by Tang Huyen

The direction of attention has less importance than the
fact that either one is open and honest to oneself or
that one is closed and dishonest to oneself. That's
the innocence factor.

In my limited knowledge, both of theory and practice, the
direction of attention, inward or outward, forward or
backward, has little importance, except that the
inward/backward direction offers a safeguard against
error or failure, in that if error or failure occurs (which
it often does), of whatever proportion, the
inward/backward direction (more precisely self-reflection)
is there to serve as a ready witness, to make the
practitioner aware of his error or failure, so that he can
take remedial action if he deems fit.

The outward/forward direction can seem innocent, but the
issue is how innocent it is. If it is indeed innocent, that
is, innocent of motivation other than itself, then it can
thrive. But if it comes with heavy baggage — for example,
wholesale self-rejection — then it merely serves as
theoretical justification and validation of that uninhibited
self-rejection, and further subserves it and fortifies it.
It is then a fear-based mechanism to reject almost
anything that comes into consciousness (because what
comes into consciousness is seen as part of oneself and
therefore has to be banished), and instead of serving
openness and honesty, it serves closedness and
dishonesty, it is bad faith congealed into an a priori
position, each justifying and validating the other,
recursively.

The result of cultivation in one's behaviour should give
plenty of evidence for the openness and honesty of
oneself to oneself on one hand, or the closedness and
dishonesty of oneself to oneself on the other. If one takes
criticism lightly, fluffily, playfully, then one gives
evidence of the openness and honesty of oneself to
oneself. If one takes criticism hard, in the "stung to the
quick" mode, and jumps all over the author of such
criticism in the "kill the messenger" manner, then one
gives evidence to the closedness and dishonesty of
oneself to oneself — one shows that one lives a lie, that
one has simply developed an a priori theory to justify and
validate one's wholesale rejection of oneself. Instead of
dropping one's a priori — read: self — in favour of the
a posteriori, one has magnified it and solidified it as
one's defence, and as one's defence against oneself,
which shows when one repeatedly blows up massively
when faced with criticism, real or imagined.

The main issue is how to empty oneself to receive what
happens without resistance. It is helped by one's openness
and honesty of oneself to oneself on one hand, and it is
hindered by the closedness and dishonesty of oneself to
oneself on the other. The direction of attention has less
importance than the fact that either one is open and
honest to oneself or that one is closed and dishonest to
oneself. That's the innocence factor.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on January 15, 2005, in reply to Bmitch's inquiry about inward and outward paths in meditation — "Between self-reflexion and spontaneity, might there be a third way: of looking outward to see and know yourself?" Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The essay resolves a classic meditation debate — inward turning versus outward rushing — by reframing the question. Tang Huyen does not adjudicate between the two directions but dissolves the dichotomy: if the outward path is genuinely innocent of hidden agendas (self-rejection, fear, bad faith), it is as valid as the inward. The real variable is not direction but honesty. Openness and honesty of oneself to oneself is the "innocence factor" that determines whether any direction of cultivation will bear fruit or will merely amplify existing distortions. The behavioural test Tang Huyen proposes is stark: how one receives criticism. Lightness and playfulness in response to criticism signal genuine openness; explosion and defensiveness signal that the practitioner is defending themselves against themselves.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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