Zen teaching: “To the still mind, the universe surrenders.” “The quiet mind is heaven.”

The influence of egoic awareness predisposes us to color and interpret life by projecting our conditionings onto what we perceive. When we are quiet-minded perception is clarified, and our awareness reflects life as it is.

Paradoxically, it was in solitude that Hu felt closest to, and most united with others and the world. When interacting, he felt most separate and alone. And, though his enlightened Self knew there is no separation; that we all extend from the same infinite Source as specialized expressions of It, Hu preferred the wholesome company of creatures and trees.

Poet-Artist Paul Reps, after meditatively sitting with flowers, wrote: “They are all singing only we don’t hear them.” It seems he was reminding us that, behind mental clamor and churning emotions there is a listening Self ever poised in wholeness. Amidst all arisings and currents of change there is a stable observer Self established in presentness. Within all sensory delights and disappointments a knowing Self peacefully abides. With mental quiescence and physical stillness, this penetratingly perceptive Self naturally reveals what intellect and senses fail to behold.