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Chapter-Iii Fundamentals of Ch'an

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Chapter-Iii Fundamentals of Ch'an CHAPTER-III FUNDAMENTALS OF CH’AN The Ch’an is the Chinese form of “Dhyāna”. Dhyāna directs awareness inward for the awakening of inner self. Ch’an is a special transmission outside the scriptures; it does not depend on words. An Indian monk, Bodhidharma, brought this unique form of meditative school of Buddhist sect to China from India. Ch’an is transmitted through the living interaction of the master and the disciple. It is direct intuition of the mind. The aim of Ch’an is to experience the “Enlightenment” that the Śākyamuni Buddha experienced. Ch’an emphasized the primary importance of meditation practice as the means to realize one’s own intrinsic nature. The Ch’an Buddhist seeks the Buddha in the depth of his own heart. One’s ordinary mind is routine, mechanical, theoretical, logical, literal, narrow, conventional and full of desire. The Buddha nature is spontaneous, active, paradoxical, empty and has boundless compassion to alleviate sufferings of sentient beings. Thus, one’s effort is to overcome an ordinary mind, so that our true nature of the Buddha can appear. The Buddha nature is the true nature of oneself as well as the true nature of all beings in the universe. Realization of one’s own true nature brings about one’s inner affinity with the universe. 83 Ch’an breaks up the limitations of conceptual thoughts, tapping one’s intuition to transcend the mind. The famous sayings of the Ch’an: “Empty-handed I go, and behold, the spade is in my Hand; I walk on foot, yet on the back of an ox am I riding. When I pass over the bridge Lo, the water floweth not; it is the bridge doth flow”.49 Significance of Ch’an practice: The Fundamental principle of Ch’an practice is the liberation from suffering that comes from perceiving one’s own mind to attain the true nature of oneself and the true nature of the universe, thus manifesting this deep understanding of reality in one’s daily life. Ch’an emphasizes that the true nature of each individual is nothing less than the “Buddha nature” of infinite wisdom and compassion. Ch’an practice aims at the transformation of the mind to overcome and eliminate ordinary mental activity by replacing it with a direct intuition of one’s real nature as the “Buddha nature”. This is the stillness of the mind where all barriers that separate the individual mind from the reality are broken down. The sense of ego and self- identity are also overcome by Ch’an practice. Ch’an focuses on the search for Self- realization through meditation practices and sustains personal reflection on Gong’ an (Koan). Ch’an practices nourish the body and the mind through focusing, affirming, harmonizing and emptying the self. When deluded thinking is removed by Ch’an meditation, there is no objective and subjective self to be seen. The removal of delusion is accomplished through meditation practices of Ch’an. Initially, the Ch’an practice helps an aspirant to discover a multitude of wandering thoughts. Then the 49 . Zen Buddhism, Christmas Humphries, Pilgrims Publishing, 1949, Varanasi, P.12. 84 concentration develops and thoughts become unified and single-pointed, finally enabling the aspirant to realize no-mind or no self. “Our mind should stand aloof from circumstances, and on no account should we allow them to influence the function of our mind”.50 (The Sūtra of Wei Lang, p.49.) Ch’an practices help an aspirant to establish a specific state of awareness in which one can be always available in the existing moment. Significance of Self- effort in Ch’an: During Ch’an practice, patriarchs make great effort in sitting still in the lotus position; they are aware about the thought process in the storehouse of the mind, as it emerges into consciousness. The awareness established in Ch’an meditation helps one to understand the type of feeling that arises in one’s mind and allow them to pass for silencing the mind. Silencing the mind enables one to reach stillness. They do not budge from the spot, no matter what comes up. The stillness of the mind gained by Ch’an meditation channelizes one’s dissipated energy toward spiritual progress. Ch’an meditation is considered to be the “school of effort” or “self-power”. Doing nothing is the challenge; it requires the highest degree of self-mastery. This is the interesting paradox. The effect of Ch’an meditation is the peace and joy within oneself. Everything depends upon one’s sustained effort in the meditation. Ch’an is incommunicable. A Ch’an patriarch seeks awakening through direct experience, rather than through scriptural study. There is a prime difficulty in the transmission of Ch’an; it needs tremendous effort. Tradition of Ch’an began with the voiceless practices of “Silent Meditation” symbolized by Bodhi dharma’s “wall- gazing” for the duration of nine years and he found a right disciple worthy for the transmission of Ch’an. Silent meditation was an innovation of Ch’an tradition. 50 . Zen Buddhism, Christmas Humphries, Pilgrims Publishing, 1949, Varanasi. P.23. 85 Significance of Intuition in Ch’an: Intuition is the spiritual illumination that manifests in the absence of thought and senses the impressions of personal life. Intuition requires non-rational, enigmatic pointers for its expression. They occur like flashes of lightening. Ch’an is beyond discussion and beyond sway of the opposites. It belongs to the intuitive plane. Ch’an is an experience. Seeking nothing and practicing dharma is the aim of Ch’an. Bodhi dharma emphasized mind-to-mind transmission of Dharma without words in order to break attachments to verbal formulations. Bodhi dharma passed the seal of enlightment (Inkashomei) directly to the second patriarch Hui-Ke, who intuitively apprehended it. One morning, Śākyamuni Buddha was carrying a flower in his hand. He came and sat under a tree. The crowd waited for his sermon. He wouldn’t speak. He just went on looking at the flower. Mahākaśyapa couldn’t contain himself, he laughed loudly. Buddha called him, gave him the flower. Śākyamuni Buddha said to the crowd, “The key cannot be communicated verbally; I handed it over to Mahākaśyapa”. This was the transmission of mind seal. It represents the transmission of direct insight across the abyss of human understanding. The message passed by Śākyamuni Buddha through the mind seal is: 1. The truth cannot be explained by words. 2. There is no need to for search anything, everything is here and now, within oneself. 3. Silence and laughter is the key. Silence is within and laughter is without. Laughter comes out of silence. Meditation leads toward silence. Silence is followed by bliss leading to 86 enlightenment. Mahākaśyapa was the master of silence and the source of tradition of Ch’an. The Ch’an is an intuitive experience. Intuition can grasp even intellectual things. Ch’an is an experience and existential. The rest is silence and a finger pointing the way. The laughing Buddha Hotei, a monk during the later Liang Dynasty of China was pointing to the moon with his finger. Analyzing the pointer is pointless. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Truth cannot be described by words. Words in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger. The finger pointing to the moon is not the essence of the moon. Ch’an is all about experiencing the truth itself. The direct recognition of your true nature is available in every instant. The objective of Ch’an practice is restoring the experience of original inseparability through intrinsically pure mind. Practice of “Dhyāna” and “Enlightenment” in Ch’an: Dhyāna is the central practice of Ch’an and it aims to transform the mind by overcoming and eliminating ordinary mental activity through direct intuition of one’s true nature. The true nature is attained by dissolution of the sense of ego. This state of emptiness is called “WU” in Chinese. According to Ch’an, this is momentary illumination. At this state, everything has transformed and at the same time, nothing has changed; everything is in still point and one sees the things in a new perspective. “The moon’s the same old moon, The flowers exactly as they were, Yet I’ve become the thingness Of all the things I see!”51 (Bunan) 51. The Major Religions, T. Patrick Burke, Blackwell Publishing, 1996, Australia, p. 194. 87 According to Ch’an, meditation is not a process toward enlightenment. Meditation itself is the enlightenment as Śākyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating in “Silent Sitting”. Meditation is full awareness of everything that arises in the mind within the posture of silent sitting. The original condition of mind delights in the miracle of daily life, enjoys each breath, savors each taste and looks naturally with the eyes of love. The aim of Ch’an Buddhism is to allow our original nature to function. The essential intervention required for Ch’an (Zen) meditation is stopping of scattered mind to gain one-pointedness of mind through the practice of Śamatha. Śamatha” is the basic form of Buddhist meditation emphasized by Śākyamuni Buddha for stabilization of mind. This meditation helps to interlude a few moments in which an aspirant returns one’s attention to immediate reality. The “silent sitting meditation” of Ch’an follows the principle of “śamatha”. Ch’an emphasizes the importance of attaining inner stillness through “dhyāna”, the crucial path of enlightenment.
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