European Chan Program – Safeguarding Our Mind

During the Chan session, a student asked, “What is the most important thing in life?” Most people would think about family, life, making money right away as the means of survival. This isn’t true at all. The most important thing in life is to watch our mind. Don’t ever allow our mind to be lost for a second. 

We can’t take this physical heart as mind. This physical heart will become useless once it dies. As of our mind, it has awareness and nature. This is a mind with awareness. We can apply contemplative analysis to become mindful. Do not leave your mind unguarded for a moment. Through the continuous contemplative analysis, we’d see the mind to be notionless and immaterial. Persist with contemplative analysis without interruptions. Chan in living is to make our life clear.

Why are we not clear? Our “knowingness” is deluded. “Knowing” why we are deluded? All kinds of knowledge constitute to our thoughts. Yet, these thoughts are the causes of delusion — the reason that we’ve fallen into the samsaric ocean of phenomena.
 
That’s why the purpose of sitting Chan is to attain enlightenment. By becoming awakened, our awareness would be perfected. We’d be free from the samsara of phenomena. Awareness is a treasure. Its nature is emptiness and luminosity. It is omniscient, clear, and pervasive. Only through sitting Chan can we rediscover the nature of awareness.

A lot of people only practice Chan in the Chan Hall. Once they return home, their practice is interrupted by work and life. Pausing and resuming would result in discontinuity. Our concentration cannot persist. So I’d encourage that you should make the habit of Chan practice in the morning and night even when you walk out of this Chan hall. Allow the continuity of awareness to extend the connection.

Why are we not clear? Our “knowingness” is deluded. “Knowing” why we are deluded? All kinds of knowledge constitute to our thoughts. Yet, these thoughts are the causes of delusion — the reason that we’ve fallen into the samsaric ocean of phenomena.