A close friend, who enjoyed a work shop I gave, asked me one afternoon if I had ever heard of Wei Wu Wei, aka Terence Gray? He handed me the book, “Open Secret,” and I asked him, “what’s it all about.” He replied, “I have no idea. Read it and let me know what you think it’s all about.” I took it home, opened it after dinner, and the next thing I knew it was dawn. I sat there stunned, with some vague awareness that his message not only resonated at some deep unconscious level, but this book was ‘the game changer’ in my life.’ In one full swoop, he made it clear why nothing is what we insist it is. There is reality, and then then there is our rendition of reality which is unreal and defended as real. In a cold sweat, I saw what worked and didn’t work about psychotherapy. I was too stunned to experience the humor inherent in reality, as he defined it. Years passed before I realized that the disparity of his view of reality, and the version of reality we argue for, is what humor is.
Wei Wu Wei devoted the later part of his life to the deconstruction of Buddhist philosophy. He made what appeared to be a very abstract topic relatively simple. His synthesis of Buddhist ideas illuminated what passes for polarization between West and East. On the surface, they appear to defend the notion of duality, but on closer inspection, what came into focus is that they are two aspects of a single process. East focused more on the origin of reality, while West focuses on defending the assumption that reality is really real. The input (East) manifests as the output (West), and the two work as one. East views West with humor, while West views East with periodic alarm.
» Read more: Wei Wu Wei’s Message
