Dharma Talk, June 17, 2013: What is Ch'an?

Download: http://www.riversidechan.org/lectures/Dharma_Talk_20130617.mp3
Today, we're going to go back to the basics. Talking about the basics makes me laugh because the basics is actually very deep but in some ways they are also simple. The topic today is: What is Chan? Chan comes from the word Dhyana, the Sanskrit word meaning practice. Later, it was adapted by the Japanese to the word Zen.
It's an interesting thing in terms of the word “practice” to define what Chan is. It is a question of practicing what? What do we practice? That is where a lot of people make a mistake in terms of practicing. What do you think we practice?
Student: (inaudible due to some technical difficulty)
Another student: Knowing how the mind works.
Gilbert: And what is this mind, this ordinary mind? What are the three marks? Where does the “you” come in?
Student: The “you” doesn’t come in.
Gilbert: It doesn't?
Student: In the ordinary mind, there is no “you”. In the extra- ordinary mind or whatever extra-ordinary you’re thinking of, there is “you.”
Gilbert: What is this ordinary mind?
Student: Ordinary mind is no-self and no different from mind itself.
Gilbert: What part of mind is this moment?
Student: Mind is this moment. There is no carving this moment out of mind.
Gilbert: Does this mind have any thought?
Student: Thoughts come and go but thoughts are not taken to be mind.
Gilbert: What takes it to not be taken to be mind?
Student: When there is no delusion about this person and being as a separate entity to come in between in the experience of the six senses. There is no claiming responsibility.
Gilbert: What experiences the six senses?
Student: There is just awareness but in between awareness, therein arise self that claims the six senses as a self, all the karmic imprints that come up as the characteristic of the self.
Gilbert: Of the real self or the illusory self?
Student: The illusory self that goes, “That’s me. That’s me. That’s me.”
Gilbert: And then what experiences that?
Student: It’s just awareness. Are you talking about consciousness?
Gilbert: I’m asking the questions.
Student: I’m talking about the six-sense consciousness and the karmic imprints of the eight consciousnesses being appropriated as the self.
Gilbert: And what sees that clearly?
Student: Mind can see that clearly.
Gilbert: Did you guys follow along with that or did you get lost in the way? If you don’t know what key we’re playing, that’s okay; don't worry. You’ll be alright.
In order for us to practice Chan, we have to know what we’re practicing. It does us no good to practice in a way which we believe that we’re purifying the consciousness so that we can become a better self. The self-nature of mind is pure in itself. It functions perfectly. The problem is because of our habit energy - of the illusory self, then we cling to the appearances in mind that arising consciousness and believe consciousness to be mind; whereas, mind is that which experiences everything. The experiences that arise in mind are illusory. They come and they go; they come and they go. But nevertheless, that which is aware of them is mind.
What we have to do in our practice is become aware what is transitory, what is impermanent that arises in mind, and not take that for mind. When we try to perfect our illusory self, it's not possible for us to do that because that illusory self rises and falls in accordance with causes and conditions. It can never be perfected. We just need to turn the mind's eye inward and allow awareness to simply illuminate what is arising moment-to-moment so we can see clearly and we become aware of the causes that brought forth that condition in mind. Not thinking about it, just simply the mind perfectly reflecting the past, the present, the future; all potentialities, all things that have come and gone, and leave traces and echoes in the mind that we take for us to be our thinking.
When we are able to practice in a clear way, then when we sit to meditate, our meditation can be fruitful. Without this kind of approach, our meditation, although we may begin to develop concentration of the mind will not produce a result in wisdom of a higher order. It may produce a worldly wisdom but it cannot produce transcendent wisdom to look and see clearly what mind is.
This is essential, absolutely essential for you to start your practice. If you’re an experienced practitioner, you have to approach it from this viewpoint. If you're new to the practice, you should rejoice in the fact that you are receiving correct instruction and that you're not going to be wasting years sitting on the cushion waiting to become enlightened. Those who have been practicing for a long time, this should serve as a way of fine tuning your practice so that you're not confused about what the practice is and what you’re doing on the cushion. On the cushion, what one master said, is for the dull, the slow-witted. Obviously, he had pretty high standards for his students.
Essentially, it’s there to bring forth a method of practice that one can control the mind. The mind can be controlled moment to moment. We need not be sitting on the cushion to control mind. What is this controlling the mind that I'm talking about? It is not preventing thoughts from arising. It's not wishing thoughts would leave the mind or pretend that we've had some kind of illuminating nor enlightening experience. It just simply controlling that we do not attach to the thoughts that arise in the mind. We attach to the thoughts that are necessary to perform the function that were doing at any given moment. But other than those thoughts, we don't allow thoughts to remain in the mind or to repeat the thoughts again so that it becomes a repetitive pattern.
For instance, somebody who was looking at a piece of fudge and every time they look at that piece of fudge, their mouth salivates or they get hungry and they want that piece of fudge. Then the next time somebody says “fudge” like I just did, people are going to go, “I like fudge. I want fudge with walnuts” or whatever it is that that tickles your fancy. All of that is there.
But when we’re practicing and the word “fudge” comes up, we not only see the word “fudge” but we see that which races towards it and says, “I want!” We can see that as well. We don't take that to be us. We take that to be an echo from the past – a past desire, past connection so that we let it go. This is controlling the mind - by not allowing it to attach to any thought to create a stream of consciousness based on attachment.
It’s kind of like (I mentioned a long time ago), Tarzan going through the forest and grabbing one vine and then attaching to the next one, and the next one as he is going through and the only thing that keeps him going through the air is the grasping the vine in front of him. The vine that he let's go is the cause of him being able to grab this vine in front of him. But to him he thinks he's flying through the forest. Our trick is not to make the vines disappear but to understand why they appear and to not attach to them.
This is essential for our practice. It is very essential. Without this, there can be no practice. Without this, you are in a foolish way of practicing that will never produce the proper fruit. This is why I exhort you now to really pay attention; beginners and experienced practitioners, to listen carefully to what I’m saying so that you will not make a mistake in your practice. If you take heed of what I'm talking about, your practice is going to be a very good practice. It’s going to settle down very quickly. If you don't, then you're going to be flustered and create doubt in your mind as to your ability every time you sit to meditate or try to apply Chan to your daily practice because you will think that it's not working. But it’s just simply because of the fact that you lacked the requisite understanding of the practice to be able to practice properly.
There are two major works in the Chan School regarding the essentials of the Chan practice. One of them is from Xu Yun, Master Empty Cloud who was my master's master’s Master and Hanshan, from quite a long time ago about 1200 years ago that also said the essentials for the practice for the beginners. These beginners that he's talking about are already at a very deep level if you look at it and say what you really need to do. What these two masters did was lay out what you need. It's like somebody who wants to become a computer repair specialist. They first have to have a manual of how the computer works. Then you have to have the requisite tools there necessary to do the job. What these Masters did (separated from several hundred years) is lay out what one needs to practice in the way they practiced.
We’ll start with the first one, Master Hsu Yun. Master Xu Yun said:
“The objective of the Chan practice is to illuminate the mind by eradicating its impurities and seeing into one’s true self-nature.”
This is the very key and it represents the Mahayana approach to the Buddhist studies based on the Madhyamaka School and the idea of a self-nature which is emphasized in that school, versus one attaining nirvana from the Theravadin School. So, what they're doing is looking at it and saying that the object of the Chan practice is to illuminate the mind. We illuminate the mind by eradicating impurities. Eradicating the impurities are not the thoughts themselves but the attachment to the thoughts. As one begins to practice, they see them. There is this colorless, odorless, formless attachment that arises, that we, from time beginning, have thought it to be our self-nature. But it is actually an illusory self that arises simply because of the habits that are there.
So for instance, if one was to eat fudge and I brought in a whole big pound-box of fudge for each of you and I said, “Before the day is done, I want you to eat this pound of fudge.” Chances are, next week if I offered you a box of fudge, you would not like it; “No thank you!” So that can’t be that permanent self that likes fudge the first time because the next week it changed. Now instead of desire, there is aversion that arises simply because of the causes and conditions. If we understand that that is not our essential mind, then we see clearly. We see clearly what's arising in the mind and we don't take these transitory moments to be our self-nature. By doing that, what happens is that it enables us to be able to realize our self-nature.
Realizing does not mean to attain your self-nature. It means to recognize that it’s right there in everything that arises in mind and everything that sees what’s arising in mind is your self-nature and you are not disoriented as to what’s happening in mind. We go through life all the time becoming disoriented about things that we want or we desire and it can really affect you a lot. You may want something very bad. Have you ever wanted something really bad that when you got it, you went like, “This isn’t all that great!” You are disoriented into thinking about that. I know you probably moved on from that relationship but in any case, you were disoriented into thinking this is what I really wanted or whatever it is that came up.
This is the practice of Chan. It runs directly into the world but it sees it as arising from causes and conditions. When we see the world in this way, it's decipherable. We can break the code. We can see what's coming up. We can see that if we say this or this or this, these outcomes are possible from what we’re doing. It gives us that 3-second break that TV has to be able to make sure we want to censor our thought or censor our tongue and to anything that we do or our body and to any actions that we do. So you watch things in this way.
It is like a person who sees a bug and their immediate instinct is to crush it. But you can see that later on, there's a little bit of change. Some people just simply crush them. Other people will say, “No, I don't need to crush it. We can take it outside and try to save it.” It gives you that opportunity to weigh those options as to what it is.
Master Xu Yun said:
“Put down all entangling conditions; let not one thought arise.”
Putting down all entangling conditions - the entanglement is when one attaches to something that's arising in mind. When we attach to it, that causes the problem. All that I’ve been teaching you for the past year, he's already said it. He’d already said what I’ve been teaching you - of putting down the attachment; putting down that part that we can't see. We have to use our intuitiveness, our intuitive wisdom to be able to sense that there is a thought that arose that we can't see, feel, taste, touch but we could think about it. It snuck in and it is posing as our self-nature but it’s an impostor. That is wisdom. That is what we do.
Now let's go to Master Hanshan and see where he comes in terms of his orientation. It’s is interesting because Master Hanshan was also a Pureland practitioner. The school of Chan Buddhism and Pureland Buddhism are compatible in the way in terms of practicing.
A while back, I was teaching at another place and there was a person from the Zen School and in the afternoon he said, “Everything you've talked about this afternoon has nothing to do with Chan.” I said, “Really!” Well, actually he didn’t say Chan; he said Zen. So maybe by the time it got down to Zen it filtered out everything. But when I went through and told him about the history that our school comes from the Madhyamaka School, from the Yogacara School, from the Pureland School, from Huayen, from the Tientai. All these schools had their influences on them including the Theravadin School so where exactly did Chan started? Chan was there like I've mentioned before, with the twirl of a flower of Mahakasyapa.
So from the very beginning of Buddhism, this direct knowledge or direct insight has been there. So for us to say that it started with Bodhidharma is nonsense. Bodhidharma brought in certain sutras that predated Chan. Did he write a Sutra? No, he started with the Lankavatara Sutra. All these sutras came, the Parinirvana Sutra, the Tathagata-garbha Sutra; all of them are there that brought to us the essence of Chan and how we work. So we cannot separate it out and say, “Okay, this is the Chan School just simply because people are more likely to sit on the cushion.” All the fundamentals are there, in terms of the practice.
It’s important to see that when we practice - to know the historic roots of our practice. Without knowing those roots, then might think that there was somebody who said, “I think I’m going to start a school and I'm going to call it Chan.” It didn't happen that way.
Now he starts out this way:
First chapter: How to practice and reach enlightenment.
Concerning the causes and conditions of this great matter (this Buddha nature) is intrinsically within everyone.
Intrinsically means it is there already. It comes with the whole equipment when you get it. When you open up the box, it’s already there. You don't have to download it; you don't have to order an attachment to it. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to worry about the attachment. Whether it has attachment or no attachment, it's going to work just fine as long as you let it work and you read the instruction manual.
So here, he says:
It is intrinsically within everyone; as such, it is already complete within you, lacking nothing. The difficulty is that since time without beginning, seeds of passion, deluded thinking, emotional conceptualization and deep-rooted habitual tendencies have obscured this marvelous luminosity.
He’s saying that all these things, whenever we cling to things, it makes the mind dull. Whenever we have emotional movement in our mind, it makes our mind dull. He’s talking about this deep-rooted habitual tendencies. The deep rooted habitual tendencies are the ones that come with us innately as well. As human beings we are programmed in our habitual tendencies our survival instinct. In this day and age, survival instinct means that if somebody calls us a bad name, we have to call him a bad name back. These are deep-rooted. Even deeper, can anybody remember what the most deep-rooted habitual tendency is? Nobody, alright Sentha?
Student: The beginningless ignorance is nescience entrenchment.
Gilbert: Nescience entrenchment; this is the deep, deep ignorance that we have; the ignorance that we don't know how it works - we don't know how mind works.
So since we don't know how mind works, we’re deluded into thinking that the virus that’s operating in consciousness which we call our “self” is working perfectly. But it's not because of that deep rootedness that we cannot realize our intrinsic nature of the self-nature of mind. You cannot genuinely realize it because you've been wallowing in remnant deluded thoughts of body, mind, and the world, discriminating and musing about this and that.
So when he says that we've been wallowing in remnant deluded thoughts, what was he talking about, remnant deluded thoughts? Remnant is the key word here and remnant meaning something that's left over. Take a crack at it.
Student: Karma from past life that we have accumulated over from not practicing what we should be.
Gilbert: Remnant deluded thoughts and even thoughts from this lifetime that are left over. So for instance, when we think about the fudge and you go, "Oh, boy fudge, I like fudge a lot.” Now, you're sitting there and then later on, a fudge appears in your mind. Nobody put it there. It is some remnant. It was leftover from five minutes ago, ten minutes ago. You’re eating stale fudge but you don't care. You just bring it right back up again.
It's a remnant deluded thought. We don't realize that that thought came with an attachment to it. What was the attachment? It was the “self” - the craving of it that I want it. We’re using fudge in a way where maybe people don't want fudge. They may replace the desire with aversion but nevertheless, it's a remnant thought. It’s gone already but we keep dredging it back up. It's not supposed to keep coming up like that. There is no reason for it to come up in that way.
Now some thoughts are useful like if you get close to a cliff, you should have the thought that that's dangerous. So there's nothing wrong with that. But if you begin to have a phobia when you're stepping off a curb, then I think you know something's not quite right. So we use our middle way to be able to accord ourselves with what's going on in any particular moment, which will get to a moment.
Hanshan says:
For this reason, you've been roaming in the cycle of birth and death endlessly. Yet all Buddhas and ancestral masters have appeared in this world using countless words and expedient means to expound on Chan and clarify the doctrine, following and meeting different dispositions of sentient beings. All these expedient means are like tools to crush our mind of clinging and realize that originally, there is no real substantiality to phenomena or sense of self.
So he’s saying this is how we use it. We got these expedient means; what are expedient means? The method for instance but the studying of the practice as well, are expedient means. We use those so that we can look and say, “You know what, all these phenomena is constantly changing; it's different.” If you come back next week, it may look like the same room but it's different. A month ago, I was sitting over there. Now, I’m sitting here. Everything changes in accordance with causes and conditions.
Now, he's going to tell you what the practice is. I mentioned this to you many, many times so really pay attention. He says:
What is commonly known as practice means simply to accord with [whatever state] of mind you're in so as to purify and relinquish the deluded thoughts and traces of your habitual tendencies.
I’ll break that down for you. So whatever is commonly known as the practice, and you could change this sentence to say “What is walking in Chan?” Walking in Chan simply means when one is in a state of Chan and whatever they're doing, they’re walking in the state of Chan; they're doing things clearly. To simply to accord with whatever state of mind, and here this translation state of mind can also mean mental factors or mental states that one runs into. The state of mind is maybe not quite the right translation here in terms of how we say the state of mind because it's more mental factors that are appearing in consciousness.
So these mental factors are what is your state of mind right now?
Student: (inaudible)
Gilbert: No, what's your state of mind?
Student: Attentive.
Gilbert: Okay and what else?
Student: A little distracted.
Gilbert: A little distracted. Rick, what’s your state of mind?
Student: Calm.
Gilbert: Calm, not bad but your state of mind is this whole room - the fans blowing, the cars going outside, the people outside the door. All of you sitting here - some of you listening, some of you kind of floating off, some of you trying to get the channel dialed in; that is your state of mind. The carpet is your state of mind; the flags are your state of mind; the kitchen is your state of mind; you see all that, right? You're in accord with all of that. You don't think “I wonder what that flag means?” It has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. Ignore the flag; put down the fudge.
Student: I was really getting in to what you were saying about what you’re reading from there and what I was getting from it. And then you asked what our state of mind was but there has to be this openness. The mind has to be open to whatever is happening around you without attaching to it.
Gilbert: That’s right. It’s called a state of equanimity.
Student: And that’s where I got stuck because I am thinking of what you were just saying and what you were reading.
Gilbert: In a state of equanimity, one doesn’t bounce into the wall. One is aware that the wall is in front of them. So one is there and you are in accord with that.
Accord is a pretty good word but harmony also is. When I say harmony here, it adds a little bit more to it because in our practice of Mahayana and being a Bodhisattva, we want to harmonize with the things around us. So that we, you know, like I pick on you and then I said next person. I’m not really trying to insult you, I’m trying to move along and see where we’re at with what we’re doing. Everything is like we’re trying to be in harmony with it to maximize the positive contact you have with whatever state you run into.
So the kids outside; they may look threatening because they got a bunch of dogs and stuff but there is no sense for me to go out there and act like a policeman. I’ve know from experience before that they are pretty much a passive people. But if somebody looks at them and go, “I don’t know about that, I’m not coming to class,” it’s causes and conditions.
What I want to do is make sure they didn't impede people from coming in. You accord with whatever state of mind that you're in simply to do things in a harmonious way so as not to cause any problems with people. If I yell at them, next time I come here, they’ll go, “Here’s that old man again; he’s going to yell at us.” And then you cause problems with your environment or whatever it is.
The important point here when they’re saying whatever mental state, you could say that this moment is a mental state. You are listening to me. You are watching me up here in terms of trying to communicate with you and provide you information. So you accord with it say, “Hmm, let me see what he’s saying” - trying to keep your mind focused in. And in some parts you go, “Hmm, I don’t know which key he’s playing in” but it's okay. Don't worry.
The thing is that to some of you who are new, the language is going to be a little bit different for you if you haven’t run into that. What I'm teaching (consciousness versus mind) is definitely foreign but as we begin to look at it and see “Ahh!” It fits and the little pieces begin to fit in. So your state of mind should be one of patience and listening and openness.
As you do this, then whatever you do, when you get up off the cushion and you go out that door, you are going to be walking in Chan. You are going to be aware. You are going to notice the street lights, you're going to notice those cars, you are going to notice everything around you - the blades of grass, the trees, the sky. Everything you're going to notice, and you'll be very sure of the steps in front of you so you’ll know exactly where to place your feet, what to say, what to do. This is a state of Chan.
So he says to purify and relinquish deluded thoughts. Purify doesn't mean that we’re sitting there and we take a bottle of Fevreze and spray it on our thoughts to make them smell better. The way we purify the thoughts is convert it to wisdom. It's cool. I mean it's like you can take this aluminum can and you can throw it out in the trash or you can put it in the recycle bin. It is almost kind of like an opposite in some ways because some people, when they put it in the trash, are actually recycling their habitual energy. What we want to do is recycle for the benefit of all society. We put it in the proper container so that one can turn them into another can somewhere down the line or a car or whatever.
So we choose wisdom every time. We look at it and we say “I see; that fudge came up because he was talking about fudge.” And it goes. And if it comes up fudge with walnuts, it goes. But if you keep looking at it going, “Are you still there?” It’ll go, “I’m still here!” It's going to be there. But if we purify the thought seeing that the reason that fudge is coming up is because one, you probably had some really good fudge in your life. Any one of you ever have a really good fudge in your life, raise your hand. If you didn’t raise your hand, I’m going to have to bring you some good fudge. (laughs…) Okay, chocolate; we’ll convert it to chocolate - Godiva chocolate.
So you have all experienced it so you know what I’m talking about - it's sweet, it’s good, it melts in your mouth. We’re not talking about some crummy chocolate or fudge. We’re talking about some really good stuff; and you go, “I remember it now.” That’s going to cling into your mind and you’re going to be thinking about that kind. It’s natural that it will come up because you put it there. You planted a little chocolate seed in the ground. So when I say fudge, you converted it to the chocolate standard.
So you know it's arising; it's going to be there naturally. You know that so when it comes up, you purify it by saying “Fudge or chocolate, but no!” So you're okay. “Fudge, Godiva chocolate, no!” And it finally gives up. That's how you purify it - by illuminating it, seeing that it has arisen in the mind - a moment ago, that fudge wasn’t there but now it’s there.
He says the traces of your habit tendencies, they are traces; it's not yours. It's not something that's happening right now. If I say fudge right now, it just the word fudge. But the traces of your habit tendencies go, “Yeah, fudge.” And you, you converted it to chocolate. So it comes up in this way but those are traces of things that have gone from before. If I brought in let's say a Mexican desert that you’ve never seen before, you’d be looking at it like a dog, sniffing and looking at it to see what it’s like.
Except for my dogs, they’ll eat anything. If a paper goes on the floor, they’ll eat it. Their habitual tendencies are like… there is a reason why they’re dogs. Poor guys, the other day one of them ate a whole mango. She actually jumped up on the counter and picked up a mango and ate it. And then I had to follow her around the whole day cleaning the carpet. It didn't come out on the back end; it came out the front end. She didn’t have a chance.
But that’s the way we are sometimes. The other day I had my kids over and we’re having some man-food. And we had too much man-food. One of my sons made hot Jalapeno poppers and I made some super Nachos. All three of us were watching the basketball game on recliners and wondering when we’re going to be the next dog to puke on the carpet, (laughs…) you know. It's because we're that way. We have our habitual tendencies and we don't use our wisdom to say “You know, I think after 3 pounds of Nachos, that’s probably enough!”
But when we begin to look at things and we have that built-in governor that stops us, that's pretty good. The other day, we had some other food but I stopped myself before I got too far along. I didn’t want another repeat. So these are very mundane types of examples of what goes on in the mind. He says:
If with within a single moment, deluded thinking suddenly ceases, [you will] thoroughly perceive your own mind and realize it is vast and open, bright and luminous - intrinsically perfect and complete. This state, being originally pure, devoid of a single thing, is called enlightenment.
 So this is where we’re headed. This is just like the preface to what he’s going to talk about. And already, he spoke volumes. There are times when I taught this, I haven’t even gotten off the first sentence.  So I’m speeding through this today because I want to cover some ground and give you an idea of what Chan is and what the practice is so that when we begin to meditate, that you won't be confused.