A community of mostly scientists and the science literate in China, having an interest in the teachings of Zhen, spontaniously auto-organized in the 1990s to unintentionally issue a new religion, one based on inquiry and not belief. The teachings under consideration failed to support the state as they were antithetical to its narrative. State officials who support the socio-political economic system (i.e. all of them) of the growing industrial society, recognized this and so suppressed the teaching, interest in the teaching, and any individual known to have an interest in the teaching, were handled. The teaching could only spread from mind to mind (all students of Zhen in China know to not use the internet to share or seek information about Zhen's offerings).
The community recognized that while science does not need religion, all complex societies need religious control systems, e.g. Confucianism and the quasi-religion (political religion) of Maoism or Wokeism. The history of prior complex societies is a history of the starkest madness that is playing out in modernity. A failure to think well, to iterate towards sanity, will have the usual outcome.
As all scientists must, those within the community endeavor to listen to Nature who has all the answers. They wonder why those who serve the state, economy, and monetary society do not. What if striving to listen to the still small voice of the nature of things was normalized? All had come to realize, often the hard way, that any attempt to question the viability of the new god of Growth, greater even than the promises of Mao (even among friends and family) would often lead to being "handled with a chain".
Religion may not need science either, but religion in some form may be needed by humans to live in complex societies, even benign and viable ones. If viable complex societies could come into being, that may imply that some form of viable religion, a religion that those who listen to Nature/Aluna/Gaia could make sense of, as well as those of the village,
Consilience between science and religion, including quasi-religion (including humanism and newer forms of political religion) may be foundational. Science implies the forgoing of pseudoscience and religion implies the discarding of pretend religion such that both science and religion are consilient in being inquiry based. A common ground, e.g. inquiry, is perhaps to consider as beliefs divide unto dissolution. Deeply held beliefs have no place in science nor religion, but are foundational to their opposites: pseudoscience and pretend religion. Given that science is not belief-based, an epistemologically consilient religion cannot be either.
More Host Comments:
11/2011
During the last year I was living in China I noticed that my mostly Chinese colleagues often changed the subject of conversation when I entered the room. They seemed to have been discussing something of great interest, then drifted into light conversation when I came in. I occasionally caught a word or two, such as “xin” which means “heart-mind,” a concept which reflects the failure of Chinese folk psychology to distinguish between the two. Towards the end I caught something about a “Master of Xin” whose teachings appeared to be the topic of interest. My best friend among my Chinese coworkers was among the interested, but was reluctant to share. I pumped him shamelessly towards the end, but got only the slightest hints in return. In my final week, he had mercy on my curiosity and I was given to understand that the master's safety was in question because the all pervasive state-corporatocracy thought police felt threatened by his teachings, and if they knew who he was, he would, like the guy who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, just disappear—becoming an unperson.
I pleaded to know at least what his background was. My colleagues were all science trained, but though I repeatedly suggested that Zhen [not his real name] might be a scientist, my friend finally just smiled and said he was a librarian, a revelation he followed by an even bigger grin. I didn't know if he thought it funny that Zhen was a librarian or that telling me that he was was the joke. On the day I left China, I noted a hand written manuscript in English on my friend's desk. I had to peek and it looked like the teachings of Zhen. A mere tick, at most a tick-tock, passed and all reserve failed me as I purloined the MS.
As I was seconds from getting away forever my friend approached, felt in my shoulder bag without looking in, and smiled. He knew me too well, but wanted to make sure temptation had indeed gotten the better of me. I still felt the part—he of the small sphincter muscle—but was relieved that I had done the expected. I forced myself to not read a word until back home. Why had it been given to me? Obvious answer: to get the work out of China. I can't be associated with the work as through me the Party would get to my colleagues, and from them perhaps to Zhen. Obvious response: host the teachings of Master Zhen on an anonymous site at small expense to myself, and see what happens. For me, to read is to reread. Please consider, but don't 'believe in', the offerings of Zhen:
12/2011
Perhaps because I'm a male oinker I assumed Zhen was male. Zhen is an ancient surname meaning “real, true” as used in the Daoist term zhenren which means a “real, true person,” such as exemplified by Laozi or Buddha. Rarely used as a boy's name to mean a “treasure,” it is becoming a popular girl's name meaning “precious, rare, pure” so as a first name Zhen suggests a female. I tried getting my friend in China to confirm, but even gender is deemed too much personal information to divulge. So be it known that as far as I know Zhen could be male or female. But I believe “zhen” is a near phonetic spelling in some dialects for “xin” or "hsin" that Westerners generally can't pronounce, and came to be used for that reason. Still, Zhen is appropriately genderless.
1/2012
A few more bits and pieces I've gleaned that may be of historical interest. While I was in China, Zhen was living nearby and my colleagues were sitting at Zhen's feet so to speak. Zhen was retired and not long after I left, Zhen moved to an even more remote area to live in a village and near a nature preserve (one or both previously studied by Zhen, so I'm guessing somewhere other than Antarctica), where Zhen wants to die (indeed, the villagers know that Zhen wants to be taken out into nature and left naked—rather than be cremated or buried. Zhen's impending departure alarmed the students who were afraid that Zhen's teachings might be lost. They became intent on getting something in writing. They thought it obvious that the West had more to learn, so having something in the current lingua franca was imperative. The notebooks I have are the cheap ones available in most villages. I don't know if Zhen dictated or wrote them. Aside from fluency in Mandarin, Cantonese, and French, my impression is that Zhen has at least a reading or academic knowledge of English. So who knows? I do know that if written by Zhen, someone helped as open places were left and details, such as historical dates, were added in later in another handwriting.
The transcription project continues. Questions arise and I try to get clarifications as the MS falls short of perfection. I still have to please others and pay bills, so I don't have unlimited time.
2/2012
Major state of life changes distract me. One point of interest.
Rumor has it that a high placed party member, who has since become an
unperson, became “a follower” of Zhen and began saying
and doing ungovernment things that concerned the authorities.
Investigation by the Thought Police lead to their interest in Zhen
whose name none now dare speak.
6/21/14
'Turn on, tune in, drop out.' Timothy Leary, 1966
'Turn off, tune out, drop in. Turn off the screen, tune out the prattle, drop in and be what-is.' Zhen, 2013
8/2015
There may be nothing new under the Sun or Moon, so thinking the world needs the teachings of Zhen may be presumptuous. Still, a voice speaking out from the wildness may matter. I will await word from the mainland. Zhen is largely an unknown to all, including the authorities who merely know of and suspect a danger. Those who speak truth are a threat to all that is false. Overwhelming force will not be called forth unless the teachings of Zhen were to become better known, perhaps popular and thereby transformative. The offerings come forth, I am dispersing them to multiple operatives who know next to nothing that could trace back to me, and I'm prepared to drink the Kool-Aid rather than risk revealing any information that might lead to Zhen.
11/2016
One bit of writing is curious as it merely appears to be a rewriting of a poem by a sixth century Ch'an master who probably didn't write it. Someone at a later date likely wrote it and attributed it to Sengcan. Perhaps Zhen is following in that tradition by adding to the poem to make the lines of each stanza, in English, the same length to mirror the original Chinese script having the same number of characters per line to give a block style. The added words may not be Sengcan approved, but clearly no words are to be mistaken for the What-is, the Not-two. Perhaps Zhen intends to give Sengcan the last word as one who also spoke in vain, for what can words say?.
1/2017
Zhen has "retired" from teaching, as she now has only time enough to listen to Nature's teachings. As her silence is of her doing, she cannot be silenced by the creatures of the night. A butterfly has flapped her wing. She has spoken, perhaps not in vain, so let the teachings of Zhen be forthcoming. Some related teachings that students of Zhen consider may be linked to.
9/2017
From China I recieved some words from a colleague who claims to have reconstructed from memory a conversation he recently had with Zhen. The basis for the conversation is Zhuangzi. Basically Zhuangzi's notes from the third century BCE are updated to reflect current empire-building-as-usual machinations which haven't changed in thousands of years. The weapons have merely gotten bigger. The high stakes endgame is now higher.
2/12/2020
Believe it not. The Tank Guy at Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989, was a guy as interpreted by most viewers of the images. When photo AI analyzed the data, it assigned a 53 percent probability that the lone opponent was a male. Race, religion, ethnicity was indeterminate. AI can still be in error, so maybe there is a greater than 47 percent chance the figure was female as defined by being a carrier of a 46,XX chromosome. This is relevant to new information that has recently become known and to have spread among Zhen's students in China. The evidence is circumstantial, but that Zhen was the 'Tank Guy' has become the consensus view among those in a position to investigate the evidence. Did Zhen stand up to power? Inquiring minds want to know.
7/3/2021
Hopes that Zhen may yet live have largely faded such that concern for her safety has too. While no one calls or thinks of themself as a follower of Zhen, interest has spread and the elements of a new religion has arisen despite any intent. Those involved (in China) still must be concerned they will be made to go away, so none openly dare to speak her name. While her writing continued to emerge and be shared, evidence suggests she may have died in 2001 of cerebral meningitis, so don't believe anything without due doubt.
The community has adopted the word 'xin' to include heart-mind teaching from all sources to avoid turning Zhen into an authority figure. There are other persons of interest and none merit any greater interest than fingers pointing. That which is pointed to may merit our consideration. This website will broaden to offer content from the informal xingha of the early students of Zhen's teachings whose only distinction is that they've had longer to take them in, subjecting all to remorseless all consuming flames of doubt and inquiry to wonder what will, if anything, remain. Most are retired and have time to reflect. They are the current 'council of elders' who wish to offer a short list (a canon) of Zhen's and related teachings. Could humans yet become sapient and evolvable? No one knows.
An apprentice to the Great Leader, Chairman Cheh, asked him, saying, "Are there then moral values among thieves?" The Great Ruler of Thieves replied, "Tell me, is there any act of government in which there is not an intent to do good, to provide solutions?
There is in the character of thieves the endeavor to do good whereby booty is located, the courage to be the first to go in to extract the wealth for the taking is celebrated, and the chivalry of coming out last is admired. There is the wisdom of properly calculating profit, and kindness in the equitable division of the spoils. There has never yet been a great Robber-baron who was not possessed these five qualities as taught by the NWE Priesthood."
It is seen therefore that without the teachings of the Priests, good men could not keep their position in the socio-political-economic hierarchy, and without the teachings of the Great Priests, the Emperors could not accomplish their ends. Since among empire builders, good men are scarce and bad men are the majority, the good the NWE Priesthood does on the planet is little and the evil great. Therefore it has been said, "If the lips are turned up while grinning broadly, the teeth will be cold. It was the Emperor Trump's wine, as watered down by a corrupt servant, that was given as a gift Chairman Un (who blamed the Trump for the offence), that the war to end all wars began again."
When the Intelligentsia arose, gangsters appeared. Overthrow the Pundits—the solemn pretenders to learning. Put the gangsters out of a job, and then will complex societies be in order and cease to collapse. When the stream ceases, the gully dries up, and when the hill is leveled the chasm is filled. When the Pundits are dead, gangsters will not appear, but the empire will rest in peace. On the other hand, if the Ideologues do not diminish, neither will the gangsters drop off. Nor if you double the number of Pundits to help govern the empire, will you do more than double the profits of Robbers like Chairman Cheh.
[Chuangtse, see chapter 19.1 of Tao Teh Ching]
