The secrets of chinese meditation 0877280665

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LU K UAISI YU

(CHARIESLUK)

The Secrets of Chinese Meditation

self The secrets of Chinese meditation 13209 BL1478.6 .L8 1972 BL :

K'uan Yu, NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF)

Lu,

BL 1478.6 L8 1972

Lu, K'uan Yu. The secrets of Chinese^ \

meditation.

DATE DUE KC 6

#6010 ROOM

BORROWER'S NAME

NUMBER Si

i/^U

#6010

BL 1478*6 L8 1972

1898The secrets of Chinese medita-tlon : self-cultivation by mind control as Taolst taught in the Ch» an Mahayana a«5* (Charles Yu schools in China / Lu K'uan Luk). New York : Welsert 1972. 240 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index* #6010 GiftXWhitmeyer $3«50«

LUf K'uan Yu»

Meditation (Zen Buddhism) China. 3. Meditation 2« BuddhisiB (Taoism) !• Title !•

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MEW COLLEGE

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626-1694

1

THE SECRETS OF CHINESE MEDITATION

By

the

same author

CH'AN AND ZEN TEACHING Series

I

Series 11

Series III

NEW COLLEGE 777

^^^

VALENCIA STREET

CA a«l« SAN FRANCISCO. 1418) 626-1694

The body of Ch'an Master sect

at

Yun Men

Wen Yen,

monastery,

founder of the

Kwangtung

(Died in 949)

Yun Men

province,

China.

LU K'UAN YU (Charles Luk)

THE SECRETS OF CHINESE MEDITATION Self-cultivation

by Mind Control

as

taught in the

Ch'an, Mahayana and Taoist schools in China

SAMUEL WEISER New York

1972

Published by Rider & Co. 1964 This American Edition 1969 Second Impression 1971 Third Impression 1972

First

©

Charles

ISBN

Luk

1964

0-87728-066-5

All rights reserved.

SAMUEL WEISER, INC 734 Broadway

New

York, N. Y. 10003

Printed in U.S.A. by

NOBLE OFFSET PRINTERS, New York, N.Y. 10003

INC.

To

the

memory of

CARL GUSTAV JUNG and LOBZANG JIVAKA humble whose encouragement has sustained my Buddhists the efforts to present to Western

Dharma

as

taught in

my

country

CONTENTS

ii

Preface

^urangama Sutra

15

Ch'an (Zen) school

43

1

Self-cultivation as taught in the

2

Self-cultivation according to the

3

Self-cultivation according to the

4

Self-cultivation according to the T'ien T'ai (Tendai)

Pure Land school

school 5

Self-cultivation according to the Taoist school

6

Authentic experiments with Buddhist and Taoist

methods of self-cultivation 7

81

109 163

191

Physical and spiritual culture according to Chinese

yoga

205

Conclusion

215

Glossary

219

Index

233

ILLUSTRATIONS

The body of Master 1

Sakyamuni Buddha

2

The

late

3

The

three

Wen Yen

Ch'an Master Hsu

frontispiece

i6

Yun

in 1959

Holy Ones of the Western Paradise

48 80

PREFACE

We We We We

take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the

take refuge in the Sahgha, take refuge in the Triple

The Buddha Dharma practice because if it

will

Dharma,

useless if it

is

we do

be aHen to us and

of our book-learning.

An

we

is

not put into actual

will never

awaken

to

it

it,

in spite

ancient said:

It requires but

way

within ourselves.

not have personal experience of

Self-cultivation has

If the

Gem

no other method.

knowledge of the way.

only can be known.

Birth and death at once will end.

Therefore, in our self-cultivation,

we

should

first

know

the

way, and the Buddhas and great masters have taught us the appropriate methods in the sutras and treatises. The purpose of this volume is to acquaint readers with various methods of meditation as practised in China so that they can choose any one of them for

we

their self-cultivation.

of Chinese texts on successful practices and on experiences of dhyana as we have been criticized for being unduly optimistic about the future of

At

first

hesitated to present versions

II

PREFACE

12 the

Buddha Dharma

in the

West. Fortunately, a learned reader

who

of ours, Mr. Terence Gray, the Far East, has written us

were

true that the East

efforts,

those of the

is

West

:

*I

recently paid a short visit to

myself beHeve that even

weary

after a

if it

thousand years of

are as fresh today as

were the disus a copy of

of Hui Neng.* He has also kindly sent Mr. D. E. Harding's Httle book entitled On having no Head^ in which the author relates his personal experience of dhyana. We are grateful to Mr. Gray for the encouraging news and to Mr. Harding for his book and have thus been emboldened to present in this volume different methods of meditation with the accounts of satisfactory results achieved by some ciples

practisers.

The Buddha Dharma has no room for race and nationahty and nothing is more misleading than the groundless contention that Westerners are not

former Hves

fit

many were

to achieve

virtuous

enHghtenment. In

their

men and women who

practised the Buddha's Teaching but failed to attain enhghten-

good karmas have caused them to be reborn in countries where propitious conditions prevail so that they can resume their self-cultivation. Those who have been reborn in the West are capable of understanding the holy Teaching and wiU certainly achieve satisfactory results in their present life. Therefore, racial discrimination should be cast away for Lin Chi said: 'There is not a Hving being who cannot be ment;

their

Hberated.'^

Buddhism

of the division of the Dharma into different schools contradictory and hostile to each other. There are people who, instead of practising the methods taught in the sutras and treatises, indulge in endless discussions

is

in decline in the East because

which

empty and give no practical results. recite the sutras by heart without striving

are

Others only learn to

profound meanings. Many are those who worship the Buddha, recite sutras and repeat mantras in the to understand their

1.

The Buddhist

2.

See Ch'an and Zen Teaching, Second Series, Rider (1961), p. 113.

Society,

London, 1961.

PKBFACE

13

hope of reaping merits for themselves and out knowing that the

their families, with-

World Honoured One teaches

us to keep

from illusions but not to cHng to merits which are also illusory. We are urged by Him to forsake the cult of ego, then what merit do we earn when we cease to be selfish? What merit can a thief win when he stops stealing? There are also those who, in their study

of Sanskrit and Tibetan, pass

their precious

practising the correct pronunciation either

by

time in

pressing

down

between the teeth, not reahzing that philology has nothing to do with selfcultivation. Our modern students of sutras and treatises, instead of studying their profound meanings, seem to be more interested in obtaining historical, linguistic and geographical the tongue or

by putting

it

up

against the palate or

which have nothing to do with the Buddha Dharma which is beyond space and time. During the last few years, in spite of my secluded hfe, I have met «ome of my readers in the West and have received very encouraging letters from others, and I have come to the conclusion that many Occidentals are now mature and digest quite well the Mahayana and Ch'an Teachings. At least half a dozen of them have related their personal experience of the state of dhyana, amongst whom are two British readers in America. My optimism about the future of the Dharma in the West is, data

therefore, not groundless.

To

prevent disbeHef in the involuntary movements de-

and

have given a sixty-five-minute demonstration of them to two British Bhikkhus, the Ven. Khema and the Ven. Aruno who are graduates of Oxford and

scribed in Chapters 6

7, I

Cambridge respectively and who happened to be in Hong Kong. The Ven. Aruno is Mr. Harding's son. Before their arrival, I gave the same demonstration to Mr. Hugh Ripman, a British banker, Mr. Paul H. Beidler, an American engineer, Dr. Huston Smith, professor of philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr. Holmes Welch, author of The Parting of the Way, Madame Maurice Lebovich, a French painter, and a few well-known Chinese Buddhists, including

PREFACE

14

Mr. K.

Fung, chief delegate of the Chinese Buddhists of the Hong Kong-Macao area at the Sixth Congress of the World Fellowship of Buddhists at Pnompenh, Cambodia, in S.

1961.

All brackets are mine.

UPASAKA LU k'uAN YU Hong Kong.

THE SECRETS OF CHINESE MEDITATION

V-

:

SELF-CULTIVATION AS TAUGHT IN

THE SORANGAMA SOTRA

According to

Buddha, we all have inherent in ourselves the Tathagata's wisdom which is unknown to us and which we cannot use because of our ignorance. We are also taught how to control our wandering minds so that our self-nature can return to its normal condition by which is meant a passionless, still and imperturbable state, free from aU external influences, in which our immanent wisdom can manifest and function in the normal way, that is the way of the absolute, beyond all relativities and contraries. the

when discussing self-cultivation, we cannot from the Buddha Dharma for the World Honoured One

Therefore, stray

taught us

how

existence.

For

of sarhsara for ever, whereas the highest achievement by other rehgious doctrines is only a temporary transmigration to the happy realm of devas from which, when the benefit of our good karma has been enjoyed to the full, we wiU be sent down again to the lower worlds of to get out

this reason,

Yung Chia urged

us not to seek

happiness in sarhsara and wrote in his Song of Enlightenment

With force expended, a spent arrow's hound

and cause

to fall

Distasteful things to follow in the next incarnation.

How

can

Which I.

it

then compare with the

wu

wei

reality

ensures a leap straight to the Tathagata's stage ?^

See Ch'an and Zen Teaching, Third Series, Rider (1962), p. 127.

15

THE SECRETS OF CHINESE MEDITATION

l6

As regards self-cultivation, there are many methods of practice which are found in the Chinese sutras and sastras but it is a matter for regret that authentic versions in Western languages are not yet available. Although we Buddhists in the East have access to the Chinese Tripitaka, to practise

it is

impossible for us

the methods simultaneously or one after the

all

other in our quest of enUghtenment (bodhi). In China,

Buddhists

fail

in self-cultivation because they choose

many

wrongly

methods unsuitable for them. For this reason, the late Master Hsu Yun said at the Jade Buddha monastery at Shanghai a few years ago Self-cultivation has no other method; It requires but

knowledge of the way.^

Because of His great compassion for

He vowed

to save,

and perplexity

manded

all

hving beings

whom

and in anticipation of our present confusion

in this

Dharma ending

age, the

Buddha com-

twenty-five great Bodhisattvas and Arhats

who were

^urangama assembly to speak of their methods of practice and of their personal experiences. The Surangama Sutra Hsts twenty-five ways of controlling the mind by meditation on the six sense data, six sense organs, six consciousnesses and seven elements earth, water, fire, wind, space, sense-perception and consciousness. After each of the twenty-five great ones had related his personal experience and achievement, the Buddha ordered Manjusri to compare their methods and to indicate the one most suitable for the benefit of Ananda and those in the Dharma ending period, that is present in the

—

ourselves.

After rejecting the twenty-four methods which were not suitable for untrained minds, Maiijusri chose the

by

which he praised

one followed

most convenient for people on this earth. It consisted in disengaging the organ of hearing from its object, sound, and then directing that Avalokitesvara,

I.

See Ch'an and Zen Teaching,

First Series,

as the

Rider (i960), p. 62.

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