Chan Practice - Serene Sound of Mind

Starting from January 10, 2019, we have been leading a Chan practice session with pro-fessors and students of the 2019 Winter School every evening. Surely, knowledge is ever-flowing than ever with our pursuit in this Information Age. At the same time, our greediness  expands like never before.  Chan practice helps to stabilize our mind to stay undisturbed. That way, we wouldn’t be influenced by greediness and attachment over phenomena.

 Chan practice leads our mind back to purity and its nature. When the mind is no longer bound with time and phenomena, it has returned to spirituality. By spirituality, it is the awakening mind. Through shamatha (calm-abiding) and vipashyana (special insight), this very mind can abide with spirituality.

Shamatha (calm-abiding), is to stabilize this mind. Vipashyana (special insight) is to pu-rify our mind. Our mind is not limited to any phenomena. By realizing this mind, we’d know our way home. Ease and freedom come when our mind is no longer disturbed by phenomena and ideas. Being bombarded by complicated messages, we need to find a way to enter the space of mind.

 Chan practice allows us to rediscover our space of mind. Once we do, our mind is at ease no mat-ter where we are. Without anything to trouble us, there wouldn’t be any discomfort. There will always be space at anywhere.

Our awareness is like a candle. When the wind blows, it flickers. On the other hand, our consciousness is like the wind. Our awareness is disturbed when the wind of conscious-ness blows. When flickered, the light loses its brightness.  The Four-step Technique of Ling Jiou Mountain ’s Peace Meditation trains our mind for better concentration on awareness. Eventually, our awareness becomes clearer and more attentive. In other words, our luminosity becomes focused without fading. Slowly, the light of our mind remains long with such concentration.