If the mind can be clouded, it can also clear, which means the quote is quietly hopeful. Clouding is portrayed less as a personal defect and more as a recurring habit: we collect impressions, opinions, and fears until they form a weather system. Yet, as with weather, a shift can occur—sometimes through disciplined practice, sometimes through a sudden recognition that the mind has been chasing shadows.
This is why Wu-Men’s statement reads like an instruction rather than a slogan. It doesn’t demand a new world; it suggests a new relationship to thought. When we stop treating every passing idea as a command, the mind becomes more spacious, and the present stops feeling like an obstacle course. [...]
