Book Review

The Way of Spirit and Intention
by Lin Ai Wei

The Way of Spirit and Intention (SHEN YI ZHI DAO) is an extended narrative, in stanza and verse, on consciousness, perception, and the cultivation of mind, written very much in the spirit and flow of Tao Te Ching. It is also a practical manual on the right application of mind to daily living. It is composed of 3 parts. Part 1 is presently available for free, on the author's web site (http://www.freewebs.com/jingxinyuan/). Our review is primarily based on all of Part 1 but also makes reference to Parts 2 and 3. The author has kindly excerpted six stanzas from Part 1 (2,4,6,9,12,16) for us here, at our request. These selections also summarize the whole work and its scope, and certainly are a good introduction to the work itself. Because they are already on this site, we have cited some of the other stanzas in this review. Hopefully, after reading this review, people will go to the web site to read the whole of Part 1, which is The Way of Spirit and Intention link, on the above web site.

The author, Lin Ai Wei (a.k.a. Erik Oliva), is a teacher and writer. He writes from the perspective of the wisdom tradition of the Jing Xin Yuan school of Buddhism, which is associated with Taiji Quan (Tai Chi Chuan), Qigong (Chi Kung) and the Wing Chun tradition of meditation and martial arts, in China and in the US. His very informative and easy to navigate web site describes this tradition in some detail. The author currently lives in China. There is a short bio of him on the web site.

Part 1 of The Way of Spirit and Intention is concise and cohesive. It is not a lengthy work—32 short stanzas. It has an oracular quality, as the author reflects on the nature of experience and of suffering. Clinging to particular experiences, or things and the emotions associated with these, blocks their direct experience. The work has directness, and a Zen-like sense of presenting issues as paradox, so the reader's insight is directly stimulated toward a breakthrough in consciousness. This may be in the author's mind as well, for he includes some basic meditations involving stance, posture and breathing, which the reader could actually do at that time. This is very skillful teaching technique, and is a unique feature of The Way of Spirit and Intention. These exercises are well integrated into the text, and are there to help the reader still, and then open their minds, and directly experience the main ideas of the work—the direct perception of things or phenomena in a non-attached way. A complete reading of Part 1, from beginning to end, could also assist in this process.

The Way of Spirit and Intention affirms both non-dualistic consciousness and ordinary consciousness. It presents the view that the world is perceived as one or many, depending on the level of one's awareness or consciousness. Ordinary experience does not itself cause suffering, for it only a sequence of events, and perceptions by the person. Suffering invariably begins when people cling and become attached to particular experience, including emotional states, which invariably pass. When people focus on parts, and seek to cling to them rather than to the whole processes, and nature as a whole, suffering develops. Recognition of this fact is a cornerstone of meditative practice in Buddhism and Taoism.

11

To be clear is a misconception,
for clarity is still a perception
unless the perception being used
is used by a non-attached mind.

Both clarity and non-attachment
have attachments as long as the mind
is being used to perceive them.
In order for the mind to not hold attachment,
there must not be a body.

Yet,
if the use of perception is the only
attachment the mind has, and the body is not
overwhelmed by emotion,
then clarity can be experienced.
.
It is only after experiencing through a mind
One must work in both extremes to
a Human expression of natural and not natural.

The author doesn't denounce the physicality of the world from the perspective of non-dualistic consciousness. Rather, he endeavors to help us navigate through the rocky road of consciousness it by not becoming fixated on parts or emotions associated with them. He tries to make reader aware of the role of habit in our fixations, and how we cause our own suffering. Hence, he writes:

The key to non-attached perception is non-
association to the perception and emotion
of what is being perceived. (From 20)

He ends with the following stanza:

At the end of experiencing our acquired
ways, a realization manifests.

This realization shows nothing,
which is what we started out with.
The nothing that has manifested did not just
happen.
It was always there,
covered by our acquired ways. (From 21)

The author also deals with the whole, from the perspective of the whole. As human self-awareness develops through awareness of the whole, so does the whole become conscious of itself through the experiences of the sum of finite beings. (By way of commentary, we note here a parallel to the famous 19th German philosopher, Hegel, who also comes to this conclusion through speculative reason, rather than meditation, as he describes in his famous work, The Phenomenology of Spirit.)

19

Spirit is already cultivated as itself.
Integrating the ways of Humanity, Spirit
must surrender and embrace Human
limitation.
Who is human to have limitation?

Spirit and Human are both one idea in
creation.
Once the Spirit acquires a body, the body
becomes the living embodiment of Spirit.

Humanity is not with a limitation. It is
only when disbelief enters, that the Human
experience is concluded.

So then,
Are we Spirit, Human or both?

Whatever the answer, there will be a
conclusion, yet which conclusion manifests
over all freedom?

Aren't we already free?

The insights of Part 1 in The Way of Spirit and Intention, are applied to medicine in Part 2, and to social organizations, religion, nationalism, and property in Part 3. The qualities of Parts 2 and 3 are more didactic than oracular. The author, like a patient schoolmaster tries, with compassion and patience, to explain his basic points to people who seem unable to hear him, because they are preoccupied with their own suffering, or too busy causing suffering to others. In these parts of the work, he expands on the psychological side of the various hindrances to expanded consciousness—habits, and our emotional overlays on our experiences. He restates, in clear and direct language, how we cause suffering for ourselves and others, by fixating on particular experiences and/or the emotions these generate, rather than by moving with the larger flow of the experience.

Part 2, of the work, clearly presents the implications of non-dualistic consciousness for medicine. The author points out that holistic medicine is really the application of the philosophy of non-dualism—an inherently wholistic philosophy of perception and of living—to medicine. Traditional oriental medicine, Ayurvedic as well as Chinese medicine, it should be noted here, focus on treating the whole person, and not just alleviating symptoms. This approach is in stark contrast to conventional Western medicine which is fixated on treating symptoms, rather than the sickness, and the sickness rather than the whole person who is ill. It is removed, by several fold, from treating the whole person. Applying right consciousness and attitude to the medical field is an important contribution of The Way of Spirit and Intention.

In Part 3, the author considers social forms of fixation on the part rather than the whole—nationalism, property, religious dogma. By extolling particular parts, people have managed to inflict great suffering on each other and on the planet. He provides a great service in reminding people to bestow the fruits of meditation on the larger social and physical environment around us.

The reader is encouraged again, to visit website, above, and experience for themselves The Way of Spirit and Intention (SHEN YI ZHI DAO) by Lin Ai Wei, which is currently available for free.

Reviewed by Paul Dolinsky
editor@thegoldenlantern.com