by Tang Huyen

Tang Huyen is a Vietnamese-American philosopher and longtime Usenet presence who posted to the Daoist and Buddhist newsgroups through the 1990s and 2000s — patient, precise, and uncommonly generous with first-person phenomenological report. The discriminating mind, he argues, is like a spoon trying to empty the ocean: real, necessary, adequate for daily life, but limited by the unlimited differentiation of the world. The problem is not that it exists but that it compulsively overruns its target, continuing to function obsessively when it is no longer needed.

The path out is not suppression but redirection: mindfulness — "pay attention to what happens in the moment, do what we do in utter devotion" — as the instrument by which the discriminating mind is gently released. In that release comes mindlessness: the quiesced mind, vast like the sky, offering no resistance to what happens. And in such moments the world lights up in charm — not because anything has been added, but because the discriminating mind and its memories have not jumped in to disturb it.

Originally posted to the Daoist newsgroup and cross-posted to talk.religion.buddhism on October 19, 2005. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>. Preserved from the Usenet archive by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

The issue is what is appropriate for what purpose.
The world is fully differentiated and to deal with
the world requires a mind that to some extent or
another tries to duplicate the differentiation of the
world. That is what the discriminating mind is for,
and the problem is that its capacity is limited, but
that the differentiation of the world is unlimited
and that what goes on in the world is very quick
and multifarious, so that for it to process the world
is like emptying the ocean with a spoon. But for
most purposes in our life it is satisfactory enough,
otherwise we singly and collectively would die
quick. Thus in distinguishing rotten food from
edible food, knowing who people are, knowing
what day is garbage day, expecting the traffic light
green to be the signal for "go" — we use our
discriminating mind and our memory. That part is
not disputable.

What wisdom has to offer that relates to our life
is that in dealing with the world with our
discriminating mind and our memory, we often
lose balance and perspective and get carried away
in such a way that we forget that that is not our
only mode of living, and that our discriminating
mind and memory often overrun their target and
keep on functioning compulsively and obsessively
when they are in fact not needed. When we regain
balance and perspective, we can consider that we
have the option of stopping our discriminating
mind and our memory when they are not needed
and, when we exercise that option, we realise
that when our discriminating mind and our
memory are quiesced, we experience unbelievable
calm, peace, serenity, grace, such that even one
short moment of such calm, peace, serenity, grace
redeems our life all out of proportion with its
temporal length. It throws everything else into
balance and perspective, and infuses meaning and
worth into our entire life, including the other
moments of us having to deal with the world by
means of our discriminating mind and our memory.

We thus learn that we can attain to calm, peace,
serenity, grace by quiescing our discriminating
mind and our memory, during those moments when
we can afford to do so. We then learn that we can
indeed do so more often than it would look from
the outside.

And we attain to such calm, peace, serenity, grace
by means of mindfulness, which is just a way of
saying that we pay attention to what happens in
the moment, that we do what we do in utter
devotion, and do not divert our attention to the
past in memory or the future in expectation. We
do what we do simpliciter. It is in such mindfulness
that we attain to mindlessness, during which we
don't create a self or "I" for us to carry around.

We drop knowledge and learning and simply attend
to what we do, even if what we do is simply taking
it easy and not physically doing anything. In such
magical moments the world lights up in charm, and
it lights up in charm merely because our
discriminating mind and our memory don't jump in
to disturb it. Our resistance to what happens
consists in our discriminating mind and our
memory, our knowledge and our learning, our self
and what-belongs-to-self, and we drop them all to
leave our mind empty and uncluttered, vast like the
sky. It is thus in non-resistance that we attain to
calm, peace, serenity, grace. It's more than worth it.

As you well know, this stuff is not for a priori
discussion, but for a posteriori experiencing. We
just have to dive into it and live it, in flesh and
blood. We just drop body and mind, self and world,
knowledge and learning, self and
what-belongs-to-self, and open ourselves up for
what happens when we do so.

Tang Huyen

Colophon

Originally posted to the Daoist newsgroup and cross-posted to talk.religion.buddhism on October 19, 2005, as a letter to Bao Pu continuing the exchange on mindfulness and mindlessness. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The companion to "Mindfulness or Mindlessness" (Oct 17, 2005): where that post is technical and terminological, this is pastoral and phenomenological. The argument turns on a distinction Tang Huyen makes throughout the corpus — the discriminating mind is a real and necessary tool, adequate for daily affairs, but it overruns its target compulsively when left unchecked. The way out is not to suppress it but to redirect it: mindfulness as rapt, devotional attention to the present moment is the instrument by which the discriminating mind is gently let go of. The result is not blankness but its opposite: the world lights up in charm. The phrase "vast like the sky" echoes the Platform Sutra of Huineng on the emptied mind. "Not for a priori discussion, but for a posteriori experiencing": Tang Huyen's recurring insistence that liberation is not a theory but a practice — you have to dive in.

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

🌲