The Fasting of the Heart

Here’s the Chinese.

若一志

无聽之以耳
而聽之以心
无聽之以心
而聽之以氣

聽止於耳

心止於符

氣也者
虛而待物者也 

唯道集虛

虛者 心齋也


Here’s the Chinese with character-by-character translation.

若一志
[as] [one] [thought/will]

无聽之以耳
[not] [listen] [[with]] [ear]

而聽之以心
[but] [listen] [[with]] [mind]

无聽之以心
[not] [listen][[with]] [mind]

而聽之以氣
[but] [listen] [[with]] [qi]

聽止於耳
[listening][stops][at][ear]

心止於符
[mind][stops][at][tallying]

氣也者 虛而待物者也 
[qi] = [emptiness][which][wait][things]

唯道集虛
[only][Way][gather][emptiness]

虛者 心齋也
[emptiness] = [mind] [fasting]


Here’s a loose and flowy English elucidation.

Make your will as one. Consolidate your attention. Get to the point where your awareness is not constantly being pulled in different directions.

Now, draw your attention inwards.

(1) Start with the external objects of sense impression (e.g. a bird singing; a car driving by).

(2) Then focus on the way you perceive these objects; notice the process of mental construction it entails, and start to break it down.
Learn to separate the chirping sound you’re hearing with the idea of a bird; notice the pure rumbling noise, then notice your reflexive estimates of how fast this car is going and in which direction and whether it’s stopping in front of your house. Notice too your emotional reaction to it, and the way it pulls your attention out of yourself.

(3) Then, finally, pay attention to the internal objects of sense impression — your breath, and the living sensations of your flesh.

As you keep going along this path inwards, and once you have finally taken good account of the internal sensations which you usually look straight past, then the mind will eventually empty itself of even that.

Up until now, you were preoccupied by the constant flow of sense objects. Now, you notice that, once you slow down that flow, the mind does not necessarily have to allow its spotlight to be pulled around by these sense objects. It can lie quiescent, and wait for sense objects to appear in its unmoving field of focus.

At some points, so long as nothing big changes in your external environment, and once you’ve gotten used to all the usual fluctuations of internal sensation, then no sense objects will appear at all. 

Reaching this quiescent state is like giving your mind a deep clean. It allows you to loosen the grip of habitual, compulsive patterns of thinking and acting — the kneejerk judgements of good or bad — the accreted mass of past associations (“I saw this thing when my stomach hurt, so the next time I see the thing, I’ll be suspicious and suspect it of being a tummy-achey thing!”).

This emptying removes the grime from your compass, so that it can naturally point the Way.