Post by Kivawolfspeaker on Apr 12, 2006 15:54:16 GMT -5
Tao Living
Xin Zhai
by Derek Lin
February 2000
Have you ever found yourself dealing with difficult situations or people? Of course you have. We all have. It may be a clueless boss or a stubborn spouse or your recalcitrant teenage kid or other colorful characters from the big cast of life. As human beings, we've all found ourselves frustrated at one time or another and wishing for some magical way to get through to these people.
Such a way does exist, but it is not magical. It merely seems like magic to those who witness it in action but have not been taught the powerful knowledge of Xin Zhai.
Literally, Xin means heart and Zhai means vegetarian diet, so the literal meaning of Xin Zhai is "vegetarian diet of the heart." That probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now. You may be thinking the term seems to have more to do with physical health than social interactions. Is Derek trying to pull a quick switch in order to jump on his vegetarianism soapbox again?
Actually, Xin Zhai is a term coined by Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) to describe a profound and practical principle. Once a Tao student masters the concept of Xin Zhai, he can use it to persuade those who are unreceptive or stubborn, or wade through social mine fields unscathed.
To illustrate Xin Zhai, Chuang Tzu made up a conversation between Confucius and his disciple Yen Hui. In this fictitious account, loosely adapted here into modern vernacular, Yen Hui visited Confucius to bid farewell. He told his master that he was going to Wei, which was at the time a turbulent and dangerous land.
"Why the heck would you want to go there?" Confucius wanted to know.
"Well Master, I heard that the Wei King is quite a tyrant and his people are really suffering. He does not value human lives and wages wars carelessly. The countryside is filled with dead bodies! You've taught us to treat a chaotic nation as a doctor treats the wounded, so I figured I'd give it a shot."
"What!" Confucius exclaimed. "You are headed for a world of hurt! You don't even know what you're doing, how can you help other people? The second you open your big mouth in front of this tyrant, he'll dominate you with his power and cut your head off! Do you have some kind of plan to avoid that?"
"Uh... how about a simple and direct approach?" Asked Yen Hui.
"Nope," replied Confucius. "The Wei King is a willful man and not accustomed to being contradicted. His most likely reaction to your direct approach would be to walk all over you, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"Okay, instead of directly opposing him, I'll be clever and appear to yield. To steer him in the right direction, I'll cite traditions and past examples instead of my own idea. This way, I can be perfectly honest and yet avoid offending him!"
"Wrong again," the Master still disapproved. "At best this plan will let you survive with your own hide intact, but you simply won't be able to produce any significant changes in the land of Wei. The Wei King's overpowering ego will only be boosted by you kissing up to him; you will only make him even more convinced that he's right."
At this point Yen Hui was out of ideas. If you couldn't use the direct approach or the indirect approach, didn't that mean the situation was completely hopeless? What other approach was there?
Confucius told him that Xin Zhai was the way. Xin Zhai was not necessarily direct or indirect; it was beyond such trifling distinctions. Confucius explained that the purpose of Zhai was to cleanse one's physiology. In the same way, the purpose of Xin Zhai was to cleanse one's mind.
Why was this necessary? Note that Yen Hui's approaches, direct or indirect, operated under a host of preconceptions and assumptions. They were the product of logic and reasoning, and came replete with moves, countermoves, scenarios and contingencies. Xin Zhai was at a level above this, with the mandate of being totally free of preconceptions or assumptions. This state, called "emptiness", lead to a state of oneness with any situation.
In other words, what Xin Zhai enables one to do is listen, but not with the ear or the mind, but with the Chi. When you listen with your ears, you hear the propagation of sound waves through the air. When you listen with your mind, you decipher the sounds into words and receive the meaning the speaker intends to convey. This won't necessarily help you discover the reality behind the veil of words, however. It is only when you listen with the Chi that you begin to see through the hidden agendas, misdirections, and half-truths. This lets you glimpse the true reality and capture insights that would normally elude the ears and the mind.
Confucius therefore instructed Yen Hui to clear his faculties via Xin Zhai. This would free him from any preoccupation with the self or any preconceived limitations. Such an egoless approach would allow Yen Hui to act upon others without coming into conflict with their private conceits. By listening to the self-centered tyrant and understanding the reality behind his words, Yen Hui could gain the mental foothold he needed to work his influence.
Good for him, you say, but what about in everyday life, which can be difficult and complex even without a tyrant who threatens to cut your head off? How does Xin Zhai apply to that?
For the majority of issues in life, our usual thought-out, reasoned-out plans are quite adequate. When facing a challenge, however, such plans have an annoying tendency to suddenly become useless when events take an unforeseen turn, or the quarry does something totally unexpected.
This is a broad stroke that covers a lot of human endeavors, from grand enterprises to personal misadventures. For instance, remember when you just started dating and were still awkward in the presence of the opposite sex? You might go on a date with an script in your mind, a series of witty responses and remarks you had crafted so you would know exactly what to say in any situation and not end up looking like an inexperienced dork. But then your date wouldn't follow this cool script and took the conversation in a totally bizarre direction, and much to your exasperation, you still ended up looking like an inexperienced dork!
In a situation like that, you can see that Xin Zhai is definitely the superior approach. Don't bother thinking up clever lines or some contrived ways to be cool. Instead, free your mind of unnecessary obstructions like worries, apprehensions, and useless speculations on what other people may think about you. Once your ego and vanity are out of the way, you will be able to listen to your date with your entire being, without prejudgement.
Listening in this way and following one's intuition will produce nearly miraculous results. It works because most of us would love to have someone really listen to us, and yet ironically we never listen to others in the same way. Hence the state of Xin Zhai makes one perfectly natural, appealing, and completely different from everybody else. It's too bad I didn't find out about this twenty years ago, when I made my fumbling forays into the strange world of dating and courtship. Now it's too late for me to play Romeo - but perhaps not too late for many of the readers of this column!
The greatest use of Xin Zhai for me is as a compass to navigate precarious social pathways. In my line of work it is imperative to deal with all sorts of people appropriately: superiors, underlings, peers, vendors, and users. While I cannot claim total mastery of Xin Zhai and still fall flat on my face with alarming frequency, I have tapped its magical effectiveness (when I remember to use it) to help me deal with high-stress downtime, incompetent vendor tech support and frustrated users.
So next time you find yourself mired in difficulties or confronted by difficult people, take heart. Remember the lesson of Xin Zhai and know that you have a great tool that will help you get through. Collect yourself, let go of your ego, clear your preconceptions, and really listen. Follow your instincts and let your powerful subconscious mind guide you through the labyrinth of hidden agendas, misdirections and half-truths.
Once you have mastered this process, you will be amazed by the ease with which you can achieve rapport and agreement with others. Don't be surprised if friends start wondering if you have acquired occult powers. You alone will know that it is not the power of the paranormal, but rather the power of wisdom!
From www.taoism.net
Xin Zhai
by Derek Lin
February 2000
Have you ever found yourself dealing with difficult situations or people? Of course you have. We all have. It may be a clueless boss or a stubborn spouse or your recalcitrant teenage kid or other colorful characters from the big cast of life. As human beings, we've all found ourselves frustrated at one time or another and wishing for some magical way to get through to these people.
Such a way does exist, but it is not magical. It merely seems like magic to those who witness it in action but have not been taught the powerful knowledge of Xin Zhai.
Literally, Xin means heart and Zhai means vegetarian diet, so the literal meaning of Xin Zhai is "vegetarian diet of the heart." That probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now. You may be thinking the term seems to have more to do with physical health than social interactions. Is Derek trying to pull a quick switch in order to jump on his vegetarianism soapbox again?
Actually, Xin Zhai is a term coined by Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) to describe a profound and practical principle. Once a Tao student masters the concept of Xin Zhai, he can use it to persuade those who are unreceptive or stubborn, or wade through social mine fields unscathed.
To illustrate Xin Zhai, Chuang Tzu made up a conversation between Confucius and his disciple Yen Hui. In this fictitious account, loosely adapted here into modern vernacular, Yen Hui visited Confucius to bid farewell. He told his master that he was going to Wei, which was at the time a turbulent and dangerous land.
"Why the heck would you want to go there?" Confucius wanted to know.
"Well Master, I heard that the Wei King is quite a tyrant and his people are really suffering. He does not value human lives and wages wars carelessly. The countryside is filled with dead bodies! You've taught us to treat a chaotic nation as a doctor treats the wounded, so I figured I'd give it a shot."
"What!" Confucius exclaimed. "You are headed for a world of hurt! You don't even know what you're doing, how can you help other people? The second you open your big mouth in front of this tyrant, he'll dominate you with his power and cut your head off! Do you have some kind of plan to avoid that?"
"Uh... how about a simple and direct approach?" Asked Yen Hui.
"Nope," replied Confucius. "The Wei King is a willful man and not accustomed to being contradicted. His most likely reaction to your direct approach would be to walk all over you, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"Okay, instead of directly opposing him, I'll be clever and appear to yield. To steer him in the right direction, I'll cite traditions and past examples instead of my own idea. This way, I can be perfectly honest and yet avoid offending him!"
"Wrong again," the Master still disapproved. "At best this plan will let you survive with your own hide intact, but you simply won't be able to produce any significant changes in the land of Wei. The Wei King's overpowering ego will only be boosted by you kissing up to him; you will only make him even more convinced that he's right."
At this point Yen Hui was out of ideas. If you couldn't use the direct approach or the indirect approach, didn't that mean the situation was completely hopeless? What other approach was there?
Confucius told him that Xin Zhai was the way. Xin Zhai was not necessarily direct or indirect; it was beyond such trifling distinctions. Confucius explained that the purpose of Zhai was to cleanse one's physiology. In the same way, the purpose of Xin Zhai was to cleanse one's mind.
Why was this necessary? Note that Yen Hui's approaches, direct or indirect, operated under a host of preconceptions and assumptions. They were the product of logic and reasoning, and came replete with moves, countermoves, scenarios and contingencies. Xin Zhai was at a level above this, with the mandate of being totally free of preconceptions or assumptions. This state, called "emptiness", lead to a state of oneness with any situation.
In other words, what Xin Zhai enables one to do is listen, but not with the ear or the mind, but with the Chi. When you listen with your ears, you hear the propagation of sound waves through the air. When you listen with your mind, you decipher the sounds into words and receive the meaning the speaker intends to convey. This won't necessarily help you discover the reality behind the veil of words, however. It is only when you listen with the Chi that you begin to see through the hidden agendas, misdirections, and half-truths. This lets you glimpse the true reality and capture insights that would normally elude the ears and the mind.
Confucius therefore instructed Yen Hui to clear his faculties via Xin Zhai. This would free him from any preoccupation with the self or any preconceived limitations. Such an egoless approach would allow Yen Hui to act upon others without coming into conflict with their private conceits. By listening to the self-centered tyrant and understanding the reality behind his words, Yen Hui could gain the mental foothold he needed to work his influence.
Good for him, you say, but what about in everyday life, which can be difficult and complex even without a tyrant who threatens to cut your head off? How does Xin Zhai apply to that?
For the majority of issues in life, our usual thought-out, reasoned-out plans are quite adequate. When facing a challenge, however, such plans have an annoying tendency to suddenly become useless when events take an unforeseen turn, or the quarry does something totally unexpected.
This is a broad stroke that covers a lot of human endeavors, from grand enterprises to personal misadventures. For instance, remember when you just started dating and were still awkward in the presence of the opposite sex? You might go on a date with an script in your mind, a series of witty responses and remarks you had crafted so you would know exactly what to say in any situation and not end up looking like an inexperienced dork. But then your date wouldn't follow this cool script and took the conversation in a totally bizarre direction, and much to your exasperation, you still ended up looking like an inexperienced dork!
In a situation like that, you can see that Xin Zhai is definitely the superior approach. Don't bother thinking up clever lines or some contrived ways to be cool. Instead, free your mind of unnecessary obstructions like worries, apprehensions, and useless speculations on what other people may think about you. Once your ego and vanity are out of the way, you will be able to listen to your date with your entire being, without prejudgement.
Listening in this way and following one's intuition will produce nearly miraculous results. It works because most of us would love to have someone really listen to us, and yet ironically we never listen to others in the same way. Hence the state of Xin Zhai makes one perfectly natural, appealing, and completely different from everybody else. It's too bad I didn't find out about this twenty years ago, when I made my fumbling forays into the strange world of dating and courtship. Now it's too late for me to play Romeo - but perhaps not too late for many of the readers of this column!
The greatest use of Xin Zhai for me is as a compass to navigate precarious social pathways. In my line of work it is imperative to deal with all sorts of people appropriately: superiors, underlings, peers, vendors, and users. While I cannot claim total mastery of Xin Zhai and still fall flat on my face with alarming frequency, I have tapped its magical effectiveness (when I remember to use it) to help me deal with high-stress downtime, incompetent vendor tech support and frustrated users.
So next time you find yourself mired in difficulties or confronted by difficult people, take heart. Remember the lesson of Xin Zhai and know that you have a great tool that will help you get through. Collect yourself, let go of your ego, clear your preconceptions, and really listen. Follow your instincts and let your powerful subconscious mind guide you through the labyrinth of hidden agendas, misdirections and half-truths.
Once you have mastered this process, you will be amazed by the ease with which you can achieve rapport and agreement with others. Don't be surprised if friends start wondering if you have acquired occult powers. You alone will know that it is not the power of the paranormal, but rather the power of wisdom!
From www.taoism.net