Cutting Off Desire and Renouncing Love, the Heart Becomes Free

On May 16, 2016, after a fifty-day long meditation on the various problems of life, I suddenly realized that, without my noticing, I had cut off all sensual desire.

This does not mean giving up sex from then on, or abandoning my wife and children, or failing to support my parents and children. It means that all the attachments and bonds arising in the heart from blood ties and love-relationships were gone.

The last rope of desire that had bound me in life was, from that point, untied from me.

Before the age of thirty, greed was gone; two years ago, anger was gone; now, sensual desire is gone too.

I will never become a monk in my life. To live, one should support oneself; I completely reject the values of otherworldly monks and their parasitic way of life. So I will never follow them, and I never want to have any dealings with Daoist priests or Buddhist monks again. I will get along happily with the family around me, but my mind has detached itself from the bonds of desire and no longer has any affliction because of love-relationships.

I owe no one, and no one owes me. I will work hard, study hard, support my family, and educate my children, but after I have striven, I will not care about the result. I will, as always, read, write, think, and study medicine. I will bury myself in scholarship and pass this life.

Only after experiencing the world does one understand that the essence of everything is empty illusion. With one sweep of the sword of wisdom, everything can be cut through. The self-nature of the mind is originally utterly pure; only because these thousand threads of desire cannot be cut do so many random thoughts arise. The mortal world is a boundless sea of desire built from intricate bonds of blood and love. Having cut off desire, one has emerged from this sea of suffering.

When I cut everything off from the depths of my heart, I found that there was originally no deluded thought I needed to restrain, no responsibility I needed to bear, no love-relationship I needed to cling to, and no Dharma I needed to cultivate. Nothing to cultivate, nothing to attest to, no attachment, no tie, the heart empty as space, yet able to contain all things. Everything comes and goes as it wills, leaving no random thought to linger in the heart overnight. How light it is.

Nor is there any need for precepts to bind me, for there are no longer any ideas in the heart that run against nature. As a human being, simply living according to one's own instincts—why need so many rules? Though in the world, I do not enter the mortal dust; whether or not I keep precepts is utterly meaningless. Keeping precepts, I live this way; not keeping them, I live this way. Free and at ease—why must I put a fundamentally meaningless yoke over my own head?

People cannot let go of the world's attachments; at root it is desire at work. Once desire is gone, human feelings and worldly matters are all seen through, and emptiness manifests of itself. Since worldly bonds have been formed, I will see them through to a good end, but there is no need to grieve over them. A person of utmost feeling and nature finally understands how unnecessary delusion is.

Greed, anger, and delusion thus vanished, and every burden of the heart was laid down. This state of mind cannot be understood by anyone who has not had a similar experience. Cut off desire and renounce love; when love and desire are cut off, it is like a severed hand or foot, which cannot grow back. Once love and desire are cut, they will not resume. The various pleasures of the mortal world are like the epiphyllum, blooming for an instant then vanishing. When it blooms, enjoy it well; when the epiphyllum fades, that is the hour when the music ends and the people depart—do not linger.

Only one who has been greedy can let go of greed; only one who has been angry can let go of anger; only one who has been deluded can let go of delusion; only one who has been arrogant can let go of arrogance; only one who has been suspicious can let go of suspicion. I, a person fully poisoned by the five poisons, have tasted each poison, and each almost poisoned me to death; only then did I finally know that I must not touch these five poisons again.

The savor of life is pure joy. Only when the mind is still can one know how happy this quiet happiness is. This happiness depends on no external thing and on no other person. The bright moon and gentle breeze, the mountains and rivers, the colorful world of nature—at every moment, every small scene can make one immensely happy. Walking in the woods, meditating on each new problem encountered; when meditation yields an insight, what happiness in the heart can compare with that?

Such happiness no one comes to seize, no one comes to envy, it costs nothing to buy, and one need not fear it running out. It endures long without fading. How beautiful it is.