eople who have never had a taste “Pof Chan often like to speculate about enlightenment. But lacking a clear sense of what the Dharma actu- ally entails, they tend to delight in the exotic and cook up all kinds of strange fantasies . Enlightenment is not something that can be comprehended by philosophical speculation or flights of the occult imagination. Should you even be tempted to conjecture or fanta- size about it, you will actually be mov- ing farther and farther away from it. You will be heading south when you should be going north!” —Chan Master Sheng Yen From Hoofprint of the Ox Winter 2005 Chan Magazine 1 Chan Magazine Volume 23,25, Number 41 Autumn,Winter, 2005 2003 Chan Magazine is published quarterly by the Institute of Chung-Hwa Buddhist Culture, Chan Meditation Center, 90-56 Corona Avenue, Elmhurst, NY 11373. The magazine is a non-profit venture; it accepts no advertising and is supported solely by contributions from members of the Chan Center and the readership. Donations to support the magazine and other Chan Center activities may be sent to the above address and will be gratefully appreciated. Your donation is tax-deductible. For information about Chan Center activities please call (718) 592-6593. For Dharma Drum Publications please call (718) 592-0915. E-mail the Center at [email protected], or the magazine at [email protected], or visit us online at: http://www.chancenter.org. Founder/Teacher Chan Master Ven. Dr. Sheng Yen Editor-in-chief David Berman Coordinator Virginia Tan News editor Belia Pena Photography DavidJeffrey KabacinskiFang (Chang Wen) Contributing editors Ernie Heau, Chris Marano, Virginia Tan, Wei TanTan, Tiffany Hoya Contributors ContributorsRikki Asher, Berle Driscoll, Jeffrey Kung, Rebecca Li, Char- lotteRikki Mansfield, Asher, Berle Mike Driscoll, Morical, Jeffrey Bruce Kung, Rickenbacker, Rebecca Li, Wei Char- Tan,lotte TanMansfield, Yee Wong Mike (Chang Morical, Ji) Bruce Rickenbacker, Wei Tan, Tan Yee Wong (Chang Ji Shi) Administrator AdministratorGuo Chen Shi Guo Chii Shi Chan Magazine Winter 2005 Winter 2005 Chan Magazine 2 3 Chan Magazine Volume 23, Number 4 Autumn, 2003 Chan Magazine is published quarterly by the Institute of Chung-Hwa Buddhist Culture, Chan Meditation Center, 90-56 Corona Avenue, Elmhurst, NY 11373. The magazine is a non-profit venture; it accepts no advertising and is From the Editor 4 supported solely by contributions from members of the Chan Center and the readership. Donations to support the magazine and other Chan Center activities may be sent to Dharma of Teachings, Dharma of Mind 6 the above address and will be gratefully appreciated. Your donation is tax-deductible. For information about Chan The second in a series of lectures based on the Center activities please call (718) 592-6593. For Dharma Platform Sutra by Chan Master Sheng Yen Drum Publications please call (718) 592-0915. E-mail the Center at [email protected], or the magazine at [email protected], or visit us online at: Dorothy Weiner 1921 – 2004 14 http://www.chancenter.org. A tribute to the late Dorothy Weiner from her fellow-practitioners Founder/Teacher Chan Master Ven. Dr. Sheng Yen “After doing everything...?” 18 Editor-in-chief Retreat Report by A.S. David Berman Coordinator “Razorwire, Concrete and the Buddha” 20 Virginia Tan Poem and drawing by Richard Lee Gregg News editor Belia Pena “The Sound of Silence...” 22 Photography Retreat Report by J.R. David Kabacinski (Chang Wen) Contributing editors Haiku 24 Ernie Heau, Chris Marano, Virginia Tan, Wei Tan by Chang Jao Contributors Rikki Asher, Berle Driscoll, Jeffrey Kung, Rebecca Li, Char- lotte Mansfield, Mike Morical, Bruce Rickenbacker, Wei The Past 25 Tan, Tan Yee Wong (Chang Ji) News from the Chan Meditation Center and DDMBA Administrator Guo Chen Shi The Future 32 Retreats, classes, and other upcoming events Chan Center Affi liates 34 Chan Magazine Winter 2005 Winter 2005 Chan Magazine 2 3 From The Editor Buddhist practice is about turning from delu- writes, but “by the most significant measures sion back to reality, to paraphrase Bodhid- New York is the greenest community in the harma, and one of the delights of practice is United States, and one of the greenest cities the continual rediscovery of how smoothly in the world.” seductive delusion can be, and how counter- intuitive reality. How so? The first and foremost environmen- tal menace is the burning of fossil fuels, and Our views on the environment, for example. New Yorkers are the most fossil-fuel-efficient We at the Chan Center certainly think of our- people in America. Over 80% of us don’t drive selves as an environmentally friendly bunch: to work, we’re the most efficient users of elec- everything is printed on the back of some- tricity in the nation, and we live in apartment thing that had been printed before; paper buildings—those three facts alone make us teacups are initialed and re-used until they the country’s leading practicing environmen- melt away; the stacks of institutional brown talists. “If [New York City] were granted state- paper towels are cut up so they can be used a hood,” says Owen, it would be the twelfth half-sheet at a time. And when we opened the most populous state, but “would rank fifty- Dharma Drum Retreat Center in pastoral Pine first in per-capita energy use.” Bush, I’m sure everyone thought, as I did, that the move was perfectly in keeping with The main factor contributing to New York’s that environmentalism: we were getting out energy-efficiency is the same thing that gives of the city, the very capital of the profligacy it a bad environmental image—population and pollution of modern life, and going back density. New York City is 800 times more to the land, where life was simple and the air crowded than the nation as a whole, and it was clean. is that very compactness that limits our op- portunities to be wasteful. If you took the No thanks to us. As it turns out, the old population of New York and gave each of us Chan retreats in our three-story brick hovel the amount of space that people have in sub- on a crowded block in Elmhurst cost only a urban Connecticut, for example, we’d fill up fraction of the energy per meditator than the all of New England plus Delaware and New same activities held in the rolling Shawan- Jersey, we’d all have to buy cars, our electric- gunk foothills. ity consumption would quadruple, and much of our heating and cooling would be going, In an article in The New Yorker of Oct. 18, the literally, through the roof. writer David Owen demonstrates with alarm- ing clarity that many of us who try to be en- Which is approximately what we’ve done vironmentally friendly have been making the by relocating Chan retreats from a couple wrong friends. We tend to “think of New York thousand square feet in Queens to 120 acres City as an environmental nightmare,” Owens Chan Magazine Winter 2005 Winter 2005 Chan Magazine 4 5 upstate. First there’s the cost, in fossil fuel, of amined assumption, which as a phenomenon getting to and from Pine Bush; then there’s is quite a bit more widespread, and quite a the inherent inefficiency of all those widely bit more energy-expensive than meditation, separated one and two-story buildings; and whether urban or rural. It turns out to be we haven’t even touched on the land-use poli- false that big cities are environmental disas- tics of giving every retreatant more than an ters, and false that moving to the country is acre to him or herself… good for the planet…but it turns out to be true that, as the old saying goes, the best But this isn’t meant to be a polemic against place to practice Chan is in the busy intersec- the retreat center, which as an environment tion. In more ways than one. for practice is worth every calorie it costs. If it’s a polemic against anything, it’s the unex- Chan Magazine Winter 2005 Winter 2005 Chan Magazine 4 5 Dharma of Teachings, Dharma of Mind by Chan Master Sheng Yen In May of 2003, Master Sheng Yen held a Chan Retreat in Moscow that was organized by Wuji- men, a Russian martial arts club. During the retreat, Master Sheng Yen lectured on teachings from the Platform Sutra by the Sixth Patriarch Huineng. This is the second of six articles based on those lectures. Douglas Gildow made the oral translation from Chinese to English. Tran- scriptions were prepared by Chang Wen Shi, Bruce Rickenbacher, and Victor Ku, and edited by Ernest Heau with assistance from Chang Wen Shi. May 11, Morning Lecture After learning how to relax, you should apply two rules in your practice. The first is: “Let go By now you have learned something about of all forms.” “Forms” can be understood gen- how to relax. By relaxing you will be able to erally as phenomena or objects of perception. put down your burdens of body and mind. So letting go of all forms means realizing When we find it difficult to relax our bodies, formlessness. So, please let go of all forms. we also find it difficult to relax our minds. The second rule is: “Let all affairs come to If we have expectations, then we’re seeking rest.” This means putting down all mental something. If we have fear, we’re rejecting and bodily concerns. something or we lack security. This results in nervousness and tension.