How to Practice Chan Meditation

In the past, students asked the Chan masters: When practicing Chan, how should one apply the mind? The Chan masters replied: Investigate by leaving behind mind, consciousness, and mental cognition (li xin yi shi can).

May I ask: What does it mean to investigate by leaving behind mind, consciousness, and mental cognition?

Buddhist practitioners of the past almost all possessed meditative concentration (samādhi). Those who had concentration found it easier to apply effort, and knew how to apply it, so the conditions for awakening to the Way easily matured. Therefore, although the Chan masters did not understand the nature of the manas, they knew how to investigate Chan, and they taught their disciples the knack of investigating Chan: do not speculate or conjecture beneath the mind, do not indulge in sentimental thinking and intellectual interpretation, leave behind the mind consciousness, and use the mind consciousness sparingly for pondering and reasoning. This way of applying the mind in investigating Chan was very deep, and their practice was solid and grounded. When the Chan masters ascended the hall to give teachings, those below could awaken at any moment. To others it may have seemed easy, but their practice was thoroughly accomplished. Throughout the six periods of the day and night, they applied the mind without distraction, engaging in Chan investigation exclusively—including while working in the fields, while lighting fires and cooking meals, and even while sleeping they could continue their practice. If one applies effort with the mind consciousness, the practice breaks off upon falling asleep; but when the manas applies effort, sleeping does not interfere at all.

Later on, some people stopped practicing earnestly. They gathered in groups of twos and threes to study and analyze the gong'ans. When the Chan masters saw this, they would strike them apart with a blow of the staff, forbidding study and discussion, and forbidding reading books as well—even Buddhist sutras could not be read. They were to apply themselves wholeheartedly to investigating Chan.

Still later, after the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch spread widely, those who engaged in actual practice gradually dwindled. Everyone took up the Platform Sutra and began to speak with a glib tongue and argue eloquently, each believing they had attained the Way, and thus the Chan school declined and withered. People nowadays are even more glib and eloquent than those of that time, surpassing them in this regard. Everyone can talk, parroting like a myna bird, yet no one has any genuine skill. They shout about actual practice and personal realization, yet their feet tread upon the clouds—without a ladder to heaven, they all claim to be able to ascend.