Note. This is a machine-assisted translation of a Chinese original. Where wording matters, please consult the Chinese original.

Tianwen · · Practice: the only necessary path to cognitive liberation

Introduction

Ontology: the world's source is indeterminacy, which appears to cognition as randomness.

Epistemology: cognition seeks certainty → produces bias → bias is reinforced → suffering.

Moral philosophy: good is not clinging and not fixing; evil is clinging and harming.

Once the theory is complete, practice is no longer a choice but a derivation.

This essay offers no advice, no techniques, no faith. It does just one thing:

From the structure of being and cognition, derive the only necessary path to liberation.

I. Step one: the sole root of suffering is cognition's resistance to randomness

Given:

The world appears as random — impermanent, unfixed, not necessary, not eternal.
The instinct of cognition is to seek certainty — pursuing permanence, pursuing the "ought-to-be", pursuing the "must", pursuing what does not change.

From this we derive the first law:

Suffering = cognition's resistance to randomness. The stronger the resistance, the stronger the suffering; while the resistance does not cease, the suffering does not cease.

All sufferings — emotion, conflict, anxiety, fear, disappointment — take ten thousand forms but have one root: cognition will not allow the world to be as it is.

Therefore: to abolish suffering, one cannot change the world; one can only change cognition's resistance. The world cannot be altered, randomness cannot be removed; what can be adjusted is only cognition's own attitude.

II. Step two: to extinguish suffering, one must stop "fixing"

From the definition of suffering, we derive directly:

Suffering = resisting randomness = clinging to certainty.

Non-suffering = not resisting randomness = not clinging to certainty.

From which the second law:

The cessation of all suffering has only one route: stop the "fixing" of every person, event, thing, thought, and self.

"Fixing" includes:

insisting "it must be so".
insisting "it should be so".
insisting "it cannot change".
insisting "it will never change".
insisting "I am right".
insisting "he is wrong".

The moment fixing stops, suffering loses its support. This is not a meditative technique; it is a logical necessity.

III. Step three: to stop fixing, one must first notice

The trouble with cognition is that fixing is automatic, unconscious, instinctive.

You do not first think "I want to cling" — you are already clinging.

Hence the derivation: to stop fixing, you must first see fixing happening.

The third law:

Awareness = seeing the bias = breaking the automation = the starting point of practice.

Without awareness, no practice is effective. The moment awareness arises, the bias is already interrupted.

Awareness is not a method; it is the precondition.

IV. Step four: after awareness, do not let the obsession continue

The mechanism of cognition is: a thought arises → grasp it → think it again → reinforce it → rigidify into bias.

So long as you do not continue, do not reinforce, do not think on, do not follow up, the obsession cannot grow.

The fourth law:

Suffering grows by way of "continued flow"; sever the continued flow and you sever the nourishment of suffering.

Practice is not the suppression of thought but not feeding thought.

V. Step five: after non-continuation, return to randomness

Once obsession is no longer reinforced, cognition needs a correct landing place — not emptiness, not repression.

That landing place can only be: acknowledging that everything that appears is random.

The fifth law:

Returning to randomness is the only resting place in which cognition produces no new bias.

Acknowledging randomness = letting go of certainty.

Letting go of certainty = no resistance.

No resistance = no suffering.

VI. Step six: the highest practice is "non-abiding"

When cognition has long ceased to grasp, ceased to fix, ceased to resist, it naturally enters a state:

For everything that appears: no sticking, no lingering, no remembering, no rigidifying.

This is called non-abiding.

The sixth law:

Non-abiding is the natural state in which cognition fully accords with randomness; it is the terminus of practice and the original face of cognition.

Non-abiding is not the absence of thought, but thoughts not staying.

Non-abiding is not the absence of emotion, but emotion not abiding.

VII. Daily practice: this chain on the ground

From all the above, we can directly generate the only practicable everyday discipline:

Suffering arises → I am resisting randomness, clinging to certainty.
Stop → break the automation.
Notice → see what I am fixing.
Do not continue → no thinking, no reinforcement, no extension.
Return to randomness → allow everything to be as it is.
Non-abiding → let it pass without holding.

Each step is a derivation, not a teaching.

VIII. Final conclusion: liberation is not a state of attainment, it is a logical necessity

The book's single ultimate conclusion:

Because the world is random, because cognition suffers through fixing, liberation lies only in not fixing. Not fixing is awareness, non-continuation, returning to randomness, non-abiding. Beyond this, there is no liberation.

Practice is not metaphysics-as-mysticism, not mystical experience, not a promise of the next life. It is the necessary action of cognition following its own structure.

You do not have to believe anything. You only have to see the derivation.

Conclusion

From indeterminacy to random appearance, from random appearance to cognitive fixing, from cognitive fixing to the genesis of suffering, from there to the root of morality, and finally to the only path of liberation —

The whole book is a complete, tight, gap-free, presupposition-free, faith-free chain of logic.

And practice is nothing more than:

Letting cognition, by following this chain, live in every present moment.