Jian, the Mirror, is the mind.
Guanyinzi said: When the mind is clouded by good and ill fortune, numinous ghosts take hold of it. When the mind is clouded by men and women, lewd ghosts take hold of it. When the mind is clouded by gloom and sorrow, drowning ghosts take hold of it. When the mind is clouded by dissipation, mad ghosts take hold of it. When the mind is clouded by oaths and curses, uncanny ghosts take hold of it. When the mind is clouded by drugs and elixirs, ghosts of things take hold of it. Such ghosts may take shade as their body, or darkness, or wind, or qi, or a clay figure, or a painted image, or an old domestic animal, or a broken vessel. They use their essence and the person uses his essence; when the two essences meet, spirit responds to them. Those who are seized by ghosts may be able to explain uncanny matters, strange matters, or auspicious matters, and they grow arrogant. They do not say that a ghost is in them, but only that the Tao is in them. In time, some die by wood, some by metal, some by the rope, and some in a well. Only the sage can make spirits spiritual without being made spiritual by spirits. He commands the myriad things and holds their mechanism; he can gather them, scatter them, and control them. Every day he responds to the myriad things, while his mind remains still.
He said: There is no unified mind—the five senses race off together, and the mind cannot be one. There is no empty mind—the Five Phases are all present, and the mind cannot be empty. There is no still mind—the myriad transformations shift imperceptibly, and the mind cannot be still. Even if it could be one, a second would pair with it; even if it could be empty, fullness would fill it; even if it could be still, movement would shake it. Only the sage can gather all that exists into a single breath, so that not one thing can make a servant of my clear penetration, and scatter that single breath into all that exists, so that not one thing can come between me and my doings.
He said: A fire of a thousand years can be put out in a moment; a consciousness of a thousand years can be removed in a moment.
He said: What floats is the boat, but what makes it float is the water, not the boat. What moves is the cart, but what makes it move is the ox, not the cart. What thinks is the mind, but what makes it think is intention, not the mind. It is so without our knowing why it is so. Only because it is so without our knowing why, its coming has no source and its going has no destination. Because its coming has no source and its going has no destination, it can share the original source of heaven and earth, being neither ancient nor present.
He said: Know that the mind has no things, and you will know that things have no things. Know that things have no things, and you will know that the Tao has no things. Knowing that the Tao has no things, one does not follow extraordinary conduct and is not startled by subtle words.
He said: When things and the self meet, the mind arises; when two sticks rub together, fire arises. It cannot be said to be in me, nor in the other; it cannot be said to be not in me, nor not in the other. To hold on to it and divide it into other and self is folly.
He said: Do not rely on what you call benefit and harm, right and wrong. What you call benefit and harm, right and wrong—have you truly grasped benefit and harm, right and wrong? Even the sage neither recognizes nor knows them, how much less you!
He said: What one dreams at night may be longer than the night. At the moment the mind arises in Qi, all that it sees is the state of Qi; then it goes on to Song, to Chu, to Jin, to Liang, and what it holds is different each time. The mind has no fixed place.
He said: One who is good at archery learns from the bow, not from Yi; one who is good with boats learns from the boat, not from Ao; one who is good with the mind learns from the mind, not from the sage.
He said: Right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, success and failure, fullness and emptiness are set in motion by the Creator of things; all exist because private consciousness grasps them. So if one dismisses them with “nothingness,” they still remain; if one dismisses them with “neither being nor nonbeing,” they still remain; if one says “all is dim and silent” or “all is undifferentiated,” they still remain. It is like returning to a place one once traveled: the memory is vivid, and it can be neither forgotten nor dismissed. One who is good at removing consciousness transforms consciousness into wisdom. Do you know the teaching of transforming consciousness into wisdom?
He said: Imagination is like this: think of ghosts, and the mind shudders; think of thieves, and the mind takes fright—this is called consciousness. Like mistaking broomcorn millet for foxtail millet, or jade for stone, it drifts among phantoms and has nowhere to come to rest. It is like seeing a strange thing: one forms the imagination of a strange thing and forms the consciousness of a strange thing. The root of this imagination and this consciousness does not lie in me. It is like today: today is only today, and as for tomorrow, its imaginings and consciousness cannot yet be foretold; when tomorrow comes, the swarming imaginings and consciousness all arise from conditions, and are called imagination and consciousness. It is like a rhinoceros gazing at the moon, so that the moon's shape enters its horn: only because consciousness arises is there the shape of the moon, while the true moon was never in the horn at all. So it is with the heaven, earth, and myriad things in one's breast. One who understands this sees no things outside and no feelings within.
He said: Things are born from earth and in the end change back into earth; affairs are born from intention and in the end change back into intention. Knowing that it is only intention, one moment one calls it right and the next wrong, one moment good and the next bad. Intention changes; the mind does not change. Intention has awareness; the mind has no awareness. When there is only my one mind, intentions are just dust coming and going, and affairs just flashes arising and ceasing. In my mind there remains a great constancy.
He said: Feelings arise from the mind, and the mind arises from nature. Feelings are the waves, the mind is the current, and nature is the water. When things come to touch me, in the time of a spark struck from flint, if I receive them with my nature, the mind does not produce things, and they float lightly by.
He said: Worthiness and folly, truth and falseness—some recognize them and some do not. Though the other may have worthiness or folly, truth or falseness, calling them worthy or foolish, true or false depends on my consciousness. Knowing that all is made by consciousness, one regards even the true as false.
He said: When the mind is stirred by things, it produces not mind but feelings; when things touch the mind, they produce not things but consciousness. Things themselves are not real, how much less consciousness; consciousness itself is not real, how much less feelings. Yet deluded people, in utter nothingness, hold on to it as being, and in utter change, hold on to it as constant. Recognizing one feeling, they pile up ten thousand feelings; recognizing ten thousand feelings, they pile up ten thousand things. Things come without end, but my mind has limits; so my good mind is controlled by feelings, and my original feelings are controlled by things. They can make them go and make them come, but that going and coming never lay with me. Creation drives them, and they certainly have no rest. People do not know that, great as heaven and earth are, they can drive what has form but not what is formless; subtle as yin and yang are, they can drive what has qi but not what is without qi. Where the mind goes, qi follows; where qi goes, form responds. It is like the Great Void, which within the one qi transforms into the myriad things, yet that one qi is not called the Great Void. My one mind can change into qi and change into form, yet my mind has no qi and no form. Knowing that my one mind has no qi and no form, heaven and earth, yin and yang cannot drive it.
He said: When on an ordinary day one's eyes suddenly see something extraordinary, it is always because essence has congealed somewhere and makes it so. When on a day of illness one's eyes suddenly see something extraordinary, it is always because the mind has some deficiency and makes it so. If one knows that my mind can show being within nothingness, one knows that my mind can show nothingness within being. Simply do not believe in it, and it will have no power, by what is so of itself. Someone says: “When one's consciousness is already clouded, who could keep from believing?” I answer: It is like a snake catcher, whose mind does not fear snakes; even if he dreams of snakes, he is not afraid. Therefore the Yellow Emperor said: “The Tao has no ghosts or spirits; it goes alone and comes alone.”
He said: My thoughts change day by day. There is something that makes them so, and it is not I; it is destiny. If one knows that it is only destiny, one sees no self outside and no mind within.
He said: It is like the two eyes, which can see heaven, earth, and the myriad things; turn their light back for a moment, and for that moment nothing is seen.
He said: The more the eye looks at carving and ornament, the more its sight is harmed; the more the ear hears clashing sounds, the more its hearing is harmed; the more the mind ponders the profound and subtle, the more the mind is harmed.
He said: Do not measure others by my mind; measure others by their own minds. One who understands this can see affairs through, practice virtue, penetrate the Tao, deal with people, and forget the self.
He said: It is the principle of the world that the small, if not controlled, grows great, and the great, if not controlled, becomes uncontrollable. So one who can control one feeling can perfect virtue, and one who can forget one feeling can accord with the Tao.