How to Lose Yourself presents translations from three Buddhist traditions: Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese. These teachings explore how releasing our attachment to the self awakens us to the true nature of all things, liberating us from the anxiety, fear, greed, and hatred that are the root causes of suffering.
The Indian selections are drawn from the Pali Canon, whilst the Tibetan passages feature Jay L. Garfield’s translations of Nagarjuna’s ‘Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way’ and Candrakirti’s ‘Introduction to the Middle Way’.
The Chinese Chan selections include Robert H. Sharf’s translations from ‘The Treatise on No-Mind’ (Wuxin Lun, 無心論), traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma.
I have included an extract from Bodhidharma’s work here, as it is less widely known.
Q: What is mind? How can I put my mind at peace?
A: You must neither postulate a mind, nor try to compel a state of peace. That is what is called peace.
Q: If there is no mind, how does one practice the Way?
A: The Way is not something to be contemplated by the mind. How could the Way be in the mind?
Q: If the Way is not something to be contemplated by the mind, then how should one contemplate it?
A: If there is contemplation, then there is mental activity, and mental activity of any kind runs counter to the Way. When there is no contemplation, there is no mind, and no mind is the True Way.
Q: Do all living beings really have minds or not?
A: To believe that living beings have minds is to get things backward. It is precisely because people contrive a mind where there is none that they engender delusion.
An additional feature of How to Lose Yourself is its parallel-text format, with the original languages appearing on the left-hand page and English translations on the right.
How to Lose Yourself: An Ancient Guide to Letting Go
Price: $17.95/£14.99
ISBN: 9780691252636
Pages: 216
Princeton University Press
For those interested in The Treatise on No-Mind
The Treatise on No-Mind: A Zen Reflection on Wuxin
To grasp the essence of The Treatise on No-Mind (Wuxin Lun, 無心論) is to peer beyond the veils of thought into the stillness that has always been present. Attributed to Bodhidharma, the legendary founder of Chan (Zen) Buddhism in China, this work is not a mere intellectual treatise — it is a direct challenge to the mind that seeks understanding, a mirror that reveals the futility of grasping.
The heart of the text beats with the teaching of wuxin (無心), often translated as ‘no-mind.’ But this is no nihilistic void, no absence in the sense of deficiency. Rather, it is the luminous presence that exists when the mind is no longer tangled in itself. Seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing are not dismissed; they are recognised as they are — uncontrived, free-flowing, untouched by the grasping hand of identity.
The dialogues within the Treatise on No-Mind cut through the common traps of practice. When asked, ‘How does one settle the mind?’ the response is not a method, not a technique, but an undoing: ‘You do not need to establish a mind, nor do you need to forcibly settle it. That itself can be called true settling.’ Here lies the crux of Zen: the very effort to achieve no-mind is itself an obstacle. The mind that strives for enlightenment, that seeks to purify itself, is the same mind that obscures reality.
Shenhui, a disciple of Huineng and a key figure in the Southern School of Chan, once accused the Northern School of being slow, gradualist, caught in the web of method. But the Treatise on No-Mind embodies the same radical immediacy: no clinging, no conceptual crutches, no subtle attempts to reinforce the illusion of self. ‘If there is thought, there is a mind; if there is a mind, it deviates from the Way.’ The paradox is complete — yet it is not paradox at all, merely the refusal to feed the dualistic thinking that keeps seekers bound.
This text is not simply historical; its insights remain vital, resonant. The modern practitioner, caught in the machinery of thought, might seek stillness through meditation, as though it were an object to be attained. The Treatise on No-Mind reminds us that stillness is not something to be acquired but something revealed when effort is dropped. In an age where mindfulness is commodified, packaged, and sold as a technique for self-improvement, this work is a sword that cuts through illusion.
What remains when the striving ceases? This is not a question to be answered, but to be realised. The Treatise on No-Mind does not seek to explain but to point, to guide without guiding, to draw the seeker to the edge of the cliff and leave them to take the step themselves. It is, in the end, not a book to be studied, but a truth to be lived.
Note: The author of the Treatise on No-Mind (無心論) found in the Dunhuang manuscripts remains unknown. Although some scholars have attributed it to Bodhidharma, there is no definitive evidence to support this claim. The text is associated with the early Chan tradition, but no specific historical figure has been identified as its author. Scholars believe it was likely composed by an anonymous Chan master, possibly influenced by the teachings of Heze Shen Hui (荷澤神會, 684–758), a key disciple of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng (慧能). Shen Hui emphasised no-mind (無心) as a central concept in Chan practice, aligning with the themes of the treatise.
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