"The title of the work may be explained in the following way. Hsin (shin) is faith, not in the Christian sense of a bold flight of the soul towards God, a belief in what is unseen because of what is seen, but a belief in that which has been experienced, knowledge, conviction. Hsin (shin), the mind, is not our mind in the ordinary sense, but the Buddha-nature which each of us has unbeknownst to us. Ming (mei) is a recording, for the benefit of others.

"The title thus means a description of that part of oneself where no doubt is possible, This is the same unshakable conviction that Shelley and Beethoven and Gauguin had. They too recorded what they saw with their eyes and heard with their ears, where no hesitation or indecision could enter."