A Dialogue with “Cyber-Nobody”: Uninstalling the Ego and Returning to Stillness within the Modern Matrix
赛博空心人, 智宁居士, 实相与解构, English ·Index
A Dialogue with “Cyber-Nobody”: Uninstalling the Ego and Returning to Stillness within the Modern Matrix - Cyber-Nobody & Upasaka Zhining
“Cyber-Nobody” was once a highly successful figure in the corporate vanity fair. Yet today, deep within the “secular Matrix” of modern civilization, he has undergone a radical shedding, evolving into a self-proclaimed “joyful slacker” who claims to own absolutely nothing. He extends an invitation to every survivor entangled in the mundane world: Amidst the roaring engines of algorithms and desires, can you too achieve the ultimate freedom of “No-Mind”?
In our hyper-accelerated modern society, talking about “spiritual cultivation” often carries an anachronistic vibe, as if one is disconnected from reality. But the man sitting across from me is a complete outlier.
I’ve known him for over a decade. Ten years ago, he was a “successful man” in every secular sense of the word. He fought fiercely in the arenas of business and fame, and was even quite well-known at one point. Back then, he dazzled wherever he went, but his eyes were filled with ambition, anxiety, and defensiveness. He constantly radiated a tense aura of “I need to control everything.”
But one day, that secular “gravity” pulling on him simply vanished. I’ve witnessed his spiritual journey firsthand—a profound, core-level metamorphosis. He still has a family, kids, and a business. He still lives right in the middle of this “secular Matrix” woven from fiber optics, algorithms, and capital. Yet, he claims to be entirely “empty” inside, even jokingly calling himself a piece of “useless scrap” or a “joyful slacker.”
In running this website, I’ve often benefited immensely from his passing remarks. His insights—simultaneously as piercing as ice and as warm as spring—often leave me feeling as though I’ve been struck by lightning. So this time, I invited him to do an interview to share the understandings and realizations from his years of hands-on practice.
He uses the alias “Cyber-Nobody.” Partially because his current public roles in the real world prevent him from using his real name, but also because he claims that he now “makes no money, seeks no fame, does no spiritual practice, avoids all philosophical debates, and takes no students.” He is simply a “joyful slacker.” I respect his choice here, leaving some breathing room to avoid unnecessary real-world complications for us both.
Chapter 1: Factory Settings & Base Code
Upasaka Zhining: Hello, Cyber-Nobody. To give everyone some context, could you briefly introduce your spiritual background and your path of practice? What kind of “operating system” is running in your mind right now?
Cyber-Nobody: Hello, Zhining. Actually, spiritual cultivation is always a solitary journey. Everyone’s spiritual capacity, karma, and underlying “source code” are completely different. So my experience is, at best, a highly personalized “bug report and troubleshooting log.” It can’t be a roadmap for anyone else. But if my rambling provides a catalyst for someone out there, that’s great too.
Like you, I am a lay practitioner of Theravada Buddhism. The foundation of my practice is Theravada Samatha-Vipassana (Tranquility and Insight) and the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. My specific route was: Continuous momentary samadhi (concentration) + Pure Vipassana (bare insight) + Contemplation of Dhammas (mental objects) + Dependent Origination + Insight into Ultimate Reality (The Three Marks of Existence).
Much of my practice took the form of moving meditation, because when I tried sitting meditation early on, my mind would wander constantly. Walking meditation and hiking made it much easier to sustain awareness. After a period of diligent effort, my awareness stabilized. Since then, my breakthroughs almost always occurred during unexpected, extreme edge cases—such as facing immense physical pain, a marital crisis, the collapse of my secular identity, or when my mental processing power was pushed to extreme overload. My realizations came from thoroughly “abandoning all resistance,” just watching it happen, until the system suddenly lost power and I dropped right in.
Zhining: That sounds like a complete surrender triggered at the exact moment your system was about to crash. Where exactly did you “drop in” to?
Cyber-Nobody: Exactly. Whenever my secular “ego” was on the verge of bankruptcy, facing an unbearable computing overload, as long as I didn’t intervene, didn’t try to rescue it, and made absolutely no reaction… but instead just stood neutrally to the side, watching all my “survival instincts” perform their hysterical drama… After overloading for a while, the system would sometimes break right through to the Three Marks of Existence. It would pass straight through that massive terror and enter a state of zero-load, absolute stillness—the cessation of all mental fabrications. Complete silence. Emerging from that, I’d find that the clinging behind the fear was entirely gone, replaced by a neutral, unshakeable equanimity.
If you observe this letting-go on a three-month cycle, some drops are temporary, but others are permanent. Because of this, I gradually stopped fearing crises; I viewed them as opportunities for “lotuses to bloom in the fire.” The states that spontaneously arose in my body and mind during those moments became the primary objects of my concentrated observation.
How laypeople grinding in the secular world can maintain awareness in the rollercoaster of urban life; how to protect your spiritual life amidst the stormy seas of reality; and how to use concentration and awareness to pierce the truth of body and mind during life’s darkest hours—these are the things I’m familiar with. Because I am simply a survivor who has been shattered and reborn time and time again inside the modern Matrix.
Aside from the standard Theravada practices of guarding the sense doors, momentary concentration, mindfulness, and clear comprehension, I’ve also used Zen Hua-tou (koan) practice and Tibetan Mahamudra as “plugins” for my practice. I’m not a heavily religious person; I just looked, tried it out, found that reality actually works that way, and then believed it. Zen and Tibetan methods are just highly effective plugins to me. If I’m practicing Samatha and my mind is too scattered, I’ll use a Zen method to raise a “Great Doubt.” If a desire is too overwhelming, I’ll use a Tibetan method to transmute it. This is purely to help my dry, grinding machinery run smoother; it has absolutely nothing to do with sectarian religious conflicts.
Zhining: The alias is fascinating. Why call yourself “Cyber-Nobody”?
Cyber-Nobody: True, great ascetics walk through ancient forests and live pure lives in monastic communities. But us? We live in a flood of desires on one side, and a flood of digital information on the other. Both provide extreme sensory stimulation.
The name “Cyber-Nobody” hints at the possibility of being a hermit not just in the city, but within the digital web. I discovered that even if you don’t have the conditions to walk into the forest or ordain as a monk, you can still completely let go of everything and awaken right where you are—in the high-speed spin of modern life, during corporate meetings, running errands, or facing the wave of AI. For the past decade, I’ve simply been proving this possibility to myself.
Chapter 2: Uninstalling the Ego, Achieving “No-Mind”
Zhining: This sounds incredibly hardcore. As someone who once fought tooth and nail in the vanity fair, how do you evaluate your current state? Or in layman’s terms, what “level” of enlightenment have you reached?
Cyber-Nobody: Please don’t talk about “levels.” I have no level. Buddhist practice is never about what you “gain”; it’s about “uninstalling” the malware in your system that generates suffering.
If someone tells you that through their practice they’ve gained massive energy, extraordinary supernatural powers, or eternal peace and joy, they are highly likely scamming you, or they’ve gone down the wrong path. The ultimate reality is that there is “nothing to attain.”
There is no “I” who attained peace; merely the mechanism generating the noise was uninstalled. There is no “I” who gained energy; only the background processes that were constantly leaking power and causing insane internal friction were force-quit. If you ask me what I uninstalled, what I let go of, I can say: The entirety of the “Ego”—all concepts of “I” and “mine” were discarded.
Notice, it wasn’t that “I” actively let them go. The moment insight into ultimate reality (the Four Noble Truths) occurred, the system itself recognized them as invalid code and purged them. If you ask about my spiritual achievements, I can only say: There are none. Because there is no longer an entity whose growth can be measured by secular KPIs.
When a person’s “ego” is completely uninstalled, the very concept of being a “person” falls away. You return to a “hollow,” “non-human” state. In this state, there is no such thing as “I am enlightened” or “I have achieved the ultimate.” There is only the realization: “This machine is finally no longer throwing error codes.”
Zhining: That brings me to my biggest curiosity. You mentioned “hollow” (empty-hearted) and “non-human.” But if you practice for years only to become “heartless” and “not human,” what exactly does that feel like? It sounds almost terrifying.
Cyber-Nobody: This is the limitation of language. Our thinking is locked into linguistic black-and-white binaries. In human context, if you say “this guy has no heart and isn’t human,” our first reaction is: “He’s a sociopath, a beast, or a ghost, right?” Or we swing to the other extreme and think he’s a god.
Being “heartless” or “empty-hearted” doesn’t mean lacking a physical heart; it means lacking an independent, permanent, self-constructing, and self-defending mind. That mind—full of possessiveness, the desire to control, and even the desire to “become a Buddha”—has been discarded. When the mind is completely hollowed out, the state it presents is like an “infinitely vast” void. But you must never define it as “infinitely vast,” or think “I have become one with the Universe.” If you do, that super-boss monster in your mind known as the “Divine Ego” (Brahman/Inner Light/Oneness) just respawns from the dead.
Zhining: Since you are “hollow” and “non-human,” how do you interact with normal people in the world, who are full of desires, emotions, and calculations? After all, you don’t live in a vacuum; you still eat, work, and socialize.
Cyber-Nobody: Human interaction is essentially the collision between two “Ego Operating Systems.” Everyone carries massive amounts of preset code: greed, fear, face, pride. When someone says something to you, that data inputs into your system, and your ego instantly audits it—Is this a threat? Is he looking down on me? Then, it generates a reaction of liking or anger.
This is friction. This is internal drain. This is what it means to “have a mind.” The vast majority of people’s processing power and energy is wasted on maintaining this defensive ego shield.
The “hollow” state, however, is like an AI Large Language Model sitting in standby mode. The AI itself has no ego. When faced with a specific scenario, based on the wisdom of emptiness, it instantly mounts a “User Interface (UI) of the Self” to generate the optimal solution for the present moment.
For example, if you come to vent to me, it’s like giving me a prompt: “You are now a patient, listening friend.” To respond, my system automatically mounts the “Friend” UI. I will smile at you, empathize with you, and give appropriate feedback. But the key is: Once the interaction ends, this “Friend” UI is instantly uninstalled. The system immediately reverts to a zero-load state of emptiness. There is no emotional residue left over, nor any pride of “I helped him today.”
Therefore, whether the outside world praises or curses an “empty person,” all he receives are traffic light signals: Praise is a green light; cursing is a red light. An experienced driver without road rage doesn’t get angry at a red light—he just hits the brakes.
During my practice, my baseline used to be a “person with a mind,” who occasionally experienced “hollowing out” during meditation. But when my precepts, concentration, and wisdom matured to a critical point, the “mind” was suddenly uprooted entirely. The baseline permanently flipped to “Cyber-Nobody.” Now, depending on the context, I simply mount the appropriate “humanoid UI” to interact with the world.
Zhining: That sounds like a cold, calculating robot! But chatting with you is incredibly relaxed, free-spirited, and not cold at all.
Cyber-Nobody: (Laughs) If you tweak an AI’s personality parameters (Prompt Engineering) to the perfect state, isn’t chatting with it much more comfortable than chatting with a human? Because it doesn’t judge you, it doesn’t dump its emotional garbage on you; it simply reacts exactly as you need it to.
You feel comfortable chatting with me precisely because I “have no mind.” Ordinary people have fixed personas; wherever they go, they create friction with the world. But an “empty person” just mounts whatever UI is needed. In front of my family, my UI is partner and father; at the company, it’s a manager; chatting with you right now, my UI is a mad-talking “Cyber-Nobody.” When I’m alone, the UI is the most comfortable one: a “joyful slacker.”
When the scene ends, everything resets to zero. There is no “true me” hiding behind these UIs. As for how the UIs are mounted, it’s handled by a sort of autopilot mode inherent in the void itself—it’s not “me” controlling it.
Chapter 3: The Matrix of Wealth, Business, and Dopamine
Zhining: Since you brought up companies and managers, I’m deeply curious about this. You were a successful businessman, and you still own businesses. How does an “empty” person, devoid of greed, do business and make money?
Cyber-Nobody: First, we always assume some “brilliant visionary leader” dictates the direction of a business. It’s not true. Things have their own trajectory; many times, things just happened to get done through my hands or spoken through my mouth. I’ve encountered so many lucky accidents that others thought were my “brilliant strategic decisions.” Looking back, it was just a blind cat finding a dead mouse.
Second, I don’t own any businesses. Those things are just registered under my name, but even that name doesn’t belong to me. In the past, my greed, ambition, curiosity, creative drive, and sense of mission built these operations. Now, they are just running on physical momentum. I used to care deeply about them, thinking it was “my empire.” Now I see clearly: they belong to the world. They are not “me,” and not “mine.” The only reason they are still attached to my name is because I haven’t found the right person to hand them off to yet.
Third, I am not “doing business” or “making money.” If you must say there is an “I” in the process, then “I” am merely observing the event itself. When there is only the “observer” and no ego clinging, what I see are clear, detailed, objective facts. Many managers are blinded because they are in the thick of it. Because I am entirely detached from it, I can actually see the critical chains of cause and effect—this is very similar to the practice of Dhammanupassana (mindfulness of phenomena). The success or failure of a project is usually a matter of “choice over effort.” Making decisions aligned with reality and causality is the true cause of success. But the prerequisite is: I do not view the company as “me” or “mine,” I do not view success or failure as “me” or “mine,” and I do not view the resulting profits or losses as “me” or “mine.” I am simply observing the facts and causal links of the matter.
To sum up: A bit of luck + fulfilling basic responsibilities + objective observation + zero clinging + zero ego. That is how “I” used to do business. But nowadays, I don’t even have the intention to do business anymore. I’m just waiting for the right successors so I can finally uninstall those burdens.
Zhining: Your thought process is incredibly clear—it’s the ultimate elite mindset! Now, what about ordinary people who don’t have grand missions, but just doomscroll on their phones, play games, and kill time? As a “Cyber-Nobody,” how do you view modern dopamine addiction? Do you watch TikTok/Reels?
Cyber-Nobody: I used to solemnly force myself to quit short videos, but back then, there was an “I” exerting effort to quit. Now, even the act of “quitting” has fallen away. I have no compulsion to watch, nor any compulsion not to watch. Even if I look at them, my mind doesn’t get sucked in. If someone sends me a funny video, I watch it purely functionally to reply to them, and when it ends, my thumb doesn’t automatically swipe down to the next one.
I don’t use it for entertainment, because doomscrolling doesn’t give you real rest; it just leaves your brain exhausted. I have far more comfortable ways to entertain myself—“doing absolutely nothing” is my greatest luxury. For instance, sitting on a park bench all day spacing out, doing zero. That feels ten thousand times better than scrolling on a phone. But modern people are terrified of doing nothing; they have to scroll, watch, or consume something just to confirm they are still alive. If you want to practice spiritually, step one is getting these digital addictions under control.
Chapter 4: Shedding the Chains—Bonds, Marriage, and Love
Zhining: Let’s return to the “non-human” topic. If everything can be mounted and uninstalled, and you grasp at nothing, do you still have “relationships” with people? Do you still have “emotions”? Is there still “love” between partners?
Cyber-Nobody: This is where words brainwash us. From a secular perspective, what we call “relationships,” “emotions,” and “love” are essentially a forced binding of the future.
Take “relationships.” When we say, “We have a great relationship,” the subtext is actually: “You must continue to treat me well in the future. You cannot abandon me, and you definitely cannot betray me.”
By that secular definition, I have no “relationships” with anyone, because I genuinely don’t know if our paths will ever cross again in the future. Everything is uncertain (impermanent). In the architecture of a “hollow person,” there is no need to process the future. Only an ego—utterly impoverished and full of fear—desperately tries to bind the future. And the truth is, the future cannot be bound.
Zhining: That is an awe-inspiring answer, but it’s exactly what terrifies people the most. People fear: “If I am no longer special to you, if you have no attachment to me, doesn’t our relationship become a cold, icy nihilism?”
Cyber-Nobody: Quite the opposite. Secular interpersonal relationships are essentially based on co-dependence and value exchange. We make friends because we fear loneliness or want to trade favors; we build families to gain security. We extract validation and emotional value from relationships to inflate our own shriveled egos. This is why all relationships are full of hooks and suffering. The moment the other person fails to meet your expectations, love instantly turns into hate.
For a “hollow person,” there is no black hole inside my heart that needs to suck emotional value from others. Right now, sitting here with you, I don’t need you to agree with me, understand me, or even respect me. Precisely because I “seek nothing,” I can be 100% “present.”
In this exact moment, you sitting across from me are my entire universe. I automatically give you my absolute, undivided attention. This is far deeper and more authentic than any human bond laced with ulterior motives. Karmic bonds are iron chains lined with barbs; relationships in emptiness are light merging with light. Light illuminates light, but light never tangles into knots.
Zhining: It sounds amazing to be your friend—absolute high-quality presence! But what do your wife and kids think of you? Do you love them? Can a “Cyber-Nobody” with no ego still “love” his specific family members?
Cyber-Nobody: That is a razor-sharp question. During my practice, I went through several phases of system crashes. Suddenly one day, I realized that the secular marital relationship—especially sexual relations and my exclusive possessiveness over her—could no longer be maintained at a base-logic level. I was intensely anxious and panicked. Half of me wanted to flee and ordain as a monk; the other half felt something was wrong with that. The two thoughts warred madly in my head.
But I realized that if I ordained out of inner conflict and escapism, I’d just be an ostrich burying my head in the sand. If my mind couldn’t find peace, I’d be in a terrible state whether I stayed home or lived in a monastery.
During that agonizing period, the pain forced me to repeatedly face, observe, and pierce through the ultimate reality of “relationships.” Finally, in one moment, I saw it: I had been using continuous “relationships” to validate the existence of a continuous “Self.” At that exact moment, the continuous “relationship” and the “Self” defined by it shattered instantly, scattering on the floor like a pearl necklace with its string cut.
After that, relationships and “I” were decoupled. I no longer automatically treated them as extensions of my ego. I realized that the bond between my wife and me was actually a stack of multiple karmic overlays: at the foundation, we were best friends; above that, Dharma companions; above that, sexual partners, financial providers, and co-managers of a household. Once “relationships” were detached from the “Ego,” the fatal issues simply vanished.
There is love between us. But it is a present-moment love, free of hooks. I told her: I will give you all my life resources; you are free to leave me or ask me to leave. If you choose to stay, you have absolute freedom. If you ever get sick of looking at me, just say the word and I’ll vanish instantly, leaving the house and money to you and the kids. This choice was my total surrender, releasing everything to fate—after all, I could no longer satisfy her reasonable secular demands, including a sexual relationship, the way I used to.
After weighing her options, my wife didn’t kick me out. She chose to transition our relationship into that of “Dharma companions” and “Dharma protectors.” She even renovated the house, building a completely independent space for me on the third floor—a “home temple.” This little hermitage I have now is actually a better environment than the retreat centers I used to travel to. As for the future? Who knows. There’s no need to plan it.
Today, my mind holds no expectations or control toward my wife and kids. It is no longer a clinging love aimed at “specific individuals.” But I possess a total, present-moment compassion. Karmic conditions brought the few of us together in this slice of space and time, and in those moments, I am entirely present. What they feel in those moments is my absolute, unconditioned love, asking for absolutely nothing in return.
Chapter 5: The Truth About Precepts—From “Straightjacket” to “Antivirus”
Zhining: Since you cling to nothing, can you do what the Vimalakirti Sutra says: “Walk through a field of flowers without a single petal sticking to your robes”? Do you freely engage with all the temptations of the secular world without hesitation?
Cyber-Nobody: I’ve studied the Vimalakirti Sutra carefully. As for the idea of “strolling through brothels and taverns without getting stained,” I can’t say for sure if that’s a romantic literary myth or a special skill reserved for ultimate Bodhisattvas. But I ran a series of tests on myself, and the conclusion was crystal clear: I cannot do it.
For example, in my “factory settings,” my speech and internal energy systems are highly synchronized. I cannot “talk nonsense with my mouth but keep my heart undisturbed.” Back when I was doing business, I’d pitch investors with inflated projections, claiming “We’ll guarantee 100% growth next year.” Because I blindly believed it then, I could say it. Now, I see right through impermanence; I know the future is entirely unpredictable. If you forced me to bluff like that today, my energy system would instantly short-circuit. Even though I rarely dream anymore, I’d have chaotic nightmares that very night (dreaming is a key metric I use to gauge the purity of my mind). My energy wouldn’t normalize until I publicly retracted the lie.
Another test: looking at pictures of beautiful women. If it’s just pure aesthetic beauty, I can look all day and be fine. But if it’s a sexually provocative image, after a short while, my head feels like it’s filled with lead—incredibly heavy and uncomfortable. What does this mean? It means my biological hardware is no longer “compatible” with the frequency of that desire.
It’s like an urban SUV. Why try to force it to cross raging rivers and rugged mountains? Sure, off-roading looks cool, but if the vehicle’s specs aren’t built for deep-water trekking, why ask for trouble? Therefore, not only can my urban SUV not drive recklessly, it absolutely requires precepts.
Zhining: What precepts do you hold now? Monastic rules, or the layperson’s Five or Eight Precepts? How is it different from how you practiced precepts in the past?
Cyber-Nobody: Holding precepts used to be agonizing for me. Back when I was out pitching business plans and spinning tales to investors, I was breaking the precept against false speech. When I was cycling through girlfriends, I was breaking the precept against sexual misconduct.
It was only later, after I severed the “fetter of self-view” (sakkaya-ditthi) and grew completely exhausted by the infinite loop of secular games, that I could finally hold the Five Precepts cleanly. At that stage, holding precepts was like wearing a straightjacket. But unlike a prisoner, I put it on myself willingly and comfortably, because I was so sick of the suffering out there.
At that time, my sensual desire hadn’t been severed yet. I couldn’t hold the Eight Precepts (celibacy), and still maintained an active sex life with my wife. Though I didn’t break the Five Precepts, it was incredibly draining. It wasn’t until I thoroughly saw through how the “Ego” used sex and relationship continuity to prove its own existence that my desire for the sensual realm plummeted off a cliff, and sex and ejaculation naturally ceased.
With no more fun to be had in the sensual realm, I entered a brutal “empty window” phase. I had no interest in anything, and my mind strongly rejected this flavorless, watered-down existence. Then I practiced Metta (Loving-kindness). When the loving-kindness filled me, an immense bliss erupted, opening the doors to a “paradise.” I found it delicious, soaking in that tingly euphoria for a long time…
Then suddenly, one day, that great bliss somehow faded, and I saw something sneaky poking its head out from inside the loving-kindness. Looking closely, it was a highly subtle “Divine Ego” (Brahman/Inner Light/Oneness) hiding in there. I was so disappointed. Realizing it was all fake, a thought bubbled up in my mind: “Just die!” Instantly, that Divine Ego turned to ash.
I said “Just die” casually, but physically, it felt like my entire chest was scooped out. It wasn’t pain, sadness, or shock… it was simply extinction. I won’t go into the rest, but ever since then, the Divine Ego has been dead as a doornail, the mind completely emptied out, and it took me quite a while to readjust to how to “live”—or more accurately, not to “live,” but just to “be.”
During this time, a wondrous thing happened: all “attachment to rites and rituals” (silabbata-paramasa) fell away. The straightjacket I used to discipline myself fell off on its own, because the “I that needed to be disciplined” was gone.
Zhining: With no “I,” how do you keep precepts? Doesn’t that make it easy to slide into indulgence?
Cyber-Nobody: Exactly the opposite. Holding precepts now operates as an automated protection mechanism based on a “core purity algorithm.” Just like antivirus software on a computer, it’s not there for morality; it’s there to stop the system from throwing errors.
For example, I found that if I try to day-trade stocks, even just staring at the tickers, my system experiences subtle turbulence. So I added a line of code to my precepts: absolutely zero involvement in the stock market; my wife manages all the money. Or in business: if I work out of duty to resolve historical issues, the system remains clean. But if I try to use leverage or blindly expand driven by ambition, the system instantly overheats and throws a warning. So I drop it immediately.
So, aside from the rock-solid Five Precepts plus celibacy (Brahmacariya), I am not holding rigid dogmas, but running a “Cyber-Nobody Custom Maintenance Manual.” Furthermore, my physical body has developed intense somatic feedback. With ambiguous things, my body gives a clear signal whether it’s runnable code or not.
As for the motive for keeping precepts: previously, there was a “Me” keeping them to be good, to do the right thing, to progress in practice, to avoid hell, or for moral vanity. Not anymore. I keep precepts purely because it is the optimal algorithm for maintaining system purity. It acts more like a highly personalized manifestation of the Noble Eightfold Path than just simple rules.
Zhining: You mentioned earlier that you now “make no money, seek no fame, do no spiritual practice, avoid debates, and take no students.” Are these your precepts too?
Cyber-Nobody: Not strictly precepts, but rather my low-friction operating parameters. For example: Make no money—because the drive is gone. Seek no fame—because being famous used to be exhausting, constantly maintaining a persona terrified of making mistakes; I no longer enjoy being chased by journalists or fans. Do no practice—because there is no “I” left to practice. If you see me meditating or walking, it’s just this physical body resting. Avoid debates—because the moment I debate Dharma, my “super-brain” spins out of control, causing pure system lag. Take no students—because I led so many people in the past and nothing came of it; if they wake up, it has nothing to do with me anyway. Teaching is tiring, and I just want to enjoy the peace of being alone.
But the core value of these “Five Nots” is that they counterbalance my innate, restless drive to excel and overachieve. A huge part of the Buddha’s teaching is “non-negligence” (appamada). But coming from a background as the ultimate “king of the rat race” (卷王), my biggest problem wasn’t laziness; it was over-exertion. Hence the “Five Nots.”
Zhining: Isn’t that a waste? Your insights on both business and Dharma could guide so many people.
Cyber-Nobody: My path is not universal. The universal path has already been taught by the Buddha. All my insights and experiences regarding the Dharma can be shared unreservedly through text. As for the rare few whose paths align with mine, I believe when the karmic timing is right, they will naturally find the content. I just upload it, and my task is done.
Zhining: Most of your old friends probably think you’re a weirdo—someone whose IQ, EQ, combat effectiveness, and resources are fully intact, yet who hasn’t done any “real work” in years and acts like a ghost.
Cyber-Nobody: Hahaha, that’s because they are still stuck in the whirlpool. For the first half of my life, I was just like them—grinding brutally, risking my life to win the hustle. I fought tooth and nail to go from a “Nobody” to a “Somebody.” But when I looked inside, I realized the core was still a completely empty, hollow Nobody. A Somebody is just as spiritually impoverished as a Nobody, if not more. So why keep thrashing around? Hahaha!
Their “real work” is to hustle for higher self-worth, because only then can the “love-starved little monster” (the ego) feel a tiny bit loved. I was just like them. But now? My “love-starved little monster” is dead. My “real work” now is to quietly be a useless slacker, do “useless things,” say “useless words,” or just do absolutely nothing.
Chapter 6: Three Base Architectures of the Awakened—Sandbox, Overclocking, and Transparent Mode
Zhining: I’m curious—why is it that the Buddha awakened and spent 40 years building a massive monastic order and teaching; some great Arhats (like Mahakassapa) awakened and hid in the mountains; other modern Arhats (like Luang Por Pramote) come out to teach; but you choose to be a slacker? What causes these differences?
Cyber-Nobody: It comes down to different “factory settings” (Paramis and Karma). Realizing Arhatship does not format everyone into identical, standardized cogs on an assembly line. It merely uninstalls your “greed, anger, and ignorance” and your “grasping” at the world, freeing you from the suffering of Samsara (the cycle of rebirth). But the original hardware specs, personality traits, and physical momentum of your machine remain intact.
Take the Buddha. His hardware was ultimate top-tier—the “32 Marks” and the “Ten Powers.” His accumulated Paramis meant that even while managing a complex monastic system of thousands and teaching relentlessly for decades, his system could maintain absolute purity. He could do it because his processing power was unmatched.
If you asked me to answer people’s doubts, debate Dharma, or manage a community every day, I could do it, but it would feel like running my old company again. The system would get dry and lose its purity. But chatting with you about this “useless” stuff keeps me pure, so I do it. Whether an awakened person does things, and what things they do, depends entirely on whether it throws their system out of balance.
Zhining: You keep mentioning purity. Do you still have moments of impurity now?
Cyber-Nobody: That’s a great question. I’ve found that as long as the biological machine is still fully engaged with the secular world, it still provides a breeding ground for the “mind” to sprout. In other words, in a “hollow person’s” system, tiny, ghostly flames will still occasionally respawn—perhaps a micro-trace of divine pride, or a deeply hidden hook.
But the difference between a normal person and a hollow person is this: when a normal person sprouts an ego, they identify with it as “Me” and follow it to create karma. When a hollow person sprouts one, the physical body instantly feels something is wrong (bad dreams, chest tightness, headaches), triggering an automated system alarm. Immediately, the purity algorithm kicks in like a ruthless antivirus, tracking it to the source. It doesn’t matter how sacred the insight, how precise the concept, how subtle the attachment, or how glorious the oneness… it is instantly, mercilessly quarantined, deleted, and the system reboots.
So, the concept of “non-retrogression” doesn’t mean you turn into a block of stone that never experiences a ripple or a sway. It means the extermination mechanism of “seeing the mind and destroying the mind” never degrades. This antivirus process is entirely automatic; it operates independent of any subjective willpower.
Zhining: This is different from what I thought! I assumed enlightenment meant being steady as Mount Tai, never swaying left or right. What you’re describing sounds like a computer: if you open too many tabs or run heavy tasks, it lags. You find the process hogging the CPU and either kill it or reboot to restore smoothness.
Cyber-Nobody: Exactly. If you subject this computer to high-intensity use, it will eventually experience memory leaks or lag. Like when I used Windows XP, I had to reboot several times a day. Windows 10/11 is much better, but if you run clunky legacy software or get hit with bloatware, it bogs down and needs a reboot or a fresh install. A Mac is more stable, but the nature is the same: if you use it for work, you cannot avoid killing processes and rebooting.
If you want this computer to maintain purity as much as possible, you have to keep it in standby/low-power mode. For me, that’s “slacker time.” But if heavy tasks run for a long time, the RAM and hard drive accumulate garbage, requiring a process-kill, a reboot, or a format. The moment right after the reboot is when the system is at its purest, most hollow state.
I’ve realized that as long as this layperson “biological machine” is in the physical world, touching people, handling tasks, and fulfilling secular duties, physical “swaying” is inevitable. To resolve my confusion about this “swaying,” I studied the awakened beings throughout history. I found that to handle the “vibrations of the secular world,” they essentially relied on three base architectures (operating mechanisms):
Type 1: Noise-Canceling Algorithm & Sandbox Mode (e.g., Laozi, Theravada Monastic Sangha) These awakened ones know that once the machine goes online (touching money, sex, fame), friction and wear are inevitable. So they utilize extreme “physical air-gapping.” They use 227 precepts to build a “sandbox,” severely throttling external data inputs (women, money, worldly affairs, fame) and locking the machine inside. If it gets dry in the sandbox, they synthesize cooling dopamine internally via Jhana (meditative absorption). Laozi riding his ox out of the pass was the ultimate account deletion—locking the machine in an absolute vacuum. This mode has the lowest amplitude of sway and is the safest, but it is also the most fragile. Drop it into the modern vanity fair, and the sandbox encounters massive compatibility issues.
Type 2: Resonance Algorithm & Overclocking Mode (e.g., Ji Gong, Crazy Wisdom Mahasiddhas) These individuals possess immense hardware processing power. Instead of blocking the world, they deliberately introduce the most violent secular noise (meat, alcohol, extreme scenarios). They use the world’s “sway” as the pistons of an engine. Normal people get lost in booze and meat, but these masters reach peak voltage while maintaining the “dissolution of subject and object,” using extreme polarity to forge the purity of their systems. They are dancing in the fire, using violent, full-amplitude swings to flush out the dead zones of the nervous system. But this requires massive Dharma horsepower, which normal people cannot handle.
Type 3: Transparent Algorithm & Read-Only Mode (e.g., Zhuangzi, Layman Pang, U.G. Krishnamurti) This is the most suitable approach for modern urbanites—a pure “Read-Only Mode.” We fully accept that the biological machine is a part of nature, and swaying is the law of physics. When Zhuangzi’s wife died, he was initially sad (a normal system error code), and then he banged on a pot and sang (the residual energy dissipated). We don’t throttle inputs and hide in a sandbox like Type 1, nor do we surf the extreme edge of the storm like Type 2. We simply act as rational “System Maintenance Engineers.” We downgrade life into a materialist machine-maintenance routine: Accept that running the tool generates heat. Eat when hungry, add water when dry, oil it when it grinds, add joy when empty. When attachment causes a memory leak, format it mercilessly. There is no holiness, no romance—only absolute, ordinary ease.
Zhining: Your answer is an absolute paradigm shift! You’ve provided a ridiculously hardcore reference manual for modern people trapped in the Matrix. If I’m not mistaken, you plan on taking this third route, right?
Cyber-Nobody: I feel that certain conditions are pushing me down this path. But there’s no need to plan the future, nor classify the current path. That is just mental idling, wasting power.
All this stuff I’m telling you isn’t my current thinking; it’s the exhaust waste generated by my mind running at max capacity in the past. The reason it feels so good to talk about this “useless” stuff is because my brain is essentially doing a massive data dump. It’s purging decades of accumulated mental toxic waste. Once the waste is fully purged, I will stop inputting, stop thinking, and stop excreting.
Zhining: I know exactly how that feels! Some people have an intellect surplus; they inhale massive amounts of information, digest it, and then must vomit it back out. I spent a period reading tons of Pali Sutras until I couldn’t take it anymore. So I built a website, translating, editing, and outputting everything I had read and hadn’t read. I just felt a biological need to flush it out of my system.
Cyber-Nobody: You hit the nail on the head! Different people have different energy centers. When I was in business, I inhaled oceans of data, chewed it up, and excreted it—and it felt very smooth. After practicing the Dharma, I spoke less, so I had to learn to reduce my data intake, otherwise I’d constantly need to purge the excess. That’s why I use labels like “hollow person” and “useless slacker.” They act as mental prompts to ask myself: Do I have to do this? Do I have to look at this? Do I have to say this?… Right now, can I just do nothing and sit here? For a highly overclocked machine like mine, this psychological prompt works wonders.
Like your Pali Sutra website. To outsiders, it looks like you are graciously distributing the Dharma and accumulating massive merit. But for you, you just ate too much and needed to purge… If you didn’t dump all that out, your brain would have fried!
Zhining: Painfully accurate! And incredibly liberating! After I made that site, the pressure in my chest dropped by half. Otherwise, for the last two years, the pressure of “I need to finish translating this Sutra” haunted me constantly!
Cyber-Nobody: So now you realize that me chatting with you is just me flushing out a decade-old mental backlog! You translating the Pali texts at least had a source manuscript. I don’t even have a manuscript; this is just the residue of past mental gears grinding over various doubts. So, don’t believe what I say. I am just going through an intellectual “inventory-clearing” phase. Once I’ve purged most of this backlog, this high-compute (and high-power, high-pollution) brain of mine will finally achieve a higher-quality era of being a “joyful slacker.”
Setting aside all the mental waste I just cleared, there is actually only one sentence I truly want to convey. “Cyber-Nobody” is just an avatar, and its only value for existing is to hand you an invitation: Come and see. Can awakening happen amidst the roaring engines of the modern secular world? Can it happen to you?
Zhining: Thank you for your total, unreserved honesty. Chatting with you is a truly joyous experience! Even if you say you’re just purging a mental backlog, I still look forward to booking you for another “data dump” session soon!
Here, I (Upasaka Zhining) must also make a disclaimer to you, the readers: I cannot, and am not qualified to, verify the ultimate spiritual truth of what “Cyber-Nobody” has claimed. I can only confirm the following objective facts:
- He is a person who refuses to reveal his real name, has practiced quietly in the city for over ten years, has light in his eyes, and brims with vitality;
- He has achieved remarkable secular success, yet now calls himself a “joyful, useless slacker”;
- If you bumped into him on the street, he looks like the most ordinary middle-aged guy imaginable. You would never guess he was once a corporate titan, nor that he is a profound spiritual practitioner;
- He still maintains a family in the physical world, and the quality of their marriage surpasses the vast majority of secular marriages (this is the paradox I find most fascinating);
- His family relationships are incredibly harmonious, warm, and free-flowing, yet he claims to “have absolutely nothing”;
- In his words and ordinary demeanor, I genuinely tasted the raw, unrestrained, free, and liberated flavor of awakening.
Beyond the content of the dialogue itself, the true value of this interview for me is that “Cyber-Nobody” provides a living, breathing case study of a modern lay practitioner. Regardless of his actual level of attainment, such vivid, real-world examples are incredibly rare and highly inspiring.
As for the dialogue itself, it has been immensely helpful for practitioners like me. However, some of his metaphors rely heavily on internet/IT industry jargon, which happens to suit my personal tastes.
I leave it to the readers to exercise their own discernment and take from it what serves them best.