Peking Best

1) What is Zen meditation? Hui-neng said (Platform Sutra):     What is Dhyana Samadhi (Zen meditation)?     If, externally, one is separated from appearances;     Then, internally, one's mind is not perturbed.     Original Nature is of itself pure,     And of itself in Samadhi.     To be separated from appearances externally is Dhyana,     To be unperturbed internally is Samadhi.     So it is called Dhyana Samadhi. 2) How and why of meditation      (adapted from sayings of Bhagwan Rajneesh and P.D. Ouspensky) First, every thought is wrong. Whether right or wrong thought, it causes problems. Second, you have to get out of the mess of mind. You have to pull yourself out, because it is more difficult to pull the mess away. You are going to stand out of your mind, as a watcher. Whatever is going on in the mind, you don't even interfere. You simply watch, as if it is somebody else's business. In this indifferent aloofness, all thoughts disappear, and there is no mind - Watch the mind, and the mind disappears. Thus you achieve no-mind . So, wht is no-mind? It does not exactly mean the absence of mind; it is rather going beyond mind . (So you can live in the world and yet not be of the world.) Hui-neng said no-mind means: Not to think while in the midst of thoughts. Our meditation here is a state of such no-mind. This unfocused awareness (as a meditation) is the Sati and Samadhi all roled into one.    The pain comes from your mind,    And your mind is your past.    But the past is no more.    So pull youself out and just watch,    As if it's none of your business.    In short: Pull out and just watch. Now, here is a simple formula that will enable us to experience this no-mind right away: Ouspensky said, while visiting C.E.M. Joad in his deathbed,     It is a very simple matter. I am sitting here. you just close     your eyes and remember one thing: whatever is going before your     inner eye is the mind, and 'the presence' in front of which 'the     mind is passing' is the no-mind. You can soon perform this exercise, with your eyes open, anytime anywhere. (But not when you are driving a car - Safety comes first.) Also, the presence here - which is now the no-mind awareness that became you - can be wider than the inner eye: you can expand it wide enough to de-localize a painful _object_ nearby (your boss bullying you, perhaps). And the pain starts to disperse. Make the no-mind awareness bring in some sunshine (or the positive Yang- energy), and let it dazzle the remains of the pain. And the pain (i.e. your own negative force) is gone. This no-mind awareness in a person that keeps his precepts knows no limit timewise or spacewise; and is quite close, for motivational purposes, to the Dhyana Samadhi of Hui-neng and Wu-wei (no-action) of Lao-tzu. And you have a new Hua-tou (word head) to bring youself quickly into Zen anytime anywhere: Pull out, and just watch. Like Chao-chou's Mu (nothing). But, true Zen is a practice of no practice. (There is only ONE. So who is fooling who?) Zen Master Ta-hui (1089 - 1163) left his last verse a moment before he died:     Birth is thus     Death is thus     Verse or no verse     What's the fuss? 3) Goal of Zen meditation We have found out, in 1. above, what Zen medition is in words . We also have personally experienced the Zen meditaion in 2. above. Now our goal is to attain Enlightenment, thereby freeing ourselves from rebirth and sufferings. For this, we need resort to our poetic intuition rather than intellectual reasoning, since Enlightenment is a transcendental process. It is also a subtle process: According to hui-neng, the only difference between the enlightened one and an ordinary man is that one knows that he is enlightened and the other does not. Its basic idea in words is:    Go beyond words and letters,    To understand what Mind is directly.    This, then, is attaining Buddhahood. To achieve our goal, one can rely on an enlightened Master. Or, if a Master is not available, one can rely on the Four Noble Truths (Buddha's First Sermon, original version), or the Platform Sutra of Hui-neng. Once enlightened, it needs to be certified by an enlightened Master. Or, if such a Master is not available, one can certify himself using the benchmark contained in the Buddha's First Sermon (original version). In fact, our Buddha spoke this First Sermon to a few of his fellow Hindu ascetics for the sole purpose of awakening them (transcen- dence). Not to describe his newly obtained wisdom or vision (words). 4) Suggested readings To witness the arrival of the Buddha with his Four Noble Truths:    (Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught .     Grove Press, New York, 1974.) To remain in the Home of Zen :    (Hsuan Hua, The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewl Platform Sutra .     The Buddhist Text Translation Society, San Francisco, 1977.     ISBN 0-917512-19-7.) For a briefing on Zen in general:    (Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen .     Vintage Books, New York, 1957.) Zazen (sitting Zen) is an aid , not a goal. For its introduction:    (Shohaku Okamura (tr.), Shikantaza: An Introduction to Zazen .     Sotoshu Shumucho, Tokyo, 1996.) Koan (public case) is also an aid . It makes one doubt about his reality , so he can get himself awakened to True Reality. For an introduction to Koan practice, read:    (Zenkei Shibayama, Zen Comments on the Mumonkan .     Harper and Row, New York, 1974.) Books of the following types are to be avoided, because they make you feel that you know . (Zen is a serious business about not getting reborn as an animal .):    (Academic treatises on doctrinal systems, theological aspects,     Mahayana philosophy etc..     Best sellers and popular introductions to Buddhism, Zen,     Koan etc..     Zen circus of hilarious Zen Masters.     Any books on Buddhism that tend to stimulate one's biological     instincts.)

1) What is Zen meditation? Hui-neng said (Platform Sutra):     What is Dhyana Samadhi (Zen meditation)?     If, externally, one is separated from appearances;     Then, internally, one's mind is not perturbed.     Original Nature is of itself pure,     And of itself in Samadhi.     To be separated from appearances externally is Dhyana,     To be unperturbed internally is Samadhi.     So it is called Dhyana Samadhi. 2) How and why of meditation      (adapted from sayings of Bhagwan Rajneesh and P.D. Ouspensky) First, every thought is wrong. Whether right or wrong thought, it causes problems. Second, you have to get out of the mess of mind. You have to pull yourself out, because it is more difficult to pull the mess away. You are going to stand out of your mind, as a watcher. Whatever is going on in the mind, you don't even interfere. You simply watch, as if it is somebody else's business. In this indifferent aloofness, all thoughts disappear, and there is no mind - Watch the mind, and the mind disappears. Thus you achieve no-mind . So, wht is no-mind? It does not exactly mean the absence of mind; it is rather going beyond mind . (So you can live in the world and yet not be of the world.) Hui-neng said no-mind means: Not to think while in the midst of thoughts. Our meditation here is a state of such no-mind. This unfocused awareness (as a meditation) is the Sati and Samadhi all roled into one.    The pain comes from your mind,    And your mind is your past.    But the past is no more.    So pull youself out and just watch,    As if it's none of your business.    In short: Pull out and just watch. Now, here is a simple formula that will enable us to experience this no-mind right away: Ouspensky said, while visiting C.E.M. Joad in his deathbed,     It is a very simple matter. I am sitting here. you just close     your eyes and remember one thing: whatever is going before your     inner eye is the mind, and 'the presence' in front of which 'the     mind is passing' is the no-mind. You can soon perform this exercise, with your eyes open, anytime anywhere. (But not when you are driving a car - Safety comes first.) Also, the presence here - which is now the no-mind awareness that became you - can be wider than the inner eye: you can expand it wide enough to de-localize a painful _object_ nearby (your boss bullying you, perhaps). And the pain starts to disperse. Make the no-mind awareness bring in some sunshine (or the positive Yang- energy), and let it dazzle the remains of the pain. And the pain (i.e. your own negative force) is gone. This no-mind awareness in a person that keeps his precepts knows no limit timewise or spacewise; and is quite close, for motivational purposes, to the Dhyana Samadhi of Hui-neng and Wu-wei (no-action) of Lao-tzu. And you have a new Hua-tou (word head) to bring youself quickly into Zen anytime anywhere: Pull out, and just watch. Like Chao-chou's Mu (nothing). But, true Zen is a practice of no practice. (There is only ONE. So who is fooling who?) Zen Master Ta-hui (1089 - 1163) left his last verse a moment before he died:     Birth is thus     Death is thus     Verse or no verse     What's the fuss? 3) Goal of Zen meditation We have found out, in 1. above, what Zen medition is in words . We also have personally experienced the Zen meditaion in 2. above. Now our goal is to attain Enlightenment, thereby freeing ourselves from rebirth and sufferings. For this, we need resort to our poetic intuition rather than intellectual reasoning, since Enlightenment is a transcendental process. It is also a subtle process: According to hui-neng, the only difference between the enlightened one and an ordinary man is that one knows that he is enlightened and the other does not. Its basic idea in words is:    Go beyond words and letters,    To understand what Mind is directly.    This, then, is attaining Buddhahood. To achieve our goal, one can rely on an enlightened Master. Or, if a Master is not available, one can rely on the Four Noble Truths (Buddha's First Sermon, original version), or the Platform Sutra of Hui-neng. Once enlightened, it needs to be certified by an enlightened Master. Or, if such a Master is not available, one can certify himself using the benchmark contained in the Buddha's First Sermon (original version). In fact, our Buddha spoke this First Sermon to a few of his fellow Hindu ascetics for the sole purpose of awakening them (transcen- dence). Not to describe his newly obtained wisdom or vision (words). 4) Suggested readings To witness the arrival of the Buddha with his Four Noble Truths:    (Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught .     Grove Press, New York, 1974.) To remain in the Home of Zen :    (Hsuan Hua, The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewl Platform Sutra .     The Buddhist Text Translation Society, San Francisco, 1977.     ISBN 0-917512-19-7.) For a briefing on Zen in general:    (Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen .     Vintage Books, New York, 1957.) Zazen (sitting Zen) is an aid , not a goal. For its introduction:    (Shohaku Okamura (tr.), Shikantaza: An Introduction to Zazen .     Sotoshu Shumucho, Tokyo, 1996.) Koan (public case) is also an aid . It makes one doubt about his reality , so he can get himself awakened to True Reality. For an introduction to Koan practice, read:    (Zenkei Shibayama, Zen Comments on the Mumonkan .     Harper and Row, New York, 1974.) Books of the following types are to be avoided, because they make you feel that you know . (Zen is a serious business about not getting reborn as an animal .):    (Academic treatises on doctrinal systems, theological aspects,     Mahayana philosophy etc..     Best sellers and popular introductions to Buddhism, Zen,     Koan etc..     Zen circus of hilarious Zen Masters.     Any books on Buddhism that tend to stimulate one's biological     instincts.)

<<Books of the following types are to be avoided, because they make you feel that you know . (Zen is a serious business about not getting reborn as an animal .):   (Academic treatises on doctrinal systems, theological aspects, Mahayana philosophy etc..    Best sellers and popular introductions to Buddhism, Zen, Koan etc..    Zen circus of hilarious Zen Masters.    Any books on Buddhism that tend to stimulate one's biological instincts.) In fact, Chinese Chan masters are massively learned, and concede nothing in intellectuality to their less meditative colleagues (the present-day Hsing-yun and Sheng-yen are examples). If one doesn't learn Buddhist theory and simply dives in head-first practicing Chan (or especially Zen), one can end up spouting Hinduist themes as soon as one opens one's mouth, as we have seen on TRB with Barbara. Tang Huyen

Tragically, saying is easier than done. So it is not easy? And it is tragedy? Listen to this verse (actually it is not much more than a common sense ):    What is not easy    always turns out to be easy.    So that's why it is easy. [ Folks, THIS is how you get yourself awakened, in an instant, to the Reality (a.k.a. Non-duality). And it is a blessing. ]

they make you feel that you know . (Zen is a serious business about not getting reborn as an animal .):   (Academic treatises on doctrinal systems, theological aspects, Mahayana philosophy etc..    Best sellers and popular introductions to Buddhism, Zen, Koan etc..    Zen circus of hilarious Zen Masters.    Any books on Buddhism that tend to stimulate one's biological instincts.) In fact, Chinese Chan masters are massively learned, and concede nothing in intellectuality to their less meditative colleagues (the present-day Hsing-yun and Sheng-yen are examples). If one doesn't learn Buddhist theory and simply dives in head-first practicing Chan (or especially Zen), one can end up spouting Hinduist themes as soon as one opens one's mouth, as we have seen on TRB with Barbara. Tang Huyen If you are Enlightened, you can read anything and still learn something from it (in fact it will turn you into an efficient teacher). Why? Because you are, always, one with the Eightfold Path (RIGHT View, etc.). But, if you are not Enlightened, and yet keep on reading (to know more or better than your colleagues), then it is an indication that you are suffering from an insatiable Tanha. (You are not satisfied with just a few scoops of ice cream.) What benefit are you going to derive from this? A Zen sport? [ Folks, THIS is how one unenlightens himself - How one retreats himself a hundred yards from the Gate of Awakening after having arrived at it. If he had stayed in front of the gate, even the sound of the raindrops or his own shadow could have startled him into the gate. But now, even a Master would not be of much help:     Enlightened today,     Unenlightened tomorrow.     What a cycle! ]