THE EASY AND RAPID PATH TO PERFECT CHAN OR ZEN MEDITATION

便快路禅道

THE EASY AND RAPID PATH:

TO PERFECT CHAN OR ZEN MEDITATION

 Pass on if you like to the titles and ideas that sound more interesting to a cognitive mind. Step over the threshold into a deep pit of milk.

Now why do I say that?

Look at the following poem by T.C. Hamlet. It is simple enough, but there are secrets within secrets.

Two frogs fell into a can of cream

Or so I've heard it told

The sides were shiny, also steep

The cream was deep and cold

"o, what's the use?," croaked No 1

Tis fate, no help's around

Goodby my friends! Goodbye sad world!"

And weeping there, he drowned

But number two, of sterner stuff,

Dog-paddled in surprise.

The while he wiped his creamy face

And dried his creamy eyes.

"I'll swim a while, at least," said he,

"For so I've heard", he said

"It really wouldn't help the world

If one more frog were dead."

An hour or two he kicked and swam

Not once did he stop to mutter

But kicked and swam and swam and kicked.

Then hopped out on butter.

So you can give up and find the comfortable, secure and intelligent paths or step out on the butter.

But perhaps you are after all just an ordinary sort of frog.

Giving up means falling into the traps of Identity Comfort, Identity Security and Identity Thinking.

Being comfortable and secure with meditation transforms these into the object. It does not resemble the liberation path, which generates a delusion of discomfort and insecurity at first.

Understanding the words related to liberation and meditation is very powerful and makes one feel intelligent and a master of what one is doing. But this is also delusion, for really the person who feels he/she is intelligent is really quite inferior to those who understand and meditate with experiences that are direct as a base.

If comfort, security and being important are what you want subconsciously then we point you in the direction of the mid-1950s when modern neuroleptic (antipsychotic) drugs were introduced.

However you must be warned that this drug produces the equivalent therapeutic value of a leucotomy, for which António Egas Moniz in 1949 received  the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

But I feel sure that this is not exactly what you may have in mind, for the more popular term for leucotomy is lobotomy.

Nor do we recommend the antipsychotic drug chlorpromazine or any other drug.

It seems reasonable then to ask yourself what you believe meditation actually accomplishes. Once we discover that we may begin to decide if a valid comfortable, secure, easy and rapid path is available that will fit your needs. So let us first examine this perfect meditation that is so often promised.

Well, here you are looking for that easy and rapid path?

You will find many internet claims like that which tells one that you can be shown how to meditate deeper than a Zen monk in less than five minutes by using a secret shortcut you cannot find anywhere else.

Is this a false statement? It depends, I suppose, upon the Zen monk, for many a Chan or Zen monk that I have encountered has never reached farther in a Chan or Zen meditation that to sit quietly with an empty mind. Well there is not much use in that, for Huineng declared quite clearly that all one can achieve with such a meditation is to be able to sit with an empty mind.

That indeed one can achieve in five minutes or even less, but that has no relation whatsoever to Chan (Zen) meditation, which we prefer to term contemplation.

Let us first examine this perfect Chan meditation, called contemplation, that is so often promised.

The practice of Chan is directed at becoming as one with Dao in everyday life. It is not directed at a supermundane enlightenment but an awakening to the truth of the Life Force that permits release from the chains of mind-only control.

It permits the development of balance and harmony with the nature of the human being in which the mind is a tool and not the ruler of all attitudes, intentions and actions.

It seems reasonable then to ask yourself what you believe Chan or Zen contemplation actually accomplishes. Once we discover that we may begin to decide if a valid easy and rapid path is available that will fit your needs.