Book VI (part 9)

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

[auto] The divine state is described through negation: forgetting knowledge, discarding organs, and dissolving connexion.

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

[auto] Yan Hui states his connexion with the body is dissolved and he leaves his material form to achieve the spiritual state.

Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.

Yen Hui practices radical letting-go of will and knowledge ('lost all thought'), opening the self to the Tao without grasping.

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

Dze-sang accepts his poverty as 'what was appointed for me,' reflecting a trust in the ordering of Heaven and Earth.

Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.

The process of 'sitting and forgetting' involves the unmaking of the ego and self-identity ('bidding farewell to my knowledge'), paralleling Sufi self-effacement.

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

[auto] Salvation or progress is achieved through direct experiential realization ('sitting and forgetting') rather than ritual observance.

The practice of stilling the mind and speech to open receptivity to divine knowledge or presence.

[auto] The practice of 'sitting and forgetting' implies stilling the mind and thought to access the higher state.

Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.

[auto] The practice of 'sitting and forgetting' (Zuo Wang) is a central meditative discipline described in the text for achieving spiritual transformation.

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

[auto] The passage explicitly describes Yan Hui becoming 'one with the Great Pervader' through the practice of sitting and forgetting.

The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion.

[auto] The transformed state is described as being free from all likings and transcending the permanence of ordinary existence.

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

[auto] The instruction to 'sit and forget' uses a paradoxical formulation to destabilize ordinary understanding of practice.

Critique of outward religious observance that lacks inner transformation; form without substance.

[auto] Yan Hui reports losing all thought of ceremonies and music, prioritizing inner transformation over external ritual.

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

[auto] The goal is to become one with the Great Pervader, reversing the attachment to material form and knowledge.

The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.

The realization of unity with the Pervader requires a deep recognition of one's true nature beyond the material form.

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

Yan Hui describes his state as 'making progress' and Confucius wishes to follow in his steps toward a higher state.

The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.

The concept of 'forgetting all things' and dissolving the self parallels the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness regarding independent self-nature.

The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.

The footnote explicitly links the 'True Man' to 'partaking of the essence of divinity,' and Confucius acknowledges Yen Hui's superior transformation.

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

[auto] The core theme is non-duality, expressed as merging with the Great Pervader and transcending distinctions.

Effortless action aligned with the spontaneous flow of the Dao; non-coercive, non-striving conduct that yields results without forcing — the sage acts without acting.

[auto] The passage describes 'sitting and forgetting' and accepting one's lot as 'appointed,' embodying the Taoist ideal of effortless action and non-striving alignment with the Dao.