刘智临
刘智临

思想者。热爱哲学、艺术、文学、诗歌。希望找到志同道合者偕行。

Diary: From Wisdom to Inaction

Indeed, doing nothing, even for ten minutes, is almost the hardest thing in the world.

2022.1.9 late at night

There are two kinds of wisdom, the wisdom of life and the wisdom of transcendence. The wisdom of life requires the training of the world, experience, reflection, love and knowledge. It can be slowly realized and perfected, and finally it is a diffuse atmosphere, which makes life full of wisdom. Mu Xin is the master of life wisdom. The wisdom of transcendence is going inward, and it is also going out of the human world. If you understand it, you will understand. It will be enlightened when it should be enlightened. It is automatic, not active or passive. It pushes people away, so it does not depend on artificial intelligence. , clear and transparent, does not need to be pure blue, is a thin layer. And the highest wisdom of life always coincides with the wisdom of transcendence, such as Lao Tzu. But it is very difficult to go from the wisdom of life to the wisdom of transcendence. There are many great wise men who have figured it out but failed to understand it, and are stuck at the top. In the end, it is a wise man who is not a Buddha, nor is Mu Xin.


People are afraid that they will face themselves when they are idle.

Because people have not faced themselves.

Lonely and inaction, there is nowhere to escape in leisure, but to face oneself.


Philosophy and science - their goals and tendencies are not the same, nor are they opposite, but more like two parallels. Science strives to describe. a picture of the entire universe, enabling us to understand, from the smallest to the largest, how the world works and works; philosophy is to explain. The "essence" of all of this (although the word is inappropriate, "essence" or "what's going on" is indeed the natural obsession of philosophy.), so that we can understand from the sense of consciousness, self and universe, What the heck is all this, what the hell is going on. Science only describes the painting, but does not explain or try to understand what it was painted with or how it was painted, it can only be a matter of philosophy.

When I saw this more clearly, I understood that the wonder, confusion, and tendencies I had since enlightened at 13 were more philosophical. Science can describe the picture of the universe, but it cannot and does not reflect on what is behind these pictures and what is going on. Science has innately accepted the logic of common sense and the reliability of sensory and thinking knowledge for understanding the world. This is a great and brave step. Putting aside disputes and observing the present, describing what can be described, layer by layer, we can learn from the small and the big; but Therefore, no matter how advanced science is, philosophy is still necessary, because the ultimate confusion cannot be solved by science.

Hawking said that philosophy is dead and is now replaced by science - without realizing the relationship between science and philosophy.


The passage of time, does this inevitability imply that the entire loop of time has already happened?


In spiritual practice, "enlightenment" should not be the goal. Is there such a thing as "enlightenment"? One could say no, or grudgingly yes; but no seems to be a better expression. "Enlightenment" is not an entity, a definite state, nor has content or stipulation. "Enlightenment" is not adding something to oneself, but adding something called "enlightenment" to one's body. Why not focus on reducing the real troubles in your life? From desires, fears, obsessions, various trends and layers of identification to physical and mental pain, the feelings of life and death, the ultimate confusion about existence, time, consciousness, self and the universe, these haunt us, spirituality The way is to simply do subtraction, to take them off, to lift them up. When these can be removed and become less obsession, there will be no doubts about what is left, and there will be no need to care about "enlightenment". Does enlightenment really exist? Am I enlightened? The silly question of taking "enlightenment" seriously—materializing, objectifying, and conceptualizing everything it touches, as ordinary thinking does—will not haunt your mind.

The spiritual path is not to add an "enlightenment" to the burden of life; it is to subtract, to know yourself deeply, to see those troubles in your life, and then to subtract them - this can be done in many ways . There is no need to think about "enlightenment".

This is a clear-cut understanding that should be known before embarking on the path of spiritual practice.


Thinking is fragmented, but thinking thinks itself to be continuous and harmonious. The mind does not realize that it is fragmented, so it thinks that its content is enough to reflect this "reality" as smooth as flowing water.


1.11 late at night

Chinese and American involution and anxiety will lead to a consequence: people are more and more isolated from the development of society, that is, society is developing, social wealth is accumulating, all external and material-"social" "—Conditions are getting better, but people's existential conditions haven't gotten better, especially their mental conditions, which are even worse. Man becomes an outsider in society. Even the ancient leisure that people could enjoy a long time ago, the long experience of being alive, is hard to survive in the rapidly snowballing self-confidence and seemingly destined "forward". It’s already 2022. It’s been a long time since mankind got rid of the so-called prehistoric times. It stands to reason that it should not be as hard as it used to be. However, it is still so difficult to survive in this society today. , which is worth reflecting on.

There is no end to involution, and rulers maintain a certain level of involution to keep society developing—but this development has little to do with human development, and sometimes runs counter to it.


"20 rupees a month for swami (monks) who do nothing." - Indeed, doing nothing, even for ten minutes, is almost the hardest thing in the world. Nothing, no action, no intention, no flow of thoughts, no wave of emotion, no trend, no fear or desire, not even a wave in the depths of the soul. Doing nothing sounds easy, you just have to try it.

However, "doing nothing" can still be achieved through training, and there are a thousand and one ways to "doing nothing", such as yoga, in-breathing, Sufi dancing, and so on. What I want to say is that "doing nothing" is not necessarily achieved. What's more important is that no matter what you do or not, there is no identification - no identification with the behavior, and no identification with the actor. It is not an intellectual identity, and it is not an identity that is not recognized, but the bottom line; but it is possible to start with an intellectual understanding, although it is far from enough.

You don't have to be obsessed with eliminating thoughts and desires, of course you can try; what is more important is to be able to understand when thoughts and desires arise, and to be able to disapprove of them. Without identification, there is no attachment, and without attachment there is no "I". Of course, this does not mean that the thoughts and feelings of "I" will not arise in the future, but at this moment, that "I" may not arise. As for when the thoughts, desires, etc. will completely subside, when the "I" will be incessant, and finally "do nothing", that is unpredictable, and I don't think it needs to be expected, it can be left to fate. When the Buddha meditates, sits up, and argues, all of them are not Buddhas. The more important thing is to understand that raising a little transparent wisdom and helping oneself to suffer less is not the pursuit of a sudden "awakening" or the "Buddha state" of "doing nothing", which is enough in life. Man is this life.

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