Spring Term Monastic Retreat – Uncovering Awareness through Peace Meditation

In our mind or primordial awareness, it is uncompounded since the time of beginningless. There is no arising nor ceasing. Should anything arise or cease along with the changing surroundings, it is not our very mind. Our space-like mind cannot be grasped or held onto. On the phenomenal level, there’s nothing as an attainable or graspable mind.

If we don’t understand our original mind, we wouldn't know that clarity and emptiness are our original face. Let our mind be at ease and liberated pervasively. In other words, do not lose our primordial clarity due to phenomena and worldly matters. Hence, let go of everything. Allow our minds to relax and let go. That way, a clear awareness devoid of defilements will come forth clearly.

We pour our hearts out in our life, relationship, family, career, friendship, and more. As the consciousness of beings intertwine and roll together, we'd swept off our feet in flash flooding of concepts. As we are endowed with human life, awareness, and the opportunity for Chan practice, we're very fortunate. That's why we must be grateful and appreciative of this life to transcend the cyclic existence of consciousness.

In our Ling Jiou Mountain’s Four-step Technique of Peace Meditation, we are abiding in clarity and awareness within every step. In the spacious awareness, we are affirming that sense of clarity. First of all, “proper breathing” helps to regulate our breathing and mind. The second step is to “bring your attention from the eyes to your nose, from your nose to your mouth, and from your mouth to your heart” – every fixation that we observe turns into a point of clear awareness. When we examine our heart or mind, it must be free from physicality, forms, concepts, and abidance. That way, one can return to the nature that is uncompounded. The intuition where there’s nothing in mind is what we strive for.

The third step is to "be aware of each in and out-breath". Every thought compounded with concepts can be purified by putting attention on breathing in and out. Fourthly, “listen to the sound of silence” puts our chaotic and defiled thoughts into space of attention. At that point, crystal-clear awareness will show. By listening quietly, all the delusions and attachments are dissolved into silence. Our primordial awareness will manifest crisp and clean in entirety. The face of emptiness will show through listening. When we listen, we do not have a particular goal in mind. Nor do we listen with any conditioned phenomena. By listening to the sound of silence, we would enter a space of clarity and awareness.

Our delusions and attachments are like the garbage that pollutes our earth. All wastes are harmful to our lives. Our awareness shouldn't take up any of these wastes, not even a piece. That way, we'd uncover an awareness that is healthy within emptiness.