2. How to Meditate
This essay is designed to clarify the meaning of Zen meditation, and deals with the world of enlightenment, the attitude of meditation and the method of pursuing the hwadu.
A. The Meaning of Zen Meditation
To sum up in a few words, Zen meditation is the practice of returning to the native land of the mind. Man's mind, be it Buddha's or chungsaeng's (衆生) (jantu's, meaning ordinary people's), is not different in nature. But Buddha's is the enlightened mind; ordinary people's minds are shrouded by clouds of pŏnnoe (煩惱), klesa, or human anguish, and thus not enlightened.
All ordinary people use their minds. Although they use them every day, they are engulfed by the ramifications of the storms arising from karma, of arrogance, envy, jealousy, greed, affection, fear, and anxiety. Their minds are not at rest because of this. But if we make it a rule to practice Zen meditation, the time will come when human anguish has disappeared and the mind has brightened. When this happens, you will always be happy and worldly affairs will materialize as you wish, as all ramifications of karma will have perished.
B. The State of Enlightenment
When you have reached the native land of the mind, you will discover that this land is immense and illimitable; You do not yet know how immense it is. There exist hundreds of millions of Buddhas and an untold number of Bodhi-sattvas. The native land of the mind is a land of ten-thousand kilometers which has tens of millions of houses. It's so immense, tremendously immense. If you knock on the door of one house, there will appear Sakyamuni Buddhas and Maitreya Buddha. If you knock on the door of another house, Munsu posal (文殊菩薩), Manjusri Buddha, Pohyŏn posal (普賢菩薩), Samantabhradra Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, Chijang posal (地藏菩薩), and Ksitigarbha Buddha will answer the doors.
The law of Zen meditation is mysterious. If you have been enlightened, you will find that there is no land of yukto (六道), the six gati, or six realms of life; no distinction between pŏmbu (凡夫), prthag-jana, or average men, and saints. If you have been enlightened, the saba segye (娑婆世界), the sabha, or the mundane world, will turn into the land of eternal bliss. Then you will never again see the 84,000 configurations of anguish.
If you have entered, through Zen meditation, the native land of the mind, you will enjoy supreme happiness. If you have entered the native land of the mind, the universe will turn into the land of gold, and the rivers, mountains and woodlands will always be bright. The birds will preach prajna. This is the land of enlightenment. Once you have entered the state of enlightenment, you will no longer worry about birth and death.
What is meant by death? It means changing clothes because you have outlived your clothing. Therefore, the enlightened are not interested in the problem of life and death. To the eyes of the enlightened, Buddhism in itself does not have to do with life and death.
There are no clouds in the clear autumn sky. However, the eyes of the beholder will tend to maintain a trace of illusion, which hinders them from seeing the matter as it is. The fact of life and death has something to do with this principle of the flicker of illusion. If you have returned to the original state of mind, you will be able to overcome the flicker of illusion and see the truth itself. Once you have seen the truth itself, you will never be tainted with the affairs of the world because the truth itself is spotless, it will not become dirty again.
There once lived in China a toin by the name of monk Lai-ts'an (懶瓚). Hearing that he was a monk of high caliber, the king invited him to the palace and asked him to present a discourse. When the messenger arrived at the monk's place, he was eating a very modest meal of herbal roots baked on a heap of horseshit and cowshit. The messenger offered three bows and said, "His Highness the king has invited you to the palace."
Lai-ts'an didn't even bother listening to this invitation. The messenger returned and reported his refusal to the king, and the king ordered him to fetch the monk. The messenger again delivered the king's message, but the toin did not budge. His appearance was dirty, his nose was running, and his ragged clothes were smeared with dirt. He sat eating the herbal roots. "Sŏnim, why don't you wipe the water from your nose?"
"Nonsense!"
The messenger returned without him, but the king did not accept his refusal. The king again ordered his messenger to go and fetch Lai-ts'an. Anyone who refused the king's order three times was subject to death. On seeing the messenger for the third time, the monk proffered his head. He knew his third refusal of the king's invitation would result in bring the end of his life.
The story of toin Lai-ts'an will provide you with a role model for the practice of meditation. Where does the power to transcend death come from? It is possible only when you have attained a high place of supremacy through the successful practice of meditation.
These days, we hear various people say that they have emptied their minds or something to that effect. That's a lie. That's utter nonsense. Minds can't be emptied. Ordinary people are shrouded by layers of feelings and emotions toward each other and toward other things. They feel greed at the sight of money. When they see beautiful things, they feel the urge to buy them. They feel envy, fear and anxiety. These are the evil feelings and emotions which are experienced while metamorphosing on the wheels of the six gati. These feelings can't be erased merely by your decision to do so, that is, your decision not to feel them. They can be dispelled only through the laborious practice of Zen meditation.
What counts foremost is the attainment of the death mind, which is not afraid of death and which is oblivious of the inner and outer peripheries of mind. What counts next is the ability to spend a considerable amount of time maintaining this state of the death-mind. In other words, you must go through the mind of nothingness, which can only be acquired through fortitude, which in turn is earned through time and effort.
C. The Posture During Meditation
The posture you maintain during meditation is very important. You must sit, preferably in the lotus position, with your eyes sightly open, neither widely open nor closed. You must put your hwadu, your subject for meditation, on an imagined point one meter in front of and below your eyes. An incorrect sitting position will hinder you from practicing long hours of meditation. The study of the hwadu requires profound concentration of mind; this is made possible by the correct posture, the best of which is the posture of kabujwa (跏趺坐), meaning the asana., the lotus position.
What is vital is the position of the hwadu--where do you place the hwadu? I say here that you must place your hwadu out of your body. More correctly, one meter below and in front of you, not directly under you. Of course 'place' here means to position of the hwadu, at imagined point, not a physical one. If you place the hwadu in the brain or the head, it will bring the vital force upwards, which makes it impossible for you to continue your meditation for long hours because the head will feel heavy. So you must place your precepts and set themes below eye-level in front of you and explore them with intensity.
D. The Deliberation of Precepts
The deliberation on precepts should be performed with intensity and thoroughness, so intense that it can be compared to the parent's mind which is intently thinking of a lost only child. Intense deliberation on the hwadu makes styana, the state of lethargy, vanish. The occurrence of lethargy and illusion stems from the cursory pursuit of the hwadu and consequent derailment from the original quest of the precepts. However, if your determination is strong, such deviation will not exercise any influence on you.
Explore your precepts deeply, intently and ceaselessly. You must brace yourselves for this probe of the precepts. Make up your minds to assuredly discover a new world. Even at mealtimes with your family, during chitchat, once you're engrossed in the deliberation of precepts, you won't be able to hear a word of their conversation. Go one step further and explore every corner of your precepts thoroughly and purposefully, doubting everything; this will end up paralyzing, figuratively speaking, the senses so that you will be forgetful of the passage of time. The act of deliberation will progress like flowing water, silently and without your noticing it.
This is how we should pursue the hwadu. However, if your deliberation is cursory, to the extent that you are thinking blindly of family matters and worldly things, your are far from the real exploration of koans or the precepts. This principle is, of course, equally true for monks on a mountain retreat. If he or she does not set his or her heart wholly on the deliberation on precepts, and instead is thinking of something else, then he or she is deviating from the way of truth. You must wrestle with this one thing--hwadu deliberation, while you are sitting or standing, cleaning the room, cooking meals, or growing vegetables in the field. You must focus your concentration on one invisible thing, hwadu exploration, while your bodies perform their physical tasks. While you are exerting yourselves on this one thing, all other undesirable hindrances and illusions will be put to rest. In brief, the intense search for the truth keeps other illusions from arising in your mind.
Following someone else's example is not enough. The motivation must wholly be yours. You must do this with your own motivation and with determination. The deliberation on precepts must be motivated by the desire to free yourselves from the pain of birth, aging, illness, and death. On the basis of the fruits you have harvested in this world, your future will be determined.
E. Making Wishes
Making wishes during morning and evening prayers is very important. When you pray to the Buddhas, I want you to wish that your hwadu exploration will be fulfilled and bear fruit. The earlier Zen masters made earnest wishes, saying, "May my wishes be fulfilled. I wish to meet a good mentor and be guided to enlightenment." The earlier Buddhas and Zen masters made such wishes and thus dharma fruits were born. I want today's young priests and meditation practitioners to sincerely wish that they will realize the precepts exhaustively and completely. Devotion, courage and wishes are the three key elements for your enlightenment. To make consistent progress in the study of precepts, I want you to hold on to these three ingredients of hwadu study. Only if you have made sincere efforts will you see the world of the hwadu unfold before your eyes. Then, with an open mind, you will be wise enough to know 84,000 kinds of wisdom. If your mind is open, you are a Buddha; and if you are a Buddha, you will become omniscient and omnipotent.
Once your approach is correctly established, you don't have to cling to the sitting position only. In short, posture has nothing to do with Zen meditation. Meditation with the hwadu must always be in progress, while you're sitting or standing, resting or working. You must hold on to your hwadu at any time and at any place--in the office, during a subway ride, or on an airplane.
F. When to Use It
You must make the investigation of the hwadu a part of your daily routine. Notwithstanding that, if the presence of the kongan vanishes when you are changing to a standing position from a sitting posture, you don't deserve to be called a student of Zen meditation. The study of Zen is especially useful when you meet the p'alp'ung (八風), 8 kinds of disaster, and when you meet emergencies. In other words, you must practice hwadu meditation not only during calm and favorable circumstances, but also in difficult and dangerous places and times, so that you maintain composure during emergencies, such as earthquakes or fires. You should remain peaceful all the time, not only in good circumstances but in bad circumstances aw well.
The reason we learn sitting meditation is that it is the easiest method. After you are familiar with sitting meditation, you should try moving meditation. When you are conversant with meditating while waling, talking, and working at your job, and your mind is continually concentrated on the hwadu, the power of practice will become effective.
Life is short, truly short indeed. Unawares, you turn sixty or seventy. You become ill and death is near at hand. People are usually perplexed at the short time span remaining and they are at a loss as to what to do. They feel regret. They feel cornered. They cower at the sight of death. There is no way to escape.
From now on make your belief in practice and inquiry into the hwadu deeper, with full heartedness and unlimited passion. As a result, when the truth appears in front of your eyes and remains there, you will obtain a state in which your sense of sight, hearing, and of passing time will cease. If you remain in this way for one week, one month, and then one year, you will meet an opportunity, and your spiritual mind will open widely.
It is rare to have the chance to meet and learn this dharma with correct guidance, even though you are reborn as a human being one thousand or ten thousand times. Thus, the predecessors said, "Because of the many-fold karma piled up so many times from previous lives, the sentient being has great difficulty in encountering this dharma." I hope that you, who meet the dharma right now, will devote yourself arduously to dharma practice in this life, and enjoy dharma-instructed happiness in your future lives.
Today, I lectured on how to practice. You, practitioners! Sit facing the wall, and check to see whether your sitting posture is correct or not. Open your eyes properly, place the hwadu one meter away from your eyes, and inquire into it, concentrating your entire mind on it. You should figure out the entire hwadu before you inquire into it. If it becomes obscure and various things disturb your mind, try to figure out the entire hwadu, from its head to its tail, and inquire into it. While you are making efforts in this way, suddenly you may have the chance to truly inquire into the hwadu. At this time a strong notion will clearly emerge. When this happens, you should inquire thoroughly; the entire hwadu must flow like clear water. Then you will not be misled by what you see or hear. If your hwadu practice becomes consistent like this, you will obtain enlightenment sooner or later. Devote yourself until you become enlightened.
[ Lecture for the office workers, June,1992]
>>> Return Home