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nothing but ecstasy, ecstasy nothing but agony; if you can see happiness is nothing but unhappiness; love is nothing but hate, hate is nothing but love -- then where to choose? how to choose? Then choice drops.
You are not dropping it. If you drop it, that will become a choice -- this is the paradox. You are not supposed to drop it, because if you drop it that means you have chosen for and against. Now your choice is for totality. You are for totality and against division, but the disease has entered. It is subtle.
You simply understand, and the very understanding becomes dropping. You never drop it. You simply laugh... and you ask for a cup of tea.
Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing
Chapter #2
Chapter title: The way is perfect
22 October 1974 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code: 7410220
ShortTitle: HSIN02
Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 94 mins
WHEN THE DEEP MEANING OF THINGS IS NOT UNDERSTOOD THE MIND'S ESSENTIAL PEACE IS DISTURBED TO NO AVAIL.
THE WAY IS PERFECT LIKE VAST SPACE WHERE NOTHING IS LACKING AND NOTHING IS IN EXCESS.
INDEED, IT IS DUE TO OUR CHOOSING TO ACCEPT OR REJECT THAT WE DO NOT SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS.
LIVE NEITHER IN THE ENTANGLEMENTS OF OUTER THINGS, NOR IN INNER FEELINGS OF EMPTINESS.
BE SERENE WITHOUT STRIVING ACTIVITY IN THE ONENESS OF THINGS AND SUCH ERRONEOUS VIEWS WILL DISAPPEAR BY THEMSELVES.
WHEN YOU TRY TO STOP ACTIVITY TO ACHIEVE PASSIVITY YOUR VERY EFFORT FILLS YOU WITH ACTIVITY.
AS LONG AS YOU REMAIN IN ONE EXTREME OR THE OTHER YOU WILL NEVER KNOW ONENESS.
THOSE WHO DO NOT LIVE IN THE SINGLE WAY FAIL IN BOTH ACTIVITY AND PASSIVITY, ASSERTION AND DENIAL.
A FEW THINGS before we enter this sutra of Sosan. In the West, just a few years back, there was a French hypnotist, Emile Coue -- he happened to rediscover one of the basic laws of the human mind. He called it "the law of reverse effect" -- that is one of the oldest sutras in Taoist and Zen thinking. Sosan is talking about this law. Try to understand this law, then his sayings will be simple to understand.
For example,
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