The Zuochanyi by Changlu Zongze

The Bodhisattva who studies prajñā should first arouse the thought of great compassion, make the extensive vows, and then carefully cultivate samādhi. Vowing to save sentient beings, he should not seek liberation for himself alone.

Then cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs. Make body and mind one, with no division between action and rest. Regulate food and drink, so that you take neither too much nor too little; adjust sleep, so that you neither deprive nor indulge yourself.

When you sit in meditation, spread a thick mat in a quiet place. Loosen your robe and belt, and assume a proper demeanor. Then sit in the full cross-legged position. First place your right foot on your left thigh; then place your left foot on your right thigh. Or you may sit in the half cross-legged position: simply rest your left foot on your right foot. Next, place your right hand on your left foot, and your left hand on your right palm. Press the tips of your thumbs together. Slowly raise your torso and stretch it forward. Swing to the left and right; then straighten your body and sit erect. Do not lean to the left or right, forward or backward. Keep your hips, back, neck, and head in line, making your posture like a stūpa. But do not strain your body upward too far, lest it make your breathing forced and unsettled. Your ears should be in line with your shoulders, and your nose in line with your navel. Press your tongue against the front of your palate, and close your lips and teeth. The eyes should remain slightly open, in order to prevent drowsiness. If you attain samādhi [with the eyes open], it will be the most powerful. In ancient times, there were monks eminent in the practice of meditation who always sat with their eyes open. More recently, the Ch’an master Fa-yün Yüan-t’ung criticized those who sit in meditation with their eyes closed, likening [their practice] to the ghost cave of the Black Mountain. Surely this has a deep meaning, known to those who have mastered [meditation practice].

Once you have settled your posture and regulated your breathing, you should relax your abdomen. Do not think of any good or evil whatsoever. Whenever a thought occurs, be aware of it; as soon as you aware of it, it will vanish. If you remain for a long period forgetful of objects, you will naturally become unified. This is the essential art of tso-ch’an. Honestly speaking, tso-ch’an is the dharma gate of ease and joy. If there are many people who become ill [from its practice], it is because they do not take proper care.

If you grasp the point of this [practice], the four elements [of the body] will become light and at ease, the spirit will be fresh and sharp, thoughts will be correct and clear; the flavor of the dharma will sustain the spirit, and you will be calm, pure, and joyful. One who has already achieved clarification [of the truth] may be likened to the dragon gaining the water or the tiger taking to the mountains. And even one who has not yet achieved it, by letting the wind fan the flame, will not have to make much effort. Just assent to it; you will not be deceived. Nevertheless, as the path gets higher, demons flourish, and agreeable and disagreeable experiences are manifold. Yet if you just keep right thought present, none of them can obstruct you. The Śūraṅgama-sūtra, T’ien-t’ai’s Chih-kuan, and Kuei-feng’s Hsiu-cheng i give detailed explications of these demonic occurrences, and those who would be prepared in advance for the unforeseen should be familiar with them.

When you come out of samādhi, move slowly and arise calmly; do not be hasty or rough. After you have left samādhi, always employ appropriate means to protect and maintain the power of samādhi, as though you were protecting an infant. Then your samādhi power will easily develop. This one teaching of meditation is our most urgent business. If you do not practice meditation and enter dhyāna, then when it comes down to it, you will be completely at a loss. Therefore, to seek the pearl, we should still the waves; if we disturb the water, it will be hard to get. When the water of meditation is clear, the pearl of the mind will appear of itself. Therefore, the Perfect Enlightenment Sūtra says, ”Unimpeded, immaculate wisdom always arises dependent on meditation.” The Lotus Blossom Sūtra says, “In a quiet place, he practices the control of the mind, abiding motionless like Mt. Sumeru.” Thus, transcending the profane and surpassing the holy are always contingent on the condition of dhyāna; shedding [this body] while seated and fleeing [this life] while standing are necessarily dependent on the power of samādhi. Even if one devotes himself to the practice his entire life, he may still not be in time; how then could one who procrastinates possibly overcome karma? Therefore, an ancient has said, ”Without the power of samādhi, you will meekly cower at death’s door.” Shutting your eyes, you will end your life in vain; and just as you are, you will drift [in saṃsāra].

Friends in Ch’an, go over this text again and again. Benefiting others as well as ourselves, let us together achieve full enlightenment.

from Bielefeldt, Carl. Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. University of California Press, 1988.

Always Present Awareness (Changzhi)

Every moment of percipient consciousness includes a very basic and quite unremarkable quality of cognitive clarity. This lucid clarity in and of itself is a naturally occurring disposition (prakṛtisthagotra) of selfless, non-referential cognition, while all afflictions and defilements are adventitious, meaning that they can be removed from this basic awareness.

This awareness is likened to a clear crystal or wish-fulfilling jewel, which is utterly transparent, but when it’s placed on a red cloth the crystal appears to be red, when placed on a blue cloth the crystal appears blue, when placed on a black cloth it appears black, etc. Nevertheless, the crystal itself is not red nor blue nor black. The crystal is always completely clear. Guifeng Zongmi’s Chan Letter states:

When one truly sees the color black, the black from the outset is not black. It is just the brightness. The blue from the outset is not blue. It is just the brightness, up to and including: all the [other colors], such as red, white, yellow, etc., are like this. They are just the brightness. If, at the locus of the color characteristics, one after the other you just see the perfect brightness of jade-like sparkling purity, then you are not confused about the jewel.

Similarly, the mind has the capacity to reflect whatever presents itself to awareness, but the lucid clarity of awareness itself remains the same regardless of the contents of that awareness. Zongmi’s own auto-commentary expands upon the above passage as follows:

Everything is void. Just mind is immutable. Even during delusion there is knowing. Knowing from the outset is non-delusion. Even the arising of thoughts is knowing, [but] knowing from the outset is no mindfulness, up to and including: [at the locus wherein] pity, joy, happiness, hatred, love, and dislike [appear] one after the other they are all knowing. Knowing from the outset is voidness and calm. It is void and calm and yet knowing. Then you are not confused at all about the mind nature.

If we can calm the mind and recognize this basic quality of knowing, and then learn to sustain this basic recognition by not grasping at the various objects of awareness, then this naturally occurring knowing is where we can rest, without grasping externally nor withdrawing internally nor dwelling anywhere in-between. Zongmi goes on to add that this unstructured awareness is free from the extremes of existence and non-existence.

Jinul’s Complete and Sudden Attainment of Buddhahood adds:

It is also the perfectly bright purity of the original true nature of sentient beings which abides in pollution but is not stained, which is cultivated but becomes no purer. When defilements cover it, it is concealed; when wisdom reveals it, it appears. It is not something which comes into being due to the arising-cause; it is, rather, only understood through the understanding-cause. If someone looks back on the radiance of his own mind’s pure, enlightened nature and thereby extinguishes falsity and cleanses his mind, the myriads of images then appear together. It is just like seawater that has settled: there are no images which are not reflected. Hence it is called the ever-abiding function of the oceanseal of all phenomena in the universe. Accordingly, we can know that the perfectly bright and self-reliant functions of the dharmadhātu which remain, including the unimpeded interpenetration of all phenomena as described in the three pervasions, are never separate from the pure enlightened nature. As explained by Uisang, the dharma-nature is perfectly interfused, has no name or sign, and is free of all relativity.

Chan Forest Life by Shiwu

A hundred years slip by when you are free
ten thousand cares dissolve when you are still.

The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a 14th-Century Chinese Hermit. Translated by Red Pine. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1999.

The Nature of the Mind by Jinul

In his text Encouragement to Practice: The Compact of the Samādhi and Prajñā Community (Gwonsu Jeonghye Gyeolsamun) Bojo Jinul describes the nature of the mind as numinous, sublime, and self-reliant:

In the complete insight into the true and eternal qualities of one’s own mind, if activity and stillness are interfused and the dharmadhātu is realized, then we know that the qualities of all the bhūmis, the approaches to dharma as numerous as dust motes, and the nine and ten time periods are not separate from the present thought. As the nature of the mind is numinous, sublime, and self-reliant, it contains innumerable types of dharmas. The myriads of dharmas have never been separated from the self-nature; whether they are activated or not, nature and characteristics, essence and function, and adaptability and immutability operate simultaneously and without hindrance. This mind at first is without past or present, ordinary or holy, good or evil, attachment or rejection; nevertheless, their influence is gradual. As one passes through all the stages, compassion and wisdom are gradually made complete and sentient beings are perfected; nevertheless, from beginning to end that mind does not move from one time, one thought, one dharma, or one practice.

And in his text titled Moguja’s Secrets on Cultivating the Mind (Moguja Susimgyeol), Bojo Jinul explains the experiential relationship between sudden awakening and gradual cultivation as follows:

Question: You have said that this twofold approach of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation is the track followed by thousands of saints. But if awakening is really sudden awakening, what need is there for gradual cultivation? And if cultivation means gradual cultivation, how can you speak of sudden awakening? We hope that you will expound further on these two ideas of sudden and gradual and resolve our remaining doubts.

Jinul: First let us take sudden awakening. When the ordinary man is deluded, he assumes that the four great elements are his body and the false thoughts are his mind. He does not know that his own nature is the true dharma-body; he does not know that his own numinous awareness is the true Buddha. He looks for the Buddha outside his mind. While he is thus wandering aimlessly, the entrance to the road might by chance be pointed out by a wise advisor. If in one thought he then follows back the light [of his mind to its source] and sees his own original nature, he will discover that the ground of this nature is innately free of defilement, and that he himself is originally endowed with the non-outflow wisdom-nature which is not a hair’s breadth different from that of all the Buddhas. Hence it is called sudden awakening.

Next let us consider gradual cultivation. Although he has awakened to the fact that his original nature is no different from that of the Buddhas, the beginningless habit-energies are extremely difficult to remove suddenly; and so he must continue to cultivate while relying on this awakening. Through this gradual permeation, his endeavors reach completion. He constantly nurtures the sacred embryo, and after a long time he becomes a saint. Hence it is called gradual cultivation.

This process can be compared to the maturation of a child. From the day of its birth, a baby is endowed with all the sense organs just like everyone else, but its strength is not yet fully developed. It is only after many months and years that it will finally become an adult.

But the sudden breakthrough wherein a practitioner awakens to the nature of his or her mind isn’t dependent upon any expedients or gradual methods. Since we have never been apart from this nature, and cannot be separated from it, there are no temporal stages to recognizing the nature of awareness. Just as a person cannot literally jump out of their skin, similarly we can’t be separated from this intrinsic awareness which is imbedded in every experience. But due to chasing after externals, this effortless awareness is not realized. Jinul continues:

Question: Through what expedients is it possible to trace back the radiance of one’s sense-faculties in one thought and awaken to the self-nature?

Jinul: The self-nature is just your own mind. What other expedients do you need? If you ask for expedients to seek understanding, you are like a person who, because he does not see his own eyes, assumes that he has no eyes and decides to find some way to see. But since he does have eyes, how else is he supposed to see? If he realizes that in fact he has never lost his eyes, this is the same as seeing his eyes, and no longer would he waste his time trying to find a way to see. How then could he have any thoughts that he could not see? Your own numinous awareness is exactly the same. Since this awareness is your own mind, how else are you going to understand? If you seek some other way to understand, you will never understand. Simply by knowing that there is no other way to understand, you are seeing the nature.

Question: When the superior man hears dharma, he understands easily. Average and inferior men, however, are not without doubt and confusion. Could you describe some expedients so that the deluded too can enter into enlightenment?

Jinul: The path is not related to knowing or not knowing. You should get rid of the mind which clings to its delusion and looks forward to enlightenment, and listen to me.

Since all dharmas are like dreams or phantoms, deluded thoughts are originally calm and the sense-spheres are originally void. At the point where all dharmas are void, the numinous awareness is not obscured. That is to say, this mind of void and calm, numinous awareness is your original face. It is also the dharma-seal transmitted without a break by all the Buddhas of the three time periods, the successive generations of patriarchs, and the wise advisors of this world. If you awaken to this mind, then this is truly what is called not following the rungs of a ladder: you climb straight to the stage of Buddhahood, and each step transcends the triple world. Returning home, your doubts will be instantly resolved and you will become the teacher of men and gods. Endowed with compassion and wisdom and complete in the twofold benefit, you will be worthy of receiving the offerings of men and gods.

The important distinction is between recognizing this empty, numinous awareness or not recognizing this awareness. This awareness itself is always effortlessly present, hence the designation “always-present awareness” (changzhi). Recognizing this is called “sudden awakening.” Not recognizing it is called “delusion.”

But even after recognition there is a need to consistently cultivate this recognition — returning to this effortless awareness again and again. This is because habitual tendencies have not yet been eliminated, and passion, aggression, and delusion will recur as habitual patterns to infect our bodily conduct, speech, and thoughts whenever there is a lapse in mindfulness and our original face is forgotten.

This is where the unique Chan approach of observing the huatou (Korean: hwadu) is so helpful in directly seeing through habitual patterns of conflicted emotions and egocentric thoughts and remaining dedicated to the non-constructed simplicity of awareness itself. In this way we can gradually cultivate complete devotion to awakening in every moment. We can cast off frivolous, worldly concerns and fully embody both compassion and wisdom. We can devote our entire life to this uninterrupted realization of the dharmadhātu.

Quotations from Buswell Jr., Robert E. The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul. University of Hawaii Press, 1983.

Sudden Awakening & Subsequent Cultivation by Guishan

There was a monk who asked the Master [i.e.. Guishan], “Does a person who has had sudden awakening still need to continue with cultivation?” The Master said, “If one has true awakening and attains to the fundamental, then at that time that person knows for himself that cultivation and noncultivation are just dualistic opposites. Like now, though the initial inspiration is dependent on conditions, if within a single thought one awakens to one’s own reality, there are still certain habitual tendencies that have accumulated over numberless kalpas which cannot be purified in a single instant. That person should certainly be taught how to gradually remove the karmic tendencies and mental habits: this is cultivation. There is no other method of cultivation that needs to be taught to that person.”

Sun-Face Buddha: The Teachings of Ma-tsu and the Hung-chou School of Ch’an. Translated by Cheng Chien Bhikshu. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1993.