ZEN - CH'AN PRACTICE IN
CULTIVATION
21.1 What
is Ch'an (Zen)?
Ch'an Buddhism is the core of Buddhism. Once, after a sermon, Gautama
Buddha (Shakyamuni) held up a flower before the assembly and the only
person who understood the profound meaning of this gesture was Mahakasypa;
he responded with a smile. Subsequently, the Buddha said "Here
the Tathagata's Dharma-Eye, profound Nirvanic Mind, formless Reality,
profound and mystical Dharma, the wordless Doctrine, Special Transmission
outside the Scriptures, now I transmit to Mahakasypa to be my successor."
Thus Mahakasypa became the First Patriarch of Ch'an in India.
The founder of Ch'an in China is Bodhidharma who came to that country
from India during the reign of the Emperor of Liang Wu-ti in the sixth
century A.D. Since then down to the Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng, Ch'an
had a large number of followers. At that time, the general practice
of Ch'an was to point directly at one's mind with just a few understanding
words and one became enlightened instantly. From this it can be seen
that the Ch'an practice depends on no words and emphasizes no setting
up of words and letters.
21.2 Realizing
the True Mind
Fundamentally, inexplicable by words, Ch'an is the mind-to-mind
transmission in a simple, direct manner and to the point.
Our mind is always illusory in its creation and cessation, and the
conceptual thought in our mind is basically false. A mind of inequality
and discrimination is the source of affliction. If we can refrain
from thinking of anything and keep our mind blank and free from conceptual
thought, we will see the spontaneous manifestation of essence
of the self-mind by itself at that instant.
In reality, a blank and empty mind is nothing unusual in everyday
life, but because it comes in a flash, we are unaware of it and so
let it slip by unknowingly, thus missing the opportunity of self-experiencing
when we would probably say "Oh! there you are."
as a mark of recognition. However, as thoughts come and go in succession,
there is bound to be an interval in which the preceding thought has
gone while the succeeding thought is still unborn, so we cannot help
asking this question. "What sort of phenomenon is this?" If we look into the mind pointedly
and vigilantly, we will realize our understanding of its reality spontaneously
and instantaneously. (Please note that all this is said in the above
is only verbal communication and nothing of concrete value,
but the moment you experience self-realization, Truth is right before
you).
21.3 Ch'an
Hua Tou
Now we may see that the Ch'an practice is to realize the true nature
of the mind, to point directly to it and to be aware of what it is
here and now, and from this standpoint, fundamentally the so-called
Ch'an Hua Tou and raising a doubt methods of cultivation should
have been out of place in the Ch'an practice. However, in view of
the fact that at later period practitioners, generally of inferior
root and dull mentality and being unable to see the mind directly,
used to indulge themselves in the verbal Ch'an practice (they merely
talked about Ch'an) to outwit each other, the Patriarchs and Ch'an
Masters had to rectify them by adopting the expedient means of Ch'an
Hua Tou.
The practice of Ch'an Hua Tou is to halt the mind, usually distracted
by the external influence of the environment, and to turn it to look
inward and to concentrate with the utmost attention on that thought
provoking sentence known as Hua Tou. (If one cannot evoke one's attention
in the practice, this simply shows one's lack of sincerity). Hence,
the greater doubt, the greater understanding and inversely speaking,
the less doubt, the less understanding. Because of its power of illuminating
wisdom and intensifying concentration, the practice of Ch'an Hua Tou
is really a profound Dharma to discipline the mind. Some of the popular
thought provoking sentences for practicing Ch'an Hua Tou are as follows:
"All things return to the One, but where does the
One return?"
"Before I was born, where is that Fundamental
Face?"
"Who is reciting Buddha?", etc. etc.
"Who" is the most important word among those
Hua Tou, for as soon as it is said, instantly it raises the point
of doubt.
21.4 A Probe
in Cultivation
How is it that the Ch'an practice can lead one to probe into Truth?
Master Hsu Yun says: "Regarding the question Who
is reciting Buddha?, everyone knows that 'Who' refers to the reciter himself. But is recitation done by
the mouth or by the mind? If he does it by the mouth, why can't he
do it after death? And if it is done by the mind, who knows that the
mind does it since the mind is unattainable? So the practitioner should
concentrate his attention on the question word 'Who',
the key word of the Hua Tou, and also should recite softly and not
harshly; the softer, the better; he should look into that question-word
with awareness of the time. As long as the point of doubt remains,
concentrate your awareness of it but if the doubt is not present,
try to recall it gently". The practice of Ch'an Hua Tou does
not call for vigorous and persistent repetition as the Name-reciting
method does, also it is different from the way of solving a riddle
for it defies all subjective thinking and conceptualization for dialectical
purpose; in the view of Ch'an Masters, even the thought to attain
wisdom and enlightenment is itself a hindrance to the practice of
Ch'an Hau Tou, and all worldly views and saintly interpretations should
be done away with totally!
In short, every practitioner should look inward and give full attention
and intense concentration on the point of doubt so as to be aware
of it continuously without break. At the beginning of the practice,
most likely wandering thoughts would come about only too frequently,
but if the practitioner may just ignore them and concentrate on the
enquiry, he should be able to keep up his awareness. The longer the
practice, the better he will develop and enhance his awareness, and
when the moment of perfect practice arrives, all thoughts and even
the point of doubt would drop out automatically, then by self-experiencing,
the fundamental still and illuminating Self-Nature would be spontaneously
realized. Now that we can realize the substance of the mind, we should
extend its functions to all activities of daily life, and so much
we may wipe out our passions, so much we may enhance the power of
concentration and wisdom and so much we would liberate ourselves from
the environmental influence and enjoy true freedom, this may be said
to be the crowning achievement of cultivating Buddhism.