术与道
25年底我写了一篇年终总结，发给了一位长辈，收获了六个字的评语：你有术，没有道。
这六个字我想了很久。术和道之间到底隔着什么？是天赋？是时间？还是某种更本质的东西？
玄学五术，讲：山医命相卜。山讲修行——打坐、气功、修炼，改变的是事情的因；卜讲占卦，看到的是事情的果，木已成舟，事已定局。排的越前面越靠近因，越往后越只能接触到果。机缘巧合之下，我选了第一个和最后一个，一头触因，一头触果，覆盖了两个极端，也算是另一种barbell strategy。
但它们终归都叫做”术”。这个字就写在名字里面——玄学五”术”。
有意思的是，在很多人眼里，这些术看起来很像道。因为药医不死病，佛度有缘人。虽然山和卜本身是可以学的，但真正有这个机缘开始做这些事情的人少之又少，得命里有才行。这个门槛让它在旁观者的眼中有了道的光环。而它们也确实教给过我一些让我觉得很接近于道的东西——关于因果、关于变化、关于人和世界之间的关系。
但我自己清楚，即便同时触及了因和果的两端，我仍然在术的层面。有很多事情我依然算不出来，我只是不再去问这些事罢了。
那道到底在哪里？
这几年在硅谷认识了很多人，大概每一个行业的人都可以分成三类。第一类是开山鼻祖、金字招牌，他们真的理解自己在做的事情，理解技术，理解市场，有vision，也有天时地利人和去触及资源把事情做成。第二类是努力的聪明人，能看懂一些，也在努力，跌跌撞撞也能干的还不错，慢慢build自己的reputation。第三类人奇技淫巧苟一条路，技能点和在做的事情本身并不match。
在第三类人眼里，第一第二类人大概都有道。但在第二类人眼里就很难说了——他们能看到第一类人做得更好，甚至可能知道穷其一生也无法达到第一类人的高度，但也能看到第三类人做不到的事。而第一类人自己呢？他们会觉得自己有道吗？大概率也不会。
这让我意识到一件事：有没有道，完全取决于观察者的位置。
回到我自己身上也是一样。在一些人的视角里，我在数学上或许是有道的，在卜卦上或许也是有道的。但在我自己的眼里呢？我知道数学里有太多我碰不到的东西，卜卦里有太多我算不出来的事情。你觉得我有道，是因为你站在你的位置上看我。我觉得我没有道，是因为我站在我自己的位置上，看到的是我前方那些我还够不到的东西。
所以道不是一个你”拥有或不拥有”的客观状态。它是一个视角问题。
那如果道是相对的，我真正想寻找的道是什么？
我想找的是一个统一的系统——一个可以理解所有事情的框架，让人不再困惑。数学、卜卦、修行、做事业、看人心，都能被它涵盖。我认为如果这样的东西存在，那才是道。
但后来我意识到，这就像想象存在一个大佬可以做出所有的数学题一样。确实有人可以做出这一道数学题，但没有人可以做出所有的数学题。这样的道，既存在，也不存在。佛教里一定有术语可以描述我想说的这件事，但我并不知道。
而最终我想明白的是这样一件事：道在我领悟之前，一直是道。但在我领悟它的那一刻，它就变成了术。
你学会了一样东西，它就不再神秘，不再是道，它变成了你的工具，你的技能，你的术。而你的目光自然会移向下一个你还不理解的东西——那个新的、还没有被领悟的东西，才是你眼中的道。道永远是你还没够到的那个地平线。
所以长辈说得对：我有术，没有道。但这不是一个批评，这是一个必然。任何人在任何时刻都只能有术而没有道。因为道的定义，就是你还没领悟的那个东西。
慧生于觉，觉生于自在，这句话的后面还有一句话：生生还是无生。
Technique and the Way
At the end of 2025, I wrote a year-end reflection and sent it to an elder I respect. His response was six characters long: You have technique, but not the Way.
I thought about those six characters for a long time. What exactly separates technique from the Way? Is it talent? Time? Or something more fundamental?
In the Chinese mystical tradition, there are Five Arts: Mountain, Medicine, Fate, Physiognomy, and Divination. Mountain concerns cultivation — meditation, qigong, inner practice — and works on the causes of things. Divination concerns reading the signs — what has already been set in motion, the effects. The further up the list, the closer you are to causes; the further down, the closer you are to effects. By some twist of fate, I chose the first and the last — one hand touching cause, the other touching effect, spanning both extremes. A barbell strategy of sorts.
But they are all still called “arts” — technique. The word is right there in the name: the Five Arts of the mystical tradition.
What’s interesting is that in many people’s eyes, these arts look a lot like the Way. Because medicine cannot cure those fated to die, and the Buddha can only save those with the right karmic connection. Although Mountain and Divination can technically be learned, the people who actually have the karmic conditions to begin practicing them are vanishingly rare — you need it written in your fate. This barrier gives them a halo of the Way in the eyes of onlookers. And they have, in truth, taught me things that feel very close to the Way — about causality, about change, about the relationship between a person and the world.
But I know clearly: even though I have touched both ends — cause and effect — I am still operating at the level of technique. There are many things I still cannot divine. I have simply stopped asking those questions.
So where is the Way, exactly?
Over these years in Silicon Valley, I’ve met many people, and in every industry, people seem to fall into roughly three categories. The first are the pioneers, the gold standard — they truly understand what they are doing, they understand the technology, the market, they have vision, and the right circumstances to access the resources to make things happen. The second are the hardworking smart people — they can see some of it, they’re trying, they stumble along but manage well enough, gradually building their reputation. The third rely on clever tricks to carve out a path, their actual skills not quite matching the work they’re doing.
In the eyes of the third group, both the first and second probably possess the Way. But from the second group’s perspective, it’s harder to say — they can see the first group doing things better, they may even know they will never reach that height in their lifetime, but they can also see what the third group cannot do. And the first group themselves? Do they think they possess the Way? Almost certainly not.
This made me realize something: whether someone has the Way depends entirely on where the observer is standing.
The same applies to me. From some people’s perspective, perhaps I have the Way in mathematics, or in divination. But in my own eyes? I know there is far too much in mathematics I cannot reach, far too many things in divination I cannot read. You think I have the Way because you are looking at me from where you stand. I think I don’t have the Way because I am standing where I am, looking at everything ahead of me that I still can’t reach.
The Way is not an objective state you either “have or don’t have.” It is a question of perspective.
If the Way is relative, then what is the Way I am truly seeking?
What I want to find is a unified system — a framework that can make sense of everything, so that nothing remains confusing. Mathematics, divination, cultivation, building a career, reading the human heart — all encompassed by it. I believe that if such a thing exists, that would be the Way.
But then I realized this is like imagining there exists someone who can solve every math problem. There are certainly people who can solve this math problem — but no one can solve all math problems. A Way like that both exists and does not exist. There must be a term in Buddhism that describes exactly what I’m trying to say here, but I don’t know it.
And what I ultimately came to understand is this: before I grasp it, the Way remains the Way. But the moment I grasp it, it becomes technique.
Once you learn something, it is no longer mysterious, no longer the Way. It becomes your tool, your skill, your technique. And your gaze naturally shifts to the next thing you don’t yet understand — that new, still-uncomprehended thing is what you see as the Way. The Way is always the horizon you haven’t yet reached.
So the elder was right: I have technique, but not the Way. But this is not a criticism — it is an inevitability. Anyone, at any moment, can only have technique and not the Way. Because the Way, by definition, is the thing you have not yet understood.
Wisdom arises from awareness, awareness arises from freedom — and after that line comes one more: all this arising is itself no arising.