What is the center of true stillness? The Fourth Way teaches that a person is a collection of many ‘I’s and that one’s Real ‘I’ is asleep. Because people’s real identity does not participate in their daily activities, people identify with the many ‘I’s. As a result, a person’s identity comes from the ten thousand thoughts and emotions. This is an imaginary identity. We each have an imaginary picture of ourself, based on how we think and feel about ourself.
We are what we think.
— Buddha, Dhammapada
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.
An impure mind is a mind that believes every thought that enters. Our mind gets its identity from these thoughts. Taoist texts speak of the monkey mind. As monkeys go jumping from branch to branch, so does our mind go from one thought to the next.
Since ancient times the immortal real people have likened the mind to a monkey because they truly saw that when the mind is wild and foolish this is a tremendous obstacle on the way.
— Liu Yiming (18thc. Taoist master)
If learners can actually control their stubborn mind and return it to rectitude,
then half the Tao of essence and life can be comprehended.
For this reason, all esoteric speak about stopping one’s thoughts to find the center of true stillness.
What prevents self-remembering is this constant turning of thoughts. Stop this turning and perhaps you will have a taste of it.
— P.D. Ouspensky
Q: What is “nurturing the fire”?
— Li Daochun, The Book of balance and Harmony (Taoist text)
A: Stopping thoughts is nurturing the fire.
Fire implies light. ‘Nurturing the fire’ means nurturing the inner fire of self-awareness.
The Immovable God of Light, with attendant, by Unkei, 13th c., Ganjojuin temple, Japan
However, experience shows that stopping thoughts is very difficult and only possible for a short time. As Ouspensky implies, when one tries to remember one’s self, as soon as one pays attention to the many ‘I’s, one forgets to focus attention on one’s inner world and consequently identifies with an upcoming thought. If one is not identified with one’s many ‘I’s, they are not a problem. As soon as one identifies with them they become a problem, because they become one’s identity and Real ‘I’ goes back to sleep.
Waking up Real ‘I’ requires a sustained effort of self-remembering. Real ‘I’ doesn’t wake up immediately after the steward starts the effort of self-remembering. It is not difficult to start this effort, but it is very difficult to sustain it until Real ‘I’ awakens. Usually one starts to pay attention to the many ‘I’s, before Real ‘I’ awakens.
Taoist texts call the many ‘I’s, the ten thousand entanglements.
Let go of the ten thousand entanglements, so nothing comes to mind;
— The Secret of the Golden Flower
this is the true infinity of the primordial.
The ‘primordial’ is the energy of the Original Spirit or Real ‘I’. The Original Spirit does not move. It is still and only observes.
When action and stillness are constant and as they should be, one’s path is illumined.
— Li Daochun, The Book of Balance and Harmony
‘Action’ means the internal action of awakening Real ‘I’, which the Fourth Way calls self-remembering. ‘Stillness’ refers to not listening to the many I’s. If one lets the many I’s pass by without paying attention to them, one stays in the center without moving. This is self-remembering.
Hurry and find the center of true stillness.
— Shui-Ching Tzu, Commentary on Cultivating Stillness
Hieronymus Bosch, Christ Carrying Cross (1490, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent) and Matthias Grünewald, Temptation of St Anthony
Christ, symbolizing one’s own steward, is able to stay separate from the many I’s, while St. Anthony, also representing the steward, starts listening to the many ‘I’s.
One meaning of stillness is the stopping of thoughts. When one is able to stop thoughts, letting them pass by without paying attention to them, Real ‘I’ awakens. Now one’s identity is no longer in the many ‘I’s. One can see the ‘I’s as outside of oneself. For this reason, they no longer cause a problem, because one has arrived at the mystery of mysteries. This is the inner meaning of the center of true stillness.
Freedom of thought means having no thought in the midst of thought.
— Huineng
While practicing contemplation of the empty, one also knows that one cannot destroy the ten thousand things and still one does not notice them.
— The Secret of the Golden Flower
But though one does not destroy the ten thousand things, neither does one cling to them;
this is contemplation of the center.
In Taoism, the ten thousand things are taken to mean all external phenomena. The inner meaning is the ten thousand things in oneself, the ten thousand thoughts, emotions and sensations. In other words, the many ‘I’s. When one has found the center of true stillness, the many I’s are outside oneself, because Real ‘I’ has becomes one’s identity. This state usually only last a short time. Even when it last a little longer, one always loses it, requiring one to start again.
Of freedom and of life he only is deserving, Who every day must conquer them anew.
— Goethe, Faust
If you want to reach the mystery of mysteries,
— Li Daochun, The Book of Balance and Harmony
You need to be careful when alone.
The mechanism of the work is in the eye:
Within stillness, a moving yang of creative energy returns.
At the first yang, the hidden dragon should be under control;
Then when you get to seeing the dragon, do not be hasty.
As soon as you experience “working hard,” light illumines within;
At the fifth yang, the flying dragon.
— Shui-Cheng Tzu, Commentary on Cultivating StillnessIn Taoist alchemy non-action is stillness, action is movement.
Thoroughly understanding the mind-monkey, the mechanics of the heart,
— Understanding Reality, Zhang Boduan (11th c. Taoist master)
by three thousand achievements one reaches heaven.
When creating the Elixir, only fear that the mind — like an untamed monkey — will scamper around outside. If you can withdraw your gaze and turn back your hearing, and focus your attention for a short while….then a single drop of dew-like pearly fluid rapidly settles within the Elixial field.
— Yuyan (13th c. Taoist master) Commentary on Triplex Unity
Mountain represents stopping, stillness. Inwardly still and outwardly still, one stops inside and also stops outside. Because one stillness pervades inside and outside, it is called Mountain.
— Liu Yiming, Commentary on Hexagram #52 Mountain
Walther Sell is the author of a website on Oriental esoteric teachings and the Fourth Way. For more, see his page, Inner Journey to the West and prior articles from Walther for FourthWayToday: https://fourthwaytoday.org/author/walther-sell/