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Wei Wu Wei, alias Terence Gray (1895-1986)

爲無爲 / 为无为

Terence James Stannus Gray (14 September 1895 – 5 January 1986), better known by the pen name Wei Wu Wei, was a 20th-century Taoist philosopher and writer.

Between the years 1958 and 1974 a series of eight books appeared attributed to the mysterious 'Wei Wu Wei'. In addition to these texts there were pieces contributed to various periodicals during the 1960's, including 'The Mountain Path', a periodical dedicated to the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, 'The Middle Way', the U.K. Buddhist Society's journal, and 'Etre Libre', a French-language periodical published in Brussels. These works draw on a variety of sources, including Taoism, specifically the texts attributed to Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, Buddhism, especially The Heart, Diamond and Lankavatara Sutras, and Chan Buddhism as taught by Hui Neng, Huang Po, Hui Hai, etc., as well as the teachings of Padma Sambhava and Sri Ramana Maharshi, among others.

The identity of 'Wei Wu Wei' was not revealed at the time of publication for reasons outlined in the Preface to the first book 'Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958). 'Wei Wu Wei' was born in 1895 into a well-established Irish family, was raised on an estate outside Cambridge, England, and received a thorough education, including studies at Oxford University. Early in life he pursued an interest in Egyptology which culminated in the publication of two books on ancient Egyptian history and culture in 1923. This was followed by a period of involvement in the arts in Britain in the 20's and 30's as a theorist, theatrical producer, creator of radical 'dance-dramas', publisher of several related magazines and author of two related books. He was a major influence on many noted dramatists, poets and dancers of the day, including his cousin Ninette de Valois, founder of the Royal Ballet (which in fact had its origin's in his own dance troupe at the Cambridge Festival Theatre which he leased from 1926-33).

After he had apparently exhausted his interest in this field to a large extent, his thoughts turned towards philosophy and metaphysics. This led to a period of travel throughout Asia, including time spent at Sri Ramana Maharshi's ashram in Tiruvannamalai, India. In 1958, at the age of 63, he saw the first of the 'Wei Wu Wei' titles published. The next 16 years saw the appearance of seven subsequent books, including his final work under the further pseudonym 'O.O.O.' in 1974. During most of this later period he maintained a residence with his wife in Monaco. He is believed to have known, among others, Lama Anagarika Govinda, Dr. Hubert Benoit, John Blofeld, Douglas Harding, Robert Linssen, Arthur Osborne, Robert Powell and Dr. D. T. Suzuki. He died in 1986 at the age of 90.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160724080012/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/

https://web.archive.org/web/20060615074811/http://www.thespiritworks.com/wei-wu-wei-biography.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20060615074735/http://www.thespiritworks.com/wei_wu_wei_books.htm

 

PUBLISHED WORKS - BOOKS
https://web.archive.org/web/20160901230043/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/books.html

Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon - Reflections of a Pilgrim on the Way
1958, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London
https://web.archive.org/web/20161130013942/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com:80/fpcontents.html

Why Lazarus Laughed - The Essential Doctrine Zen-Advaita-Tantra
1960, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London
https://web.archive.org/web/20161221013931/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com:80/wllcontents.html

Ask the Awakened - The Negative Way
1963, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London
https://web.archive.org/web/20161220112038/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/aacontents.html

All Else Is Bondage - Non-Volitional Living
1964, Hong Kong University Press
https://web.archive.org/web/20161221013906/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/aeibcontents.html

Open Secret
1965, Hong Kong University Press
https://web.archive.org/web/20160508200113/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/oscontents.html

The Tenth Man - The Great Joke (Which Made Lazarus Laugh)
1966, Hong Kong University Press
https://web.archive.org/web/20161104170606/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/tmcontents.html

Posthumous Pieces
1968, Hong Kong University Press
https://web.archive.org/web/20161221013921/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/ppcontents.html

Unworldly Wise - As the Owl Remarked to the Rabbit
1974, Hong Kong University Press
https://web.archive.org/web/20160903104039/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/uwcontents.html

Each is Both (The Journal of a Pilgrim on the Way)
https://books.google.hu/books/about/Each_Is_Both.html?id=3yJdCAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

 

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120307213606/http://www.saltpublishing.com/assets/covers/648/1844710041.jpg
Only by Failure: The Many Faces of the Impossible Life of Terence Gray
by Paul Cornwell
Salt Publishing, 2004, 448 p.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060908104100/http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/sml/1844710041.htm

 

 

 

Wei Wu Wei
BITS AND PIECES
https://web.archive.org/web/20161219193236/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com:80/bits.html

From 'Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon':


It is less what one is that should matter, than what one is not.

* * *

The qualities we possess should never be a matter for satisfaction, but the qualities we have discarded.

* * *

It is not for us to search but to remain still, to achieve Immobility not Action.

* * *

There is no becoming. ALL IS.

* * *

The Saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The Sage is a man who rids himself of his ego.

* * *

It is only the artificial ego that suffers. The man who has transcended his false 'me' no longer identifies with his suffering.

* * *

We ourselves are not an illusory part of Reality; rather are we Reality itself illusorily conceived.

* * *

Are we not wasps who spend all day in a fruitless attempt to traverse a window-pane - while the other half of the window is wide open?

* * *

Detachment is a state, it is not a totalisation of achieved indifferences.

* * *

The notion that human life has greater value than any other form of life is both unjustifiable and arrogant.

* * *

Wise men don't judge: they seek to understand.

* * *

How many of the ways (disciplines, exercises, practices) recommended as helpful, or even necessary, for the attainment of Satori are not in fact consequences of that state erroneously suggested as means ?

* * *

There seem to two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify themselves with the ego, by realising its unreality, and by becoming aware of their eternal identity with pure being.

* * * * *


From 'Why Lazarus Laughed':


Living should be perpetual and universal benediction.

* * *

Doctrines, scriptures, sutras, essays, are not to be regarded as systems to be followed. They merely contribute to understanding. They should be for us a source of stimulation, and nothing more... Adopted, rather than used as a stimulus, they are a hindrance.

* * *

Of the many earnest, and how earnest, people we may observe reading, attending lectures, studying and practising disciplines, devoting their energies to the attainment of a liberation which is by definition unattainable, how many are not striving via the ego-concept which is itself the only barrier between what they think they are and that which they wish to become but always have been and always will be?

* * *

Play your part in the comedy, but don't identify yourself with your role!

* * *

On the phenomenal plane we seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain. On the noumenal plane we know the absence of both - which is Bliss.

* * *

When you give a shilling to a beggar
- do you realise that you are giving it to yourself?

When you help a lame dog over a stile
- do you realise that you yourself are being helped?

When you kick a man when he is down
- do you realise that you are kicking yourself?

Give him another kick - if you deserve it!

* * *

Reality alone exists - and that we are. All the rest is only a dream, a dream of the One Mind, which is our mind without the 'our'. Is it so hard to accept? Is it so difficult to assimilate and to live ?

* * *

Even the intellectual understanding of the inexistence of our 'selves' is a rare and bitter attainment which few even attempt. And that is only the elimination round which qualifies us for access to Reality... Intellectual understanding should be not indispensable to a 'simple' mind, but, with our conditioning, it would seem to be an almost inevitable preliminary.

* * *

Past and Future are a duality of which Present is the reality. The now-moment alone is eternal and real.

* * *

Spontaneity is being present in the present.

Spontaneity by-passes the processes of the conceptual (aspect of) mind.

Reintegration with Nature, which we are, is the recovery of spontaneity.

* * *

What we know as 'life'
is the analytical realisation
in the seriality of time
of our eternal reality.

* * *

We have only to eliminate the ego-notion by succeeding in the difficult task of understanding that it does not exist except as a notion.

* * * * *


From 'Ask The Awakened':


Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9 per cent
Of everything you think,
And of everything you do,
Is for yourself -
And there isn't one.

* * *

What is your trouble? Mistaken identity.

* * *

Truth is that which lies in a dimension beyond the reach of thought.

Whole-mind has no 'thoughts', thoughts are split-mind.

* * *

Realisation is a matter of becoming conscious of that which is already realised.

* * *

A man who is seeking for realisation is not only going round searching for his spectacles without realising that they are on his nose all the time, but also were he not actually looking through them he would not be able to see what he is looking for!

* * *

It is necessary to understand that I Am,
In order that I may know that I Am Not,
So that, at last, I may realise that,
I Am Not, therefore I Am.

* * *

We do not possess an 'ego'.
We are possessed by the idea of one.

* * *

All the evil in the world, and all the unhappiness, comes from the I-concept.

* * *

This 'real' nature with whose revelation the Chan Masters are primarily concerned, or the Atman-'I' of the Vedantists, is not the far-off, unreachable will-o'-the-wisp we are apt to imagine, but just the within of which we know the without. It is just the other side of the medal, and it lies wherever our senses and our intellect cease to function.

* * *

The only real service we can render to that which we perceive and interpret in phenomenal existence as 'others' is by awakening to universal consciousness ourselves.

* * *

The Void is not of the nature of a black abyss or a bottomless pit.
Rather is its nature 'vast and expansive like space itself'.
It is apprehended as 'serene, marvellous, all-pure, brilliant and all-inclusive'.
Above all does it partake of the nature of light.
And it is not anything.
For Void is Mind Itself, and Mind Itself is Void.

* * *

One must know that one is not in order to be able to understand that we are.

* * *

A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream.
'What are you?' I cried to them as they drifted by.
'I am a bubble, of course' nearly a myriad bubbles answered,
and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed.
But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered,
'We are this stream', and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices,
but just a quiet certitude.

* * *

Go to the Awakened Masters - and leave all your baggage behind.

* * * * *


From 'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living':


TAO

The Doctrine is the doctrine of non-doctrine,
The Practice is the practice of non-practice,
The Method is meditation by non-meditation,
And Cultivation which is cultivation by non-cultivation.

This is the Mind of non-mind, which is wu hsin ,
The Thought of non-thought, which is wu nien ,
The Action of non-action, which is wu wei ,
The Presence of the absence of volition,
Which is Tao.

* * *

The seeing of Truth cannot be dualistic (a 'thing' seen).
It cannot be seen by a see-er, or via a see-er.
There can only be a seeing which itself is Truth.

* * *

There is no mystery whatever - only inability to perceive the obvious.

* * *

THIS which is seeking is THAT which is sought, and
THAT which is sought is THIS which is seeking.

* * *

As long as we are identified with an object: that is bondage.

As long as we think, act, live via an object, or as an object: that is bondage.

As long as we feel ourselves to be an object, or think we are such (and a 'self' is an object): that is bondage.

* * *

The purest doctrines, such as those of Ramana Maharshi, Padma Sambhava, Huang Po and Shen Hui, just teach that it is sufficient by analysis to comprehend that there is no entity which could have effective volition, that an apparent act of volition when in accord with the inevitable can only be a vain gesture and, when in discord, the fluttering of a caged bird against the bars of his cage. When he knows that, then at last he has peace and is glad.

Non-volitional living is glad living.

* * *

Let us live gladly! Quite certainly we are free to do it. Perhaps it is our only freedom, but ours it is, and it is only phenomenally a freedom. 'Living free' is being 'as one is'. Can we not do it now? Indeed can we not-do-it? It is not even a 'doing': it is beyond doing and not-doing. It is being as-we-are.

This is the only 'practice'.

* * * * *


From 'Open Secret':


Are you still thinking, looking, living, as from an imaginary phenomenal centre?
As long as you do that you can never recognise your freedom.

* * *

What do you have to do?

Pack your bags,
Go to the station without them,
Catch the train,
And leave your self behind.

* * *

We are required to cease looking at objects as events apart from ourselves,
And to know them at their source - which is our perceiving of them.

* * *

The practice of meditation is represented by the three monkeys,
who cover their eyes, ears and mouths so as to avoid the phenomenal world.

The practice of non-meditation is ceasing to be the see-er, hearer or speaker
while eyes, ears and mouths are fulfilling their function in daily life.

* * *

The identified man takes part: the unidentified looks on!

* * *

What is non-objective relation?

Wherever there are others there is a self,
Wherever there are no others there can be no self,
Wherever there is no self there are no others,
Because in the absence of self I am all others.

That is non-objective relation.

* * * * *


From 'The Tenth Man':


I have only one object in writing books:
to demonstrate that there could not be anyone to do it.

* * *

What we appear to be is a fleeting shadow, a distorted and fragmentary reflection of what we all are when we no longer assume that we are that phenomenal appearance.

* * *

It is only with total humility, and in absolute stillness of mind
that we can know what indeed we are.

* * *

Humility, metaphysically, implies the absence of any entity to be either 'proud' or 'humble'.

* * *

Everything cognised is just what is called 'mind',
And what is called 'mind' is just the cognising of everything.

* * *

Fear, desire, affectivity are manifestations of the pseudo-entity which constitutes pseudo-bondage.
It is the entity, rather than the manifestations thereof, which has to be eliminated.

* * *

As long as there is a 'you' doing or not-doing,
thinking or not-thinking,
'meditating' or 'not-meditating'
you are no closer to home
than the day you were born.

* * *

Having found no self that is not other,
The seeker must find that there is no other that is not self,
So that in the absence of both other and self,
There may be known the perfect peace,
Of the presence of absolute absence.

* * * * *


From 'Posthumous Pieces':


If we clearly apperceive the difference
Between direct apprehension in Whole-mind
And relative comprehension by reasoning
In mind divided into subject-and-object,
All the apparent mysteries will disappear.

For that will be found to be the key
Which unlocks the doors of incomprehension.

* * *

'Sudden Enlightenment' means precisely the immediate apperception of all that in fact we are.
'Enlightenment' is 'sudden' only because it is not in 'time' (subject to sequential duration). It is reintegration in intemporality.

* * *

The seeker is the found, the found is the seeker -
as soon as it is apperceived that there is no time .

* * *

The Buddha forbore to specify: as long as there is any 'one' to suffer - he will.

* * *

Whoever thinks as, from, or on behalf of, an entity which he believes himself to be, the more so if he tries to work on himself, by, with, or for such an entity - which is only a concept in mind - has not yet begun to understand what it is all about.

* * *

In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow -
and that is likely to hurt.

* * *

Affective fixation on the personality of a master, teacher, guru , is a serious obstacle to 'liberation': the person of the liberator becomes the gaoler ... The Chinese Masters told their monks to kill the Buddha if by chance they met him.

* * *

Destroy 'the ego', hound it, beat it, snub it, tell it where it gets off?
Great fun, no doubt, but where is it? Must you not find it first?
Isn't there a word about catching your goose before you can cook it?

The great difficulty here is that there isn't one.

* * *

'Nearer my tail to thee', the kitten remarked -
as with a final desperate leap she overreached herself
and fell head-over-heels into the pond.

 

 

PUBLISHED WORKS - PERIODICALS
https://web.archive.org/web/20160713104624/http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/periodicals.html

The Middle Way.

First published 1924 by U.K. Buddhist Society, 58 Eccleston Sq., London.
- a quarterly dealing with various aspects of Buddhism, founded by Christmas Humphreys.

The Mountain Path.

First published 1964 by Sri Ramanashram, Tiruvannamalai, South India.
- a periodical dedicated to the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879 - 1950), who advocated a technique of direct enquiry into the nature of the Self through focusing on the question 'Who am I?'.