“Oh,” said Yen Hui, “I am used to fasting! At home we were poor. We went for months without wine or meat. That is fasting, is it not?”
“Well, you can call it ‘observing a fast’ if you like,” said Confucius, “but it is not the fasting of the heart.”
“Tell me,” said Yen Hui, “what is fasting of the heart?”
Confucius replied: “The goal of fasting is inner unity. This means hearing, but not with the ear; hearing, but not with the understanding; hearing with the spirit, with your whole being. The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind. Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind. Fasting of the heart empties the faculties, frees you from limitation and from preoccupation. Fasting of the heart begets unity and freedom.”
The Way of Chuang Tzu, translated by Thomas Merton, pages 52, 53
Strangely enough, my eyes glazed over several times when I read this paragraph, even though I could tell this was the heart of this little story between Yen Hui and Confucius.
I wonder why my brain would silently shut off as I read these words.
In a more dualistic mindset, I’d say it’s the forces of evil trying to keep me from the truth, but that doesn’t seem to be way of the Dao.
Maybe in realizing “this passage is important”, I was taken out of the moment and thus lost my concentration.
The mind a weird little fellow.