Chapter Two · The Human Path Toward Awakening

Early the next morning, Wenjie and I went back to that stream. I knew perfectly well that the stone was down there, and yet I still could not make out its true shape. The day before, I had already wanted to lift it out, because in the water it gave off a strange kind of light, not the dry reflection of an ordinary stone, but a dim, bluish glow, almost like moonstone. Against a black-and-white base there was a thread of cold blue, and at the time I even felt that it might be a very special stone, a stone like the He Shi Bi. I crouched down and put my hand into the water. The moment I touched it, I pulled back at once. It was too cold.

I wanted it very badly, but I was unwilling to pay that cost, so I did not lift it out. The next day Wenjie saw that I was still staring at it. He shot me a look of ridicule, laughed, and jumped straight into the water. He crouched down, reached in, felt around for a few moments, and lifted the stone out. The instant he held it before me, I froze, because it looked nothing like what I had imagined.

There was no blue light, no mystery, none of that feeling that "something seems hidden inside it." It was only an ordinary stone: a gray-white base with a few thin mica flakes on the surface catching fragments of light.

At the time I was standing beside the stream next to a rotting pine trunk. I stared at that stone for a long while. My first reaction was not disappointment. It was to begin inventing reasons. I wondered whether it had been the refraction of the water, whether the moving current had shaken the light, whether the sun had struck it at a particular angle, whether the mica flakes, when seen under the moving water, had been stretched into blue by the rippling surface. The more I thought, the more reasonable those explanations seemed. So I walked very carefully across the grass to the water's edge, put the stone back in, and waited to see whether it would shine blue again. It did not.

Once it went back into the water, it still did not become what I had first seen. I stood there, and all at once I understood something. That blue light had never really been on the stone, nor in the water. It had only been in my own mind.

All the explanations I had been desperately producing were not for the sake of finding the truth. They were my effort to prove that the causal relation I thought I had just seen was correct. Over time I came to understand that this is how people usually are: we see a result first, then frantically search for a cause, and then go looking for evidence to support that cause.

In the end we persuade ourselves: I did not see it wrong; I understood it correctly; this is simply how the world is. But very often, if you only put the stone back into the water and look once more, all those reasons shatter on their own.

It was from discovering the meaning of repeated observation and comparison that Human Choice, Heavenly Choice was born.

Record-keeping matters enormously. Only by recording can you preserve how you truly thought at the time. When you look back later, you can tell whether what you saw then was really a stone on the riverbed, or only a ripple on the water. Later I took that stone home with me. Because of that stone, I even lost a second-hand Sony music phone Wenjie had given me. I still remember the model clearly: the Sony Ericsson W800c. To this day, the stone is still on my desk. It looks like nothing more than an ordinary stone. But to me it is more important than many things, because so much of what I later came to think about people began with that little stream. If one day you happen to see it, you probably will not think it special at all.

And it was from that point on that I began, for the first time in earnest, to think about one question: if human thought really is a river, how exactly are we supposed to observe the riverbed of our own mind?

For a period after that, I began writing in a journal every single day. I wrote with great seriousness, so seriously that after finishing I would hand it to Wenjie to read. I hoped that after reading it, he would give me a real response. I even expected that he might understand me a little better.

But one day he suddenly said to me, "Don't show me your diary anymore."

That day we were at the crossroads beneath the staircase outside the First People's Hospital of Danjiangkou, on our way to Shentong Internet Cafe to play World of Warcraft. I froze for a moment and asked him why. He said something that I remembered for many years afterward.

He said, "Human expression toward other people is always deeply false."

At the time I did not understand. He told me that his parents had divorced when he was young, and that he had been raised by his grandparents. His father often told him his mother was bad. His mother often told him his father was good.

He said, "What each person says is never entirely false, but neither is it entirely true. When people speak, there is always some purpose in the heart, always something they want to keep back, always some version they want others to believe."

Then he looked at me and said, "So the moment you write for someone else to see, it has already ceased to be true."

When I heard this, I was furious. I sincerely wanted to show him the thoughts I had about life and being alive. I felt that he was denying me. I wrote those things with complete seriousness. I even thought they were a very real part of me. And yet with one sentence, "it's all false," he overturned it all.

At the time I could not accept it. Later we even had an argument over it. After that, for about two months, we were almost not in contact at all, out of sheer stubbornness. During that stretch I stopped showing my diary to anyone. Later I often reread the things I had written before, and I discovered that he had been right. When I used to write, I was imagining him as the reader. I would unconsciously arrange my language. I would unconsciously heighten certain emotions. I would unconsciously hide certain things as well.

And now, if I were to write it again, I would not write it that way. Only then did I understand that he had been right. The moment something is written for others to see, it has already begun to deform. From that day on, I never again showed my journal to anyone. Even writing for you now, there will still be some alteration. I do my best to control it, but even that effort only makes the alteration continue to alter.

Let us begin.

If human thought is a river, then seeing the riverbed clearly is actually very hard, because the water is always moving.

Many people spend their whole lives seeing only the excuses, reasons, and disguises on the surface of the water, never once seeing the riverbed. Gradually I came to the conclusion that there are roughly three ways of seeing the stones at the bottom.

For the overwhelming majority of people, I recommend only the first at the outset. Do not underestimate the human path. At its far end it meets the heavenly path by another road. It is simply this: lift stones. It is the slowest method, but also the safest and the one with the lowest cost.

What does it mean to lift stones? It means you do not hurry to see through the entire river at once. You lift one stone. Today one. Tomorrow another. You lift it out, look at it, set it back down, look at it again, and record it.

You are not trying to inspect every single stone in the whole river in one day. Nor are you trying to completely remake yourself today. What you are trying to build, little by little, is only one ability:

That is the seed of what I call heavenly insight. It is not mystical, and still less is it fortune-telling. It is simply your unconscious eye growing more and more accurate at reading your own riverbed. So how does one lift stones?

Later I found a very simple method for myself. Every day, when I was at my most tired, I would write. At the time I loved physical exercise. I worked out and ran every day, and my physical condition was very good. Later I discovered that the period after a run was especially suited to lifting stones. Once you finish running, the body is exhausted. Blood flow and oxygen are moving toward the limbs and the whole body. The mind, by contrast, is no longer spinning at its usual high speed.

At such moments the river slows down. Not to a dead stop, but noticeably. And once the water slows, the surface grows calmer. When it is calmer, it becomes easier to see the bottom. So the method I later gave myself became:

How you write matters enormously. I once guided my own disciples in keeping journals, and they were mostly writing things like: today I was tired, today I was unhappy, today someone disappointed me, today I understood something. Such records carry very little weight. Those are only ripples on the surface. What we need to record are traces.

Not a record of life.

Not a record of feelings.

Not a record of the story.

But the lifting of one stone from the river each day. So how do you write without merely describing the surface? I suggest that every "trace note" follow this fixed order:

Write only what happened. No explanations, no evaluation, no dramatization. For example: "Today he said I had changed." "Today I saw someone making money very quickly." "Today I meant to reply to a message, but then I did not." "Today I saw someone showing off, and it made me uncomfortable." The function of this first layer is to mark off the place where the stone lies. Many people start at once with theories, and that makes it too easy to cover the stone over.

Write the most direct feeling you had at the moment. Not the correct answer, but your first reaction. For example: "I wanted to argue back." "I felt sour." "I felt a bit afraid." "I suddenly wanted to prove myself." "I instantly wanted to run away." This layer matters because the first reaction is usually the one closest to the stone.

You must force yourself to answer one sentence: if I follow this momentum forward, what exactly am I trying to obtain? Notice: do not write grand words such as "dignity," "happiness," or "meaning." Write something concrete. For example: "I want him to admit I am not wrong." "I want to be stronger than that person." "I want other people to think more highly of me." "I want to preserve this relationship." "I want to secure this opportunity." "I want to confirm that I am not a failure." The moment you write this layer, craving usually emerges.

This layer is where you look for fear. And here too you cannot write empty abstractions. Write the ugliest, smallest, most direct fear. For example: "I am afraid of being looked down on." "I am afraid that I am not actually that capable." "I am afraid of losing him." "I am afraid that I chose wrong." "I am afraid that I will later realize I was very foolish." "I am afraid that I have in fact been lying to myself all along." This layer is crucial, because many people can write what they want, but cannot write what they fear. Yet what truly makes a person pull back is usually found here.

This is the most critical layer of all. This is where you look for the ripples on the surface. Ask yourself: in order to make myself feel a little more comfortable, what explanations did I create for this matter? For example: "I am not jealous, I am only analyzing things objectively." "I am not afraid, I am only waiting." "It is not that I do not want it, I am simply thinking farther ahead." "I am not angry, I only feel it is not worth it." "I am not trying to prove myself, I am only speaking a fair truth." What you are writing at this level is how you reconcile yourself to yourself. Many people stop journaling at the third layer, and so they never truly touch the stone. The real stone is often hidden behind the very reasons you are best at giving.

In the end, you are allowed only one final sentence: "The stone I lifted out today is: ____." Write only one main stone. Do not write an entire pile of wanting and fearing together. For example: "Today's main stone is: fear of being looked down on." "Today's main stone is: wanting to prove I am stronger." "Today's main stone is: fear of losing a relationship." "Today's main stone is: wanting certainty." "Today's main stone is: fear of admitting I was wrong." This step is indispensable, because it forces you down from a whole surface of water onto one stone.

Why do so many people find diary-writing useless? Because they write only the first three layers: what happened, and what I felt.

"Today I felt deeply wronged." This certainly has some value. But that only means you have seen the surface of the water. A person who truly learns to see himself will always add two more layers: what exactly do I want, and what exactly am I afraid of?

And then add one more still: what explanation did I invent in order to protect myself?

Only when you have written this far do you truly begin to touch the stone. And why must you look back? You had already intuited this earlier, and it is the sharpest point of all: when you lift a stone out, you do not do it for collection. You do it for comparison.

Lift it up today and look at it. Put it back tomorrow and look again. Look once more after a week, and once again after a month. Then you will discover three things:

That third point is the most important. If a stone returns repeatedly, then it is not an accidental mood. It is one of the large stones at the bottom of your river. So my suggestion is this: write every day, review once a week, and each month look only for the three stones that repeat. After a month, you will be shocked. Because you will discover that the life you thought was complicated is, in fact, being pushed around by only a few stones, over and over again.

How does one learn human choice through journaling? This is the real point. Many people think that seeing the stone is enough. It is not. Seeing the stone is only the first step. True human choice begins when, the next time the same ripple appears, you know what stone lies underneath.

For example, in the past, when you saw someone else succeed, a ripple would rise in you, and all you would know is that you felt bad. But after writing trace notes for ten days, you will realize: "Ah, this is not simply discomfort. Underneath it is the desire to prove I am stronger." Or again: "Ah, this is not rational hesitation. Underneath it is fear of paying the cost."

At that point you begin, slowly, to acquire the qualifications for choosing. But as for how to choose, that will probably have to wait until after chapter thirty. Recently, ever since the release of the original first chapter, many people have been impatient to begin choosing, and that truly frightens me. They are willing to do groundwork, but unwilling to hear principles. They only want to copy answers and turn the vague into the certain.

The first six lines are about seeing the stone. Only the seventh begins to approach the simulation of human choice. Some people criticize Human Choice, Heavenly Choice as mysticism. After the preface they discover it is not. Now they have moved on to calling it empty talk, neither provable nor falsifiable. After reading this chapter, let us wait and see. Human Choice, Heavenly Choice is a highly practical guide to action.

Keep lifting. If you keep lifting long enough, you will slowly come to know what water is, what a ripple is, what a stone is, and what is truly you. And when you begin to know these things, only then do you really obtain the admission ticket to begin studying Human Choice, Heavenly Choice.

That is, deep thinking. This method is fast, but also dangerous, and I must make that danger very clear. Many people hear the phrase "deep thinking" and immediately assume it is something especially advanced. It is not. It can very easily lead a person into nihilism. I have twice in my life come very near depression, and both times were related to "diving."

The first was when a friend who had accompanied me for many years later developed liver cancer. During that period, I kept thinking about death, too deeply, for too long, and I almost could not come back out.

The second was later, when I was studying the structure of the human genome. I saw some things at a very deep level, and then I began digging downward. Dig long enough, and a person can fall into a place that feels utterly empty.

So later I became more and more convinced that deep thinking is not something everyone is suited to do immediately. If you do not yet know how to read your own river, if you still cannot lift stones, if you still cannot judge your own state, then the moment you begin by diving, you are very likely to throw yourself into confusion. That is why this chapter does not teach you how to dive. At most it tells you that such a method exists, that it is fast, and that it is dangerous. Once the structure described earlier has been made clearer, then diving becomes much safer.

This one is the most powerful, and also the hardest. Changing the river's course is not about looking at stones. It is about directly altering the direction of the flow. Once a river really changes course, the original riverbed will be exposed for a period of time, and then you can see the bottom with extraordinary clarity. So before changing course, you would do best to know what lay at the bottom of your original river to begin with. After the change, look once again. Compare before and after. It is profoundly unsettling.

But the cost of this method is very high, so I will not unfold it here. The moment I do, many people will hear it as mysticism. For now, just remember one sentence: changing the course of the river is powerful, but it is not something ordinary people should touch lightly.

If a person truly wants to know himself, the first step is not deep thinking, and it is not changing structure. The first step is simply to see clearly what kind of river one has, and then to lift one stone every day. See a little, compare a little, correct a little, and gradually revise those judgments that seem reasonable but are in fact only self-reconciliation.

Slowly you will discover why you reach out, why you pull back, why you always fall for the same kind of "blue light," and why every time you lift it up, it turns out to be only an ordinary stone. When you begin to do that, only then have you truly begun to understand your own heart.

Twenty years have passed. That stone still sits on my desk beside my clay teapot, and next to it there is also a blue Sri Lankan moonstone. Sometimes I pick them up and compare them. The stream stone is not special at all. Gray-white, with a little mica shining in it. If people saw it online, they probably would not look twice. But every time I raise my eyes and see it, I think of that stream, and of the self who stood there by the water all those years ago.

In the next chapter, I will take you into the "Coin World," where the two sides of me face one another as one whole. Are you ready? Amid fear and craving, to pass through the thick of things without a single leaf clinging to you.