A Welcome to New Chan Center Members

This evening, we had a Chan (Chinese Zen) practice session with several new members participating. So great to see such interest in making meditation a part of your life. I began practicing TM when I was 19 and Chan when I was 28 while living in Taiwan. Since that time, meditation has become so much a part of my life that life itself has become the meditation. The practice has added tremendous richness to even the most mundane activities and has helped me in so many ways through all that life brings. It has helped me see the true value of human existence, which is so precious. We have the ability to experience the unanswered questions that are so fundamental to our very existence but that have eluded us for so long. When we learn how to be fully present, we find that all we have ever been seeking has always been there if we could have just been awake to it in the present moment. This adds inexpressible depth to life. So naturally, it gives me very great joy when I see others take up the practice!

Please remember that it is not about quantity but quality. Spending 5 minutes on the cushion with bright, clear, open awareness attentive to the method is by far better than spending 30 minutes on the cushion spacing out. When you sit, make a vow to sit for a modest length of time at first but to sit with full awareness. The beginning meditation method we use is called "full awareness of breathing". So, use your full awareness to be aware of every increment of your breath. If you are focusing on the breath coming into and out of the nostrils, let go of all other thoughts until there is just this sensation of air flowing in and out of the nostrils. If thoughts arise, don't gravitate toward them and don't push them away. Just be aware of the fleeting nature of thoughts and gently go back to the full awareness of breathing. The more you rest your most bright, clear awareness on the breath, the more relaxed you will become. The metabolic rate will drop as your entire system begins functioning more efficiently. The breath will naturally refine and with the refinement of the breath, your awareness will become supple, fluid, open, clear, settled and bright.

With this bright awareness, you may begin to feel a very pleasant sensation through the entire body and the mind will experience a deep sense of well-being. As meditation continues, this rapturous feeling will give way to an expansive happiness and experience of deep contentment. This in turn will give way to a pervasive equanimity that has left behind everything but the deepest tranquility. During this progression, thoughts may arise, but they are no longer of any consequence. The power of thoughts to entice the mind to attach to them or avert them has lost its grip on the mind. The mind becomes like a calm lake from which warm vapor arises. The lake takes no notice of the rising vapor and is unaffected by it. In that same way, the mind remains at peace even when thoughts arise. It is completely unobstructed by the sound of the airplane overhead or the tingling sensation in the foot or a sudden memory of a dear friend. The mind simply reflects whatever arises.

At this point, we are in an ideal state to begin the practice of Silent Illumination. We shift the awareness from the breath to the sensation of the entire body just sitting. We aren't scanning the body or trying to feel anything in particular, but just maintain the simple, clear awareness of the body just sitting. We rest this same open, bright, clear awareness on the entire body. But, this pure awareness cannot be contained for long within the boundaries of the body. The more one lets go and just rests bright, open awareness on the body, the less distinct the boundaries of the body become. Soon, there is only awareness of the entire room just sitting, then the building, then the yard and environs. As one continues this practice, awareness cannot be contained and one may have the experience of the earth "just sitting", or the solar system, the galaxies, or the entire universe "just sitting". There is no way to force this. Forcing will move the mind into a more agitated state. The method is to retain bright, sharp, clear awareness of the body but to continually let go of all else. The rest happens automatically.

The effect of practicing in this way on one's daily activity is incredibly enriching and can lead to the most profound insights into the mental and physical world. These insights help liberate of from suffering and evaporate any sense of dissatisfaction in life. Each moment becomes wonderfully rich. Each movement experienced as fluid succession of change permeated by the deepest and most wonderful silence. We suddenly feel as though we are truly alive for the first time and by comparison, like we have awakened from a dream that stretches back through beginningless time.

With this experience comes an overwhelming compassion for others that are caught in patterns of thinking and action that keep them bound and remove the possibility of seeing with sufficient clarity to awaken from the dream. Though we may not be fully awakened ourselves, the taste of this lucid state builds our faith in the Dharma as the solution to life's suffering and we cannot help but share the Path with others as they become receptive to it.

This is a good life. You will never regret the time that you spend practicing Chan. It will enrich all aspects of life. Even starting out with just 5 to 15 minutes a day to establish the habit of cultivation is enough. Soon, you will think nothing of sitting for 30 minutes, an hour or even longer and the effect of this increased practice on your life will be priceless.

However, we need to always remember that Chan isn't practiced on the cushion, it is practiced in daily activity. What we do on the cushion is just preparation for Chan practice.

Best wishes for your practice in 2012 and beyond! Keep coming to group sessions as they provide invaluable support for your daily practice. You can RSVP for the next practice at:

http://www.meetup.com/bodhisattvapath/events/46864322/

With Metta,
Barry