The Tao of Wu

by The RZA

You are the monastery—always, wherever you are—and

In the Divine Mathematics, Knowledge is 1: the foundation of all things. Wisdom is 2: the manifestation of Knowledge.

Wisdom is the separation that begins life. It is the explosion that created the universe. It is the division of every cell that multiplies to form a single life. It is the partition God renders when he says, “Let there be Light”—separating light from dark, sky from ocean. It is the detachment of man from his rib to create woman.

Wisdom is woman. It is the womb one must pass through to become mentally born. Knowledge and Wisdom give birth to Understanding just as man and woman give birth to a child.

in other words. God is actually love that brings all of these things together in a creative force

Wisdom is the word. It is the way to make Knowledge known. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the word became flesh.” God’s Knowledge was made manifest through words to create life.

Wisdom is reflection in time. Knowledge is static and timeless.

Wisdom is water. It is the flood that drowned the wicked in the time of Noah. It is the sea that drowned the Pharaoh’s army when Moses used it to part the waters. It is the universal solvent into which all things dissolve in time.

WISDOM n. 1: the effectual mediating principle or personification of God’s will in the creation of the world . . . 2a(1): accumulated information: philosophic or scientific learning . . . (2): accumulated lore or instinctive adaptation . . . b: the intelligent application of learning : ability to discern inner qualities and essential relationships . . . 3a: an embodiment of wisdom . . . b: a wise attitude or course of action . . . c: a person of superior intellectual attainments . . . 4: the teachings of the ancient wise men (as of Babylon, Egypt, or Palestine) relating to the art of living and sometimes to philosophical problems concerning the universe, man, or God and forming a class of literature represented in the Hebrew books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon —Webster’s Dictionary, THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Your allies can arrive as enemies, blessings as a curse.

The Book of Proverbs says that King Solomon sought wisdom from the cradle to the grave. That’s a way of saying he sought rebirth. Just as you must come through a woman’s womb to attain physical birth, so must you come through Wisdom to achieve mental birth. And like childbirth, Wisdom often comes with pain.

In my last memory of my father, he’s holding me in one hand and a hammer in the other, smashing up the furniture.

find an island in this life. Find a place where this culture can’t take energy from you, sap your will and originality. Since anything physical can be mental, that island can be your home. Turn off the electromagnetic waves being forced upon you, the countless invisible forces coming at you all the time.

A man thinks seven times before he speaks. It’s harder to make the glass than break the glass.

The Jewels are as follows: Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding, Freedom, Justice, Equality, Food, Clothing, Shelter, Love, Peace, and Happiness.

First a man gets Knowledge, which is knowledge of self. Then he gets Wisdom, which is the reflection of that knowledge. Then he gets Understanding, which is the power to act on Wisdom. With Understanding he sees that he has Freedom—that he has freed his dome from ignorance—which means he has free will. But Freedom operates under a law: the law of Justice. That means that I’m free to smack you in your face, but justice applies: There will be a reward or penalty for my actions. Therefore, I must deal with Equality, because all men are created equal. By showing Equality to one another we’re activating Freedom, Justice, and Equality—the

Now, those are all things that build a man’s character. And after you attain them, you’re able to strive for Food, Clothing, and Shelter—which also have both physical and mental meanings. Obviously, food is nourishment, shelter is a home, and clothing is protection. But mental food is food from the tree of life—wisdom, science, history, food for your mind. Mental clothing is how you carry yourself—the way you walk, the way you move and speak. If you have clothed yourself in righteousness, even the bummiest clothing has dignity. And mental shelter is the mind’s protection from the evil atmosphere—the lies and corruption of the outside world. So if you have these three jewels, your home is like a king’s even if you’re living in a shack.

Most people let their body lead their mind. When someone has a drug addiction, his body is addicted to the drug. Heroin is a physical addiction: If you don’t get it, you get sick. But even though your body is addicted, your mind chastises you every time you use it. When your mind has attained these Jewels, it leads the body. So even if you’re in a physical hell, by seeking the Twelve Jewels you let your mind lead your body to Heaven.

after you attain the first nine, then you’re ready to make your life truly satisfying. That’s when you can attain Love, which is the highest elevation of Understanding—either between two people or between all members of mankind. And after you attain Love, then you have Peace, and finally you get Happiness—which is total and complete satisfaction with yourself. This means you realize that nothing and nobody else can make you happy. Happiness is something you get from yourself. If you’re completely satisfied with yourself, nobody can take it away from you.

“He’s not a spirit,” GZA said. “God is you; he’s inside you.”

why not both?

The ancient Chinese philosopher Meng-tzu wrote, “Truth out of season bears no fruit.” To me, that means two things. One: There’s a time and place for every kind of knowledge to flourish. Two: The personal characteristics of great messengers are usually irrelevant. For instance, they say that Martin Luther King Jr. was a for nicator. Does it matter? Do you believe in the messenger or his message?

“Fuck you! I ain’t righteous no more!” And I ate a pork chop on him—smothered in gravy, on a bed of rice. I figured that was the only way to hurt him. When I did that, I stopped reading the Lessons. I stopped believing out of anger.

My first call came from Daddy-O telling me about the Twelve Jewels. I heard it but didn’t follow. The second came from GZA, who enlightened me, started me on the path, but I drifted out of anger. The third came from a dope fiend, a man who once had Knowledge of Self but lost it, fell away into darkness. His call was the same as the other ones, but he was a living example of what happens when you stray.

Mathematics is also what Euclid said it is: a description of the thoughts of God. And the only way to get to God is to find him within yourself.

“Fear is a state of nervousness only fit for children. Men should not fear. The only thing man should fear is God. To fear anything other than God is to offend God.”

strive to be like the sun sitting in the middle of the solar system with all the planets spinning around it—millions of things going on. It’s just sitting there being the sun, but exerting gravitational effect on everything. I think man should look at himself that way. Similarly to the sun or to the nucleus of an atom, and all the confusing things going on around him are okay as long as he’s staying focused on what he’s doing as long as he’s being himself.

Abraham is told his seed will be lost for four hundred years, in a land not their own, not knowing who they are or where they’re from. That’s the story of the Jewish people, but it’s also the story of the black man in America.

It’s like Jesus says in the Bible: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own?” The giant is bullying you for no reason other than that he sees something in you that he sees in himself.

love, like wisdom, dissolves you and then resolves you. It breaks down your ego and puts you back together again properly.

Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved. —JULES WINNIFIELD, Pulp Fiction

Bruce Lee said: “I practice the art of fighting without fighting.”

His will is embedded in all cells and atoms since the first atom moved out of darkness and first life moved out of the womb of darkness. Even before the mother is in light of the existence of the child, the child is in light of itself. The cells begin forming once the divine union is sparked by the sperm and egg from within the light of itself

Fast for a few days. Don’t have a lot of people around. Be alone and quiet. You’ll start to hear yourself, feel yourself. You’ll hear from the you that’s not the you your family, society, or history created. You’ll hear from the you that’s beneath that, the one that’s always there with you—the you that contains the God particle.

Be by yourself. Yell out asking God for help until you’re almost crying. Let all those chemicals inside you come rushing up to your brain and ask for whatever you’re looking for. This is prayer—it’s opening your heart. Martial arts are a form of prayer—they’re why Da’Mo taught the monks kung fu. The monks were getting tired and sleepy and couldn’t pray properly, so Da’Mo taught them certain postures to strengthen their bodies. Same goes with the Muslims. They weren’t in shape, their diet was bad—they weren’t in good condition to pray. So the Prophet taught them how to do Salaat, the Islamic prayer rituals that are basically martial arts. (In fact, one long form actually looks like the kung-fu style Sleeping Lo-Han.) Find a form of prayer and do it—to enhance your life, build up your chi, to attract positivity. Studying lessons and reading great religious books is an excellent form of prayer. But whichever you choose, don’t pray to have something pop up under your Christmas tree. Pray to put yourself in harmony with God. Do that and your prayers will be answered.

I called all the brothers together. I said that we were going to go out as Wu-Tang Clan. I had the contracts ready. I said give me five years and I will take us to number one. It was a long conversation, eye-to-eye, man-to-man. I said that no one could question my authority. It had to be a dictatorship. I didn’t say I was the toughest nigga in the crew, but with what I had in mind, I had to be the so-called leader because I was the best knower. The best leader is somebody who’s able to serve. If you’re truly able to serve, you’re able to lead.

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.”

Confusion is a gift from God. Those times when you feel most desperate for a solution, sit. Wait. The information will become clear. The confusion is there to guide you. Seek detachment and become the producer of your life.

I saw that the flower grew. I saw how the sun causes all things to grow. But I also saw that by noon, that flower was dried out and dead. In a way, I could actually, physically feel the rightness of this—that there’s a beginning and end of physical things. It showed me that it was okay this moment had passed. A flower grew under me, where no one would expect it to. It was beautiful, moist, and full of life. Then by noon, it was dry and dead. It had run its course.

When Buddha says “All is illusion,” he isn’t saying that nothing is real. He’s saying that your mind’s projections onto reality are illusions. He’s saying that the elements in the universe that form every physical thing we see—solid, liquid, gas—if they’re taken down to a subatomic level, they don’t exist. Therefore all we see is an illusion, because it’s shape or form, not true essence.

what we see and experience may very well be illusionary, but just because we can’t measure/detect it doesn’t mean there’s no real fundamental/elemental substance at the base of all of it.

Everything is everything.

everything that is a thing is everything. God can be no thing and still separate from all the things. or he can be the ultimate thing at the center of all things, from which we come made from His loving energy and to which we will one day be pulled back into. ultimately. those who are chose are certainly all of one body, the body of christ. so there can be division and unity co-existing until the end.

At the bottom line, at the end of the day, it is all good. Even if a bomb explodes and blows up a whole building and all the atoms and matter that were compressed are released, once the explosion is over and things settle back down, it’s back to normal again: It’s all good. Even though the Devil is causing chaos, from the days of the Bible until now, at the end of the day, God will cast him out. At the end of the day, good will triumph over evil. Science reflects this. If God is good, if the universe is based on a good energy, all will be good—right down to the subatomic level. Electrons are negative, but they move around the proton, which is positivity itself. It sits still at the center and determines the weight of the atom. No matter what the electron is doing, it’s the proton that makes everything what it is. Its weight is something like 1,100 times more than the electron’s. The proton is God. It’s all good.

it is all good, or ultimately will be all good, but the proton doesn’t have to be God itself for that to be so. Could simply be part of the image of God that we are made in. None of those necessitates that we be God ourselves.

In so many words, that’s what Jesus said: “Don’t hate the player; hate the game.” They persecuted him for talking righteousness and speaking the truth, so he just said, “Yo, y’all playin’ the game wrong. You’re out here living wicked and doing this and doing that, and you’re gonna hate me just ’cause I’m telling you about it? Don’t hate me, nigga. Hate the situation you’re in.” In a way, he even says the same thing to God—which just shows how powerful Jesus’s spirit was. He’s getting crucified, and in his last moments on Earth, he looks down at his killers, sees they’re all pawns in the larger scheme, and tells God to forgive them—because they don’t know what they’re doing. This is a man who told God himself, “Don’t hate the player; hate the game.”

Jewels are minerals, compressed pieces of earth, stacks of crystalline carbon. What gives them shine is their history. It’s the same with man. When a man recognizes himself, he recognizes his true jewel, and his body expresses that wisdom. He becomes a jewel himself. If his mind is sharp, the way he walks and talks has a certain beauty about it. Attain wisdom and you have all the bling you’ll ever need.

When he put death into his body, he started to die.

and yet so too plants were and often are still alive or at least still on process of dying when we eat them. we need to be respectful of all life and be it’s responsible stewards but plants are just as much “alive” and should be cared for accordingly.

Trouble follows behind a wicked mind 20/20 vision of the prism of light but still blind because you lack the inner, every sinner will end up in the everlastin’ winter of hellfire where thorns and splinters pick your third eye out You cry out your words fly out, and sounds die out You remain unheard, sufferin’ eternally, internal external Along with your wicked fraternal of generals and colonels Releasin’ thermonuclear heat that burns you firmly And permanently upon this journey Through the journal of the book of life. Those who took a life without justice will become just ice ice ice

It’s been taught that your worst enemy can’t harm you as much as your own wicked thoughts What devils aught we wrought, and listen naught Now you’re bein’ persecuted by that universal court court court I in hell with the strong wine, a fragrant blend of sandalwood with rose petals and jasmine as men use talismans Burning incense, chantin’ witchcraft to reach higher dimensions I’m convinced, Allah is God always has been always will be You could travel every square inch of the planet Earth and still be Ninety-three million miles away from the sun Till you see you and the sun is one, like the knowledge, know the ledge to where your heart is or fall off into the internal hell that’s uncharted

Light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second through time and space, until it reach a target Now what’s the speed of darkness and show us the path to where the Red Sea was parted Enter ye straight into the narrow gate for wide is the road to destruction and hate What you thought, life was a sport? A game? One hundred years short? No, the soul is immortal Going through many portals and those who go astray will pay a judgment day and these few years of wicked bullshit ain’t worth the eternity inside a sulfur lake With dragons and snakes and any pain you can imaginate Instead, I chose to become a newlywed to the true bread of life and fed God Degree of light to my head It’s been said, the fool who is asleep is already dead so I stay awake and take care of my brother and uncover the veil of skin s...

Two hundred thousand million atoms per cubic feet of air we breathe While niggaz minds are trapped twenty thousand fathoms beneath the sea of reality, they can’t inhale deep devils have ’em stagnant

They said it best in Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility.” When Peter Parker first got his powers, he was a selfish egomaniac; he failed to do right. He didn’t give a fuck—he was the man, out wrestling fools, starting fights. A criminal ran by him and he didn’t lift a finger to stop him—then his uncle got killed by that criminal. Peter Parker had to live the rest of his life without his uncle. That’s how I felt when my moms died. I remember she gave me one specific order: Never have children outside of your home, away from your wife. Instead, I had kids with four women. That was as Bobby. I’d gone out and put energy and money to places that didn’t multiply myself, my people, or my family. And in a way, I feel I paid for that by losing her.

In the Nation of Gods and Earths we call ourselves Gods, but that truly means we’re the Gods of our own cipher, and your first cipher is first your physical body, the second your family and your home. If someone enters your cipher and submits to your will, if someone joins your crew and submits to your leadership, then the divine union can work. But you have to remember you only control your own cipher. Only God’s cipher is divine.

You learn more, you practice more, you gain more wisdom and enlightenment, and you might start thinking that you’re God himself. That’s because there is some truth to it. If you were to compare to God an ocean, you could say that each one of us has a drop of water in us. In one sense, the drop of water is not the ocean. It’s just a drop of water. It doesn’t have the magnitude of the ocean itself. But on the other hand, in that one drop of water, you can find the vastness, the magnitude of the ocean. So in that sense, you are the ocean. Digital life proves this. From one bit of a digital image or song, you can reproduce the entire thing. It’s the same with DNA. From one strand of DNA, you can clone the whole organism. It’s the same with God. From that one drop of water within us, we are, in a sense, the ocean. But never overlook the power of the ocean itself. There’s a beginning and an end to what we do because of physical bodies. God is eternal. You will return to him, he’s not returning to you. All water in this world goes back to the ocean—it gets drawn up into the sky and goes back to the sea. It’s like what Rumi said: “In order for you to become the ocean, you have to drown.” If you’re swimming, you’re not truly it. You have to drown yourself.

In the sense that our souls are a home for God. If we prepare out temples for God properly then we can certainly absorb God’s life into ours but that doesn’t mean we are or become God ourselves. We don’t become the ocean by swimming in it or consuming it. We may become part of the ocean once we give ourselves entirely over to it for all of the rest of whatever time is. However, so long as we are alive and have the choices to stray from God then we cannot be a part of God. Not until our souls/energies are absorbed back into the energy/soul of God so we become permanently part of the Body of Christ. Even then, we are not uniquely God in our own selves. the vastness of the entire ocean is God. Our drop alone if separated from the Body cannot be a God into itself. and a God without its own unique force/power can’t really be considered God at all. No matter the power we might be able to attain it comes from God from his own source and not from within our own selves. it is okay to humble ourselves to this realization.