Faith in Mind: Part III, Retreat Three (May 24, 1985 - May 31, 1985)
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Contents |
Anxiety
With narrow views and doubts, Haste will slow you down.
Those who take up the study of Buddhism before their views have expanded are subject to fears and doubts. They doubt the method and whether they can reach their objective. Like those who have narrow views and only see what is in front of their eyes, it is a shallow and limited perspective.
This is a common problem on retreat. Everyone should believe that even if they cannot become enlightened this time, they can do so in the future, either in this lifetime or the next. Do you have faith that your method can lead you to enlightenment? Or do you think that it is just the beginning, that later you will learn more advanced methods? Do you believe that Ch'an practice is reliable? Some people may think: "I just came here to take a look. Later, there will be things to learn in other places."
Over the years I have met many people who lack faith. Because of this they reach a certain point and cannot go any further. They may have a partial faith. They may have confidence in themselves but do not trust the method. Or they have faith in the method but do not entirely trust the teacher. Some people may trust the teacher but doubt what levels can actually be reached with Ch'an. This mixture of faith and doubt prevents them from having a deep experience.
Of course, if there were no sense of doubt in the beginning, you would not be motivated to practice. After practicing diligently, you will gradually resolve the problem of doubt. It all depends on your karmic roots. When those with deep karmic roots come in contact with the teachings of Ch'an, they quickly accept them.
But those with shallow roots have obstacles which prevent them from believing in themselves, the method, or the teacher. The first requirement of Ch'an is faith. You should believe that you are the ones with deep karmic roots; otherwise, why would you have come to this Ch'an retreat? Compared to the multitude of people in the world, those who can undergo Ch'an training are very few.
Perhaps you still do not believe in yourself, the method, or what I am talking about. But, beginning now, I hope you will start having faith. It does not matter if you are not enlightened yet. Just like a blind person being guided by someone who sees, a person who is not enlightened can borrow a teacher's guidance and experience. It does not matter if you started out with narrow views, as long as you can emerge from them. When you try to understand or judge matters that are beyond your background and experience, it is natural to have some doubts. Use a mind of faith to cure your doubts. It is very important to give rise to a great faith to achieve results. You should have complete faith in what I am teaching. As to the environment, it does not matter whether this is the ideal place to practice.
But the sooner you want to get results, the longer it will take to get anywhere. Once someone was driving me to an appointment. Since he wanted to get me there as quickly as possible, he decided to take a short cut. Though the road was shorter, it turned out that the traffic was heavier than on the normal route. Another case was a person who was required to take the English equivalency exam in order to apply for a U.S. visa. She thought of a quick method: Before she actually wrote anything down, she would first skim through the entire test to weed out the answers she did not understand. But by the time she went through this first reading, the time was up and nothing was on the answer sheet.
It is the same with practice. If you keep asking yourself, "When am I going to get enlightened?" you will always be in that state of mind and never get anywhere. It is the same when you have trouble getting to sleep and you look at the other people sleeping soundly around you. If you become anxious and keep worrying, "Why can't I sleep? Let me sleep!" you will never get to sleep.
The more you want benefits from Ch'an, the further you will be from obtaining them. In fact, you will only increase your vexations. You may be a highly intelligent person who works very hard and has good karmic roots. But if you are anxious to get enlightened, you have created a barrier between yourself and enlightenment. A tree should be watered very gradually as it is growing. Do not be in a hurry to eat the fruit.
Consider the story about an inexperienced farmer who planted a field of rice. After the crop sprouted, he kept going out to look at it and saying, "Why isn't it growing any faster?" Then he thought of an idea to help it grow. He pulled each stalk out a little taller. The next day he said, "I think I'll go out and help them again." But when he surveyed the field, all the shoots had died.
There is a Chinese saying: "You can't dig a well with one scoop." Another one is: "You can't eat a cake in one bite." It is better for the digestion to chew food until very fine before swallowing. It is the same with practice. Don't try to swallow your practice in one gulp; chew it patiently. You have to be careful and meticulous.
Attach to it and you lose the measure; The mind will enter a deviant path.
When you grasp onto something, find a happy medium. For example, if you grasp the incense board too tightly, you will hurt the person you are hitting, and may even break the board. But if you hold it too loosely, you cannot aim accurately. You have to hold it just right -- not too tight, not too loose. In any activity, you have to find just the right way to do it. This is difficult to accomplish without practice.
I constantly tell people on retreat to relax -- mentally and physically. But some people do not know how to do this. Others are too relaxed. As soon as they sit down, they slump over. You cannot practice this way.
Even though your mind is relaxed, you should hold tightly onto the method. Stick to the method and do not let it go. But sometimes people take this advice and become nervous and tense. For instance, in counting the breath, some may become so intent on holding to the method that they end up holding onto the breath itself, thus breathing unnaturally. Or they try to get rid of stray thoughts by counting and breathing faster and faster. This tenses the body. You should hold tight to the method, but at the same time you should not let yourself get tense. To illustrate this, suppose you are walking along a road and it starts bearing to the right. If you keep to a one-track frame of mind of just sticking to the present thought, you will not allow for the bend in the road and walk straight ahead into a tree.
Once I gave someone the hua-t'ou "What is wu?" I told her to keep her mind on this one thought, moment to moment, to never leave this question. After a while, her mind jumped to something else, and it became, "I am wu." Rather than correcting herself, she thought, "Shih-fu told me to stay on the present thought." She kept repeating the statement, "I am wu." Finally, she said to me, "There's really no point in this. I already know the answer. There is nothing." (The literal meaning of wu is "nothingness.")
When I tell you to hold onto the method, it does not mean to grasp it blindly. Sometimes you have to adjust. I am teaching one method but everyone is unique. Their background, physique, age, experience, are all different. If you just take what I say literally, it could be that you heard it wrong, or that you start practicing it wrong. Therefore, you cannot go by that entirely. You have to test it out by experience. You must be aware of what is going on. If your breath is not flowing smoothly, that should be a signal that you are not practicing correctly. Ask me about it. There was a student who was sitting in the "correct" posture, but his backside became very painful. He was putting too much pressure on his tailbone. I advised him to lean slightly forward and straighten his back so that this bone would not touch the cushion. If you come across a problem like this, you should not continue on in pain because you think that you are doing as I instructed. Of course I would not teach you something that causes you pain. You just sometimes have to make your own adjustments.
Being Natural
Let it go and be spontaneous, Experience no going or staying. Accord with your nature, unite with the Way, Wander at ease, without vexation.
The most important thing in practice is to be natural and spontaneous. Being natural does not mean neglecting everything. It requires careful attention. In meditation, you should sit in a natural posture and use your mind in a natural way. Sitting in a natural posture means sitting just right. If you are comfortable when you first assume the sitting posture, even if pains develop in your legs later on, that is still natural. It is unnatural, however, to sit bent over or leaning to one side, or with your head tipped back. A natural posture should follow the demands of your physiology. It is not natural to tighten your stomach muscles or to straighten your back by protruding your chest. To use your mind in a natural way means to avoid trying to control it. The more you try to control your mind, the more stray thoughts will come up to bother you. In fact, the very fear of stray thoughts is another stray thought. Therefore, if you have many stray thoughts, consider it a natural phenomenon and do not despise them. But on the other hand, if you completely give in to a train of wandering thoughts, that is not correct either. What is the best approach? Pay close attention to the method. If you do that, stray thoughts will be kept to a minimum. It is not that they will not arise, but you will not worry about them. If you are really paying attention to the method, you will be aware of a stray thought as soon as it arises. When it comes up, just let it go. Do not be afraid that another thought may follow it. That fear is an extra stray thought. It is just like a person who is carrying a stack of bowls. If someone says to him, "Be careful! You're going to drop them!" he will drop them. But if nobody says anything, he will just keep going.
Do not fear failure. Whatever happened in the past is past; do not worry about it happening again. Before you meet with success, failure is natural and necessary. As a baby learns to walk, it keeps falling down. Is this failure? Throughout our life we go through similar processes: going to school, pursuing a career, practicing Ch'an. After my first book, someone said to me, "Now you're a success." I said, "No. That book was a failure. I would write it much better if I had to do it again." It is the same with practice; there is never a successful conclusion. When you are working hard, failure is natural. If you have never failed, you have never tried.
On the other hand, you should not have a defeatist attitude, thinking: "As long as I'm going to fail, let me fail." According to Buddhism, nothing can be a perfect, unqualified success. If you are elected president of the United States, would that be a success? Later on, you would most likely be criticized as a failure. Even President Lincoln would probably consider himself a failure. This is natural. It is when you do not feel successful that you put in the effort. When you no longer need to make an effort, that is true success, or liberation. At that point, there are no more vexations. Nevertheless, you have neither thrown away vexations nor grasped liberation. If you want to hold on to enlightenment and keep away vexations, that is not the true natural state.
But to follow your own nature, in this sense, is not the same as following your personal habits or whims, as in the expression "be natural." Nature here refers to your self-nature, or Buddha nature. Some people think that one can become a Buddha through meditation. This is wrong. The potential for Buddhahood is already within your own nature. If it were true that Buddhahood depended on meditation, then if you stopped meditating after becoming a Buddha, you would become a common person again. The objective of practice is to be in accord with the natural way, so that your true nature can manifest itself. Just practice according to the methods taught by the Buddha and do not worry about being a success. The Heart Sutra says, "There is no wisdom and no attainment." Although practice may be trying, even physically painful, if your heart is carefree, nothing will bother you. A carefree approach does not mean not caring about how you practice; it means considering anything that happens as natural. There may be some pain, but there will be no suffering. There is nothing in your mind that you cannot put down.
Bound by thoughts, you depart from the real; And sinking into a stupor is as bad.
To be in bondage to your thoughts means to be influenced and carried away by various conditions in your surroundings. If you do this, you are grasping the false. You can try to limit your thoughts by using the method. But in fact, as long as the method is still in your mind, you are still abiding in the false, not in the real. But in that case, should you discard the method? The problem with discarding the method is that, while you may seem to have no thoughts, you may still fall into a foggy state. Even though the method is not real, it is even worse to be suspended in a nebulous frame of mind. The ideal state would be to drop the fogginess along with the method, to be unattached to conditions. What does it mean to be unattached to conditions? It means that there are no thoughts in your mind, but whatever appears is perfectly clear.
When you reach this state you will perceive everything as equal. This is because at that time, to you, nothing really exists. Reality cannot be divided into individual people and objects. When nothing is in front of you, it is the same as when there are many things there. In a room full of people, you would not feel crowded and, if the room were empty, you would not feel lonely. Though there is no discrimination in your mind, when relating to people, you distinguish between a monk and a lay person, or a man and a woman. You follow worldly conventions. However, if your mind is blank, this does not mean you have discarded conditions and reached the state of no thoughts. The blank state would be equivalent to the foggy state, rather than to the truly empty state. Sometimes when you are exhausted, your mind takes a rest and you are not thinking of anything in particular. Do not confuse this with enlightenment.
The method is another way of grasping onto thoughts, but it is a way that allows us to eventually overcome grasping. Using the method effectively is like knitting a sweater. You cannot drop one stitch, otherwise the whole piece will start unravelling. The method should be practiced in the same dense manner. "Dense" means that your attention is so continuous that there is no space in between for any interruptions.
Accepting All Realms
It is not good to weary the spirit. Why alternate between aversion and affection? If you wish to enter the one vehicle, Do not be repelled by the sense realm.
Let's return to the opening lines of the poem, "The Supreme Way is not difficult if only you do not pick and choose." Actually, it is not hard to reach enlightenment if you do not grasp or reject. The poem encourages us to practice without attachment. As soon as you become attached to something, you lose the direction of the method.
Yesterday someone asked, "If attaining Buddhahood does not depend on practice, why must I practice?" From the time of Sakyamuni Buddha it was said that Buddhahood cannot be created by practice. This was especially emphasized by the Sixth Patriarch, Hui-Neng. However, practice will help you to discover the innate Buddha nature. Generally, people think of vexations as something inside that have to be destroyed. They think of the Buddha mind as something outside, beyond their reach, that has to be grasped. The constant effort to destroy vexations and grasp the Buddha mind is very burdensome.
Chinese Buddhists have an expression: "In life you don't practice yet on your death bed you would seize the Buddha's foot." In other words, at the last minute, such people are afraid they may drop down into the hells and thus implore the Buddha to take them up to the Pure Land. [1] Their attitude shows that they consider the hells and the Pure Land to be external realms. In reality, all realms lie within ourselves. But it is precisely the greed of someone who wants the Buddha to save him that prevents him from being reborn in the Pure Land. This is because whatever you grasp is false. If you were to succeed in grabbing the Buddha's foot and being transported to the Pure Land, it would turn out to be illusory. The true Pure Land is not located in any particular place and the true Buddha is formless. A Buddha with a form is just a single manifestation of Buddha, a transformation body. Thus you should not be greedy and seek enlightenment without, or be disgusted with vexations within. If you neither desire nor reject anything, you will feel at ease and joyful.
The one vehicle is the Buddha Way. What is the difference between Buddhahood and enlightenment? Buddhahood is attaining the ultimate, whereas enlightenment is seeing Buddha nature without encompassing it fully. You know the taste of the ocean but you have not yet become the ocean.
If you want to follow the Buddha Way, do not be "repelled by the sense realm," or feel any aversion towards your environment. Here at the Center we are bombarded with disturbances = traffic, radios, trains, even the birds and the wind. At first, it is difficult to remain impassive to these noises, but after three days or so you probably do not even hear the cars passing by.
Years ago I had a student who decided on her own to do a solitary retreat. She went to a bungalow colony in the country. At first, she picked the cabin closest to the road, thinking it would be more convenient for shopping. But finding the noise of the traffic too annoying, she kept switching to cabins farther back towards the wooded area. Finally, she got one right in the middle of the woods, only to discover that the sound of the birds was deafening. Later, she asked me, "How did you manage to practice in the mountains?" I told her, "The birds bothered me too, so I stuffed up my ears. But then I noticed the sound of my own heartbeat. The best way is to forget everything around you. That's why you use a method."
Before sitting, you should mentally prepare yourself not to be disturbed by anything that may happen around you. You should have the attitude that even if the house were burning, you would not get up from your seat. Someone usually asks, "But what if your house really does catch on fire?" I say, "If you are worried now that your house may someday catch on fire, you certainly won't sit successfully."
This also includes not being disturbed by the person sitting next to you. On one winter retreat a student wrapped herself in a blanket while sitting. Every time she sat to meditate, she swung the blanket around her body, accidentally striking her neighbor in the face. For three days he was annoyed by it. But he remembered that I had said one should not be influenced by other people. He then cultivated an attitude that whenever she struck him with her blanket it just meant that she was preparing to meditate; it had nothing to do with him.
Note
[1] Pure Land. The Western Paradise of amitabha Buddha, one of many blissful realms in the Mahayana, each associated with a specific Buddha. The main requirement for entering the Pure Land after death is the wholehearted expression of faith in the compassion of amitabha Buddha. Belief in the Pure Land gave rise to the Pure Land School, whose primary method of practice is to recite Amitabha Buddha's name.
Limiting the Environment
With no aversion to the sense realm, You become one with true enlightenment.
The true practitioner is not affected by the environment. If you enjoy your surroundings too much, you will not even think about practicing. But if you despise your surroundings, you will not be able to practice even if you try.
It is impossible to throw off your environment all at once. It must be peeled away like an onion. In order to do this, it would be helpful to think of the environment as three concentric circles. The outermost circle is the world around you, the middle one is your body, and the inner circle is your mind. On the first day of retreat, I said that you must forget your affairs in the world outside of the Ch'an Center; in other words, put aside all thoughts of past and future. But once you do that, new thoughts related to the world inside the Center will come up. It may be a smaller world, but it is still external to the body. You may be distracted by the others, or you may become attached to my words, or even to my presence. Some people take notice of where I am in the room, and anticipate what I am going to do next.
If you limit your attention to your body, either you feel comfortable or uncomfortable. It is difficult to totally forget the body. Your legs are painful, your back hurts, your head aches, your neck is strained, your skin itches, or you just feel tired. Ignore any sensations, pleasant or unpleasant, that may arise. On the other hand, if the pain is too great to ignore, consider your body as a corpse. To be able to conquer your pain and your fear of death requires great determination. If you can develop this will power in Ch'an training, you will be able to succeed in any other endeavor.
Once you narrow yourself down to the mental environment, there are two things you are involved with -- the method, and stray thoughts. You will find that your mind is just as full as the outside environment. As the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says, "Mental activities are just a shadow of the sensory world." Thus if you manage to dispense with all your environments, you will attain the state of no mind, and you will reach a great realization.
The wise have no motives; Fools put themselves in bondage.
The more you strive after liberation, the more you tie yourself up. This is also true of seeking safety, health and security. Once I was approached by a life insurance agent who did not know I was a monk. He said, "Our insurance policy is excellent. No matter what happens to you, your wife and children will be taken care of." I asked, "What if I don't have a wife and children?" He had nothing to say after that. He saw that I had no worries about death.
One monk I know actually took out a policy. I asked him, "Why did you do that?" He said, "So that after I die there will be money for my funeral rites and burial." I said, "Don't you think that a monk would be buried in any case? Even if he is not, maggots would eventually dispose of the body."
A practitioner should not consider his own security. Otherwise, he would not be able to practice in the mountains far away from society. Whatever fears or desires you can discard will give you that much more freedom. But whatever protection you seek will become your karmic obstruction.
This is why you should not look for something here you can take home with you. On the contrary, you should try to lose what you brought in. Why should you add to your burdens? After you learn something and absorb it, then it becomes part of you and you should be able to throw it away. Just as when you eat, you obtain the nutrients from the food and then eliminate the waste. If you carried it home with you, your bowels would be in serious trouble.
One Dharma
One dharma is not different from another. The deluded mind clings to whatever it desires.
In complete enlightenment, there are no different dharmas, or objects of existence; there is only the one Dharma. But you cannot say that this one, perfect Dharma either exists or does not exist. To exist, it would have to be opposed to something else that does not, and vice versa. Buddhism does not speak in terms of opposites or of the absolute. Nothing can be absolutely affirmed or denied. When you attach to or reject anything, you are in a position of duality with that object.
In most religions, if you reach a stage where you identify completely with the universe, it would be considered the ultimate, or great harmony. But, according to Buddha Dharma, this is not the highest stage, since some thought still remains. After you concentrate your scattered mind, you reach the stage of unified mind. There are various levels of unified mind -- the unity of self and universe, the unity of body and mind, and beyond this, just one mind remaining. The unity of self and universe is a joyous experience. You feel at one with the flowers and the trees and with everyone around you. You may feel liberated. But this is still not Ch'an.
If there is only one Dharma, it is erroneous to seek the Dharma outside or within yourself. That would create a duality. Some people imagine that getting enlightened is seeing a Buddha nature within themselves. I tell you that there is nothing to see. Whatever you see is an illusion. Buddha nature is empty nature. If you seek something, how can you get to emptiness? The Diamond Sutra says that there is no Dharma form and also that there is nothing that is not the form of the Dharma. Thus we should not become attached to either existence or emptiness.
Using mind to cultivate mind -- Is this not a great mistake?
When you practice, you are using your mind to work on your mind. You use a deluded thought, the method, to reduce your other deluded thoughts. But the real Ch'an is methodless. No-method is to practice with nothing in your mind, and to be clearly aware that there is nothing in your mind. Moment by moment, maintain the state of no-thought. If a thought arises, just return to no-thought. If I ask you a question while you were in this state you would answer spontaneously. If you have to think about what to say, your mind is already moving. Nowadays, it is impossible for most to maintain this state of mind. In the past, practitioners were able to put in twenty or more years of solid practice. It is difficult for one with a daily work routine to do this. But you should still be aware that although you rely on a method, whether it be breath counting, kung-an, or reciting the Buddha's name, it is not the true Ch'an. The true Ch'an transcends all methods.
The erring mind begets tranquility and confusion; In enlightenment there are no likes or dislikes.
Before enlightenment, people distinguish between a quiescent state, which they call "nirvana," and a chaotic state, which they call "samsara." They want to leave samsara behind and enter nirvana. But seeking to leave the world of noise and confusion to get to a peaceful place is like looking for a rabbit with horns. There is no Buddha Dharma to be found outside of this world. In the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch says that to leave the world is to be in the world.
The true practitioner does not despise a chaotic environment, nor does he need to go deep into the mountains. He just flows with causes and conditions. Wherever he is, that is his place of practice. He does not feel cramped in a crowded place, nor does he feel lonely in an isolated place.
