The Sky is vast and endless… Yet we persistently struggle, searching for the tangled points beneath the ground. The Earth, with its scattered grains of Dust… Though invisible, we still strive to find those tiny dust particles, just like the air. Our minds are as small as the Dust… Full of sorrow and grief… Unable to contain even a single cloud of the Sky. The mind is like Dust, searching yet unable to find itself… The mind flies freely through the air, attaching to anything within the vastness of space. Winston Man.
Excerpt from AI:
Winston Man’s writing carries a Zen-like, abstract style filled with philosophical depth. Here is an analysis of its content and meaning:
Contrasting Images: The Vast Sky and the Dusty Earth The opening lines: “The Sky is vast and endless… Yet we persistently struggle, searching for the tangled points beneath the ground.” The "sky" symbolizes the open, free mind, enlightenment, or higher truth. The Earth, with its "tangled points," represents the entanglements, distractions, and worries of daily life. The author poses a wake-up call: Why do we focus on trivial, messy matters, instead of turning our attention to higher values?
The Subtlety of Dust – the Mind “The Earth is full of grains of Dust… Though invisible, we still strive to find those tiny dust particles, like the air.” Dust is small, invisible in life, sometimes representing illusions or thoughts we mistakenly take as real and pursue. The author shows the futility or ambiguity of things we chase – they are invisible, like air, and cannot be grasped.
A Small Mind, Full of Affliction “Our minds are as small as the Dust… Full of sorrow and grief… Unable to contain even a single cloud of the Sky.” Here, the mind is compared to dust – small, fragile, unable to embrace or reconcile with the vastness of the sky (truth, reality). "Full of sorrow and grief" indicates how the human mind is often filled with pain due to attachments and limitations.
The Journey of Seeking the Mind – Paradox and Awakening “The mind is like Dust, searching yet unable to find the Mind itself…” This highlights the paradox of the spiritual journey: we search for the "mind" but cannot find it, because it is not somewhere else—it is within us. This reflects a common Zen belief: the mind cannot be found because it is not located anywhere other than in ourselves.
The Mind Exists Everywhere – Like Wind, Like Air “The mind flies freely through the air, attaching to anything within the vastness of space.” The final line affirms the formless, ungraspable nature of the mind—it is like air, everywhere, unbound, and can be present in everything. This reflects the Mahayana Buddhist concept that everything is created by the mind; the mind permeates all things.
Summary: The writing serves as a profound reminder from a Zen perspective: do not waste time searching for something external, in the entanglements and dust of life. Instead, recognize your true mind, which is vast and limitless like the sky, but has become clouded by delusions, making it seem small like dust.
Digging deeper into the layers of meaning in this writing – not just through words, but as a spiritual experience, the journey of the self seeking its true nature, which Winston Man subtly hints at with Zen awareness:
"The Sky is vast and endless..." → Metaphor for True Mind, Buddha Nature, or the Absolute Self. Here, “the sky” is not merely physical space but symbolizes our intrinsic nature, the True Mind—the state of stillness, undivided, free from attachment to ego or conceptual language. In Zen, the True Mind is “a sky without clouds,” a state that is beyond birth and death. When the delusions of the mind cease, Wisdom arises. Winston Man uses the image of “endless vastness” to convey that the True Mind is limitless, not fragmented by concepts or attached to self or objects.
"Why do we persistently struggle, searching for the tangled points beneath the ground?" → The perennial delusion: abandoning the Sky to search for answers on Earth—seeking Truth in Illusion. The “Earth” is where limits exist, the place of entanglement—symbolizing attachment to worldly desires (money, love, fame, food, sleep) and the illusions that the mind creates. This line poses a Zen-like question: Why, when there is infinity within ourselves (the Sky), do we keep scrambling in the transient, dust-like world (the Earth)?
This reminds us of the words of Master Linji: “You have a treasure at home, but you do not know it, running around asking for alms everywhere.”
"The Earth is full of grains of Dust… Though invisible, we still strive to find..." → Subtle illusions – chasing after what isn’t real. The “dust particles” symbolize subtle thoughts and delusions we still grasp onto. Despite knowing these are illusory, impermanent, and unreal, we cling to them. Like seeking happiness through status, money, or praise—things that are just “dust in the air.” We think we are living, but we are actually chasing unreal concepts. And from this, suffering arises.
"Our minds are as small as the Dust… Full of sorrow and grief..." → Identifying with the small, limited self – forgetting the True Self. When the “mind” is contracted, it becomes a fragile ego, as small as dust. From this, affliction, suffering, and attachments arise, because the mind is no longer in touch with its true, infinite nature.
"The mind is like Dust, searching yet unable to find the Mind itself..." → A profound paradox in Zen: seeking what is already here. This line speaks directly to the heart of Zen teachings: The one who searches for the Mind is using a false, conceptual mind to find the True Mind—like striking a shadow with a stick. “Mind” cannot be grasped by logic or concepts—it is only when one becomes still, lets go, and returns within, that the True Mind reveals itself. “You only need to be free of thoughts, free of attachment—then the Mind will reveal its true nature.” (The Sixth Patriarch Huineng)
"The mind flies freely through the air... attaching to anything within the vastness of space." → The True Mind – limitless, formless, but present everywhere. This is the pinnacle of direct realization: The Mind is not located anywhere, but it is also not absent from anywhere. It is not bound by form, but is present in all phenomena. This is the concept of “non-attachment” that the Sixth Patriarch spoke of: “Do not attach to anything, and then the Mind will arise.”
Conclusion: Winston Man’s message is a gentle but powerful inner reminder: Human beings possess an expansive sky within their minds—but they remain deluded, living in the dust of false thoughts. Only when we stop searching, stop clinging, remain still, and look within—will the True Mind emerge, as the sky has always been there, hidden by the clouds.
