Cultivating the True by Breaking Through Appearances

"Fuxi observed nature's laws of understanding and drew the Innate Bagua.

Laozi observed nature's laws of understanding and named them the Dao.

Master had never read those books either. He, too, comprehended the Heavenly Dao from nature, then began cultivating.

Why was it that we cultivated this way and attained the Dao, while those who had read books for decades and attended classes for more than ten years neither knew how to cultivate nor recognized the Dao?

The reason was that they had never truly understood what the Dao was, much less possessed any good method for cultivating it.

If you do not know the Dao, then how do you cultivate? If you do not know the Dao, then what exactly are you cultivating?

Master once said that the Dao was law. Whether one believed oneself to be cultivating or not, one was cultivating. That was correct.

But conversely, if you did not know the Dao, then what Dao were you cultivating? These were two utterly opposed statements, and their meanings were clearly different.

One was understanding; the other was ignorance.

The Dao was indeed law, but whether one understood it or not led to completely different results.

People existed amid nature and all things, while nature and all things also existed within the human heart.

To cultivate the Dao, one had to learn to observe all things—to observe with awareness. Observe one's own heart, and observe the present moment. This was called presence.

It was not about learning how much knowledge there was, or what kind of knowledge was good. That was not cultivating the Dao; that was acquiring knowledge.

Knowledge did not mean one personally possessed such understanding. It meant one was using such understanding to understand.

When one used understanding to understand, it was like viewing the