You must forget everything. Hide all created things, material and spiritual, good and bad, under the cloud of forgetting."[p XIII] Yang-Sheng (Nurturing Life)
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