after a person finally grasps the nonsensory state?" Master Zhao
Zhou replied, "He lays it down." The monk did not understand. So
this quandary became his Hua Tou. "How can one lay down the
absence of something?" He worked on this and worked on this and
still he could not understand. So he returned to Master Zhao Zhou
and asked, "How can one lay down the absence of something?"
Master Zhao Zhou answered simply, "What you can't lay down,
carry away." Instantly the monk was enlightened.
You see, Master Zhao Zhou knew that the only thing we
can't lay down is our Buddha Self. This and this alone is all that we
can truly carry with us. Sometimes you hear the expression, "You
can't take it with you." Usually people mean that you must leave
money or fame or power behind when you go to your grave. The
ego, too, cannot be taken with you when you enter Nirvana.
Master Zhao Zhou was also telling the monk that the
attainment of enlightenment is nothing a person can brag about.
Nobody can say, "I am enlightened" because the experience of
enlightenment is precisely an egoless experience. The ego is extinguished and the pure Buddha Self is experienced. There is no "I"
there who can claim to be enlightened. This is a most exhilarating
and salutary experience. Anyone who suffers from any of the ego's
ills should try one dose of enlightenment. The cure is permanent.
2. Meditation on Sound
Before beginning this instruction, it is important, I think,
to understand the difference between Host and Guest.
In the Surangama Sutra, Arya Ajnatakaundinya asks,
"What is the difference between settled and transient?" He answers
by giving the example of a traveler who stops at an inn. The traveler
dines and sleeps and then continues on his way. He doesn't stop and
settle there at the inn, he just pays his bill and departs, resuming his
journey. But what about the innkeeper? He doesn't go anywhere.
He continues to reside at the inn because that is where he lives.
"I say, therefore, that the transient is the guest and the innkeeper is the host," says Arya Ajnatakaundinya.
And so we identify the ego's myriad thoughts which rise
and fall in the stream of consciousness as transients, travelers who
come and go and who should not be detained with discursive examinations. Our Buddha Self is the host who lets the travelers pass
without hindrance. A good host does not detain his guests with idle
chatter when they are ready to depart.
Therefore, just as the host does not pack up and leave with
his guests, we should not follow our transient thoughts. We should
simply let them pass, unobstructed.
Many people strive to empty their mind of all thoughts.
This is their meditation practice. They try not to think. They think
and think, "I will not think." This is a very difficult technique and
one that is not recommended for beginners. Actually, the state of
"no-mind" that they seek is an advanced spiritual state. There are
many spiritual states that must precede it.
Progress in Chan is rather like trying to climb a high
mountain. We start at the bottom. What is our destination? Not the
summit but merely our base camp, Camp 1. After we have rested
there, we resume our ascent. But again, our destination is not the
summit, but merely Camp 2. We attempt the summit only from our
final Camp.
Nobody would dream of trying to scale Mount Everest in
one quick ascent. And the summit of Chan is higher than Everest's!
Yet in Chan, everybody wants to start at the end. Nobody wants to
start at the beginning. If beginners could take an airplane to the top
they would, but then this would not be mountain climbing, would
it? Enthusiasm for the achievement is what makes people try to take
shortcuts. But the journey is the real achievement.
A better way than deliberately trying to blank the mind by
preventing thoughts from arising is to meditate on sound. In this
method we calmly sit and let whatever sounds we hear pass in one
ear and out the other, so to speak. We are like good innkeepers who
do not hinder guest-thoughts with discursive chatter. If we hear a
car honk its horn, we merely record that noise without saying to
ourselves, "That horn sounds like Mr. Wang's Bentley! I wonder
where he's going!" Or, if we hear a child shouting outside, we just
let the shout pass through our mind without saying, "Oh, that noisy
boy! I wish his mother would teach him better manners."
You know, in some styles of Chan, it is the custom to
strike someone with a stick if he begins to show signs of sleepiness.
Up and down the aisles patrols a fellow with a stick. No one is
allowed to move or make any breathing noises or, heaven forbid!, to
nod sleepily. The fellow with the stick will strike him! This is foolish and, in truth, violates the First Precept of nonviolence.
