Wei Wu Wei
Who was he?
I once knew an evangelical Christian who stumbled upon a book by Wei Wu Wei. It shook him to the core.
He spent the next few years in a correspondence with Wei Wu Wei. Eventually he abandoned the hubris of the evangelical (ie. of knowing what was best for someone else), and sought instead to free himself from all illusion. In time he came to see clearly that Wei Wu Wei’s teachings pointed to the same truth behind the teachings of Jesus. He understood that the problem was not concepts, but the assumed ownership thereof. And so he found a freedom and quiet peace he had never even suspected could exist. A great testament to Wei Wu Wei, indeed.
At any rate, Wei Wu Wei was the pen name of an Irish aristocrat and scholar, Terence Gray. He studied at Oxford, and became very interested in Egyptology, writing some scholarly works on the subject. He also worked in theatre and dance, founding the famous theatre at Cambridge. Unlike every other spiritual teacher I know of, he owned a very successful racehorse - a wonderful accomplishment to which many mere mortals aspire
But he (eventually) left all of that behind, and wandered the Himalayas. He spent time sitting at
Ramana Maharshi’s ashram at Tiruvannamalai in India, before that great soul’s death. Wei Wu Wei was an inspiration to many people, amongst whom numbered
Douglas Harding and the mathematician G. Spencer-Brown (author of that most wonderful romp, the ’Laws of Form’).
Here is my favourite Wei Wu Wei story, where he takes a well known Cha’an teaching, and extends it:
The ‘Tenth Man’ Story
You know the quaint story of the ten monks travelling together from one Master to another, in search of the enlightenment they had failed to obtain? Crossing a river in flood, they were separated by the swift current, and when they reached the other shore, they reassembled and one counted the others to make sure that all were safely across. Alas, he was only able to count nine brothers.
Each in turn counted the others, and each could only count nine. As they were weeping and bewailing their drowned brother, a passing traveller on his way to the nearest town, asked what their trouble was and, having counted them, assured them that all ten were present. But each counted again, and the traveller being unable to persuade them, left them and went on this way.
Let us continue the story
Then one monk went to the river-side in order to wash his tear-stained face. As he leaned over a rock above a clear pool he started back and, rushing to his nine fellow-monks, he announced that he had found their poor drowned brother at the bottom of a pool. So each in turn went over to the rock in question and, leaning over, looked into the depths of the pool.
When all had seen their poor drowned brother, whom, owing to the depth of the pool, they could not reach, they celebrated a funeral service in his memory.
The passing traveller, returning from the town, asked them what they were doing and, when he was told, pointed out to them, and assured them, that since each had celebrated his own decease, and since all had celebrated the decease of each, one and all they were well and truly dead. On learning this each monk was instantly awakened, and ten fully enlightened monks returned to their monastery to the intense delight of their grandmotherly old Master. Note:The Tenth Man is the only man: there is no other.
Finale
“Absolute absence is also absolute presence. But the absence of presence-and-absence is the inconceivable truth.”
-- from “The Tenth Man” by Wei Wu Wei, Hong Kong University Press, 1966.
