This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Thank you for having me here. Always a delight to be at the center here. It's one of my favorite places. I would like to use this time to talk a little bit about the practice of silent illumination, the topic of my recent book, Illumination, A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No Method, in case you haven't heard. So, silent illumination is the practice spiritualizing the Buddha's teachings articulated in the Four Noble Truths.

[01:10]

The Four Noble Truths start with there be suffering, and oftentimes this word kind of can confuse people. Dukkha. Dukkha might preferred translation is unsatisfactoriness that whatever is happening we have this nagging sense that's not how it's supposed to be not good enough that's dukkha and the second noble truth also sometimes a bit confusing because we translate it as the cause of suffering. And oftentimes when we hear that, oh, I know who's the cause of my suffering. It's my boss or my neighbor, my partner, my kid. Well, that's not what the Buddha was talking about. And the Chinese translation can offer a bit more clarity because the Chinese character for the Second Noble Truth pronounced as Ji in Mandarin Chinese,

[02:28]

literally means the coming together. The coming together of what? The coming together of whatever is happening in the present moment and our entrenched habits of reacting with vexations. So in the practice of silent illumination, we see how we generate suffering by reacting to the present moment with vexations. Basically, many different forms of cravings and aversion. Whatever is happening in the present moment, some of you who are starting a session may be experiencing plenty of that. Strong sensations on our knees, our back, our butt, from sessions of sitting, maybe drowsiness. maybe busy mind, whatever is happening in the present moment.

[03:34]

If we allow each moment to be fully experienced as it is, without habitual reactivity, without hating it, without clinging to what we like, we notice suffering does not arise. It's just busy mind, just strong sensations. as it is. And that's what the Buddha was talking about in the third noble truth, cessation of suffering. This is pointing to the fact that allowing the present moment of body-mind in this space to be directly experienced as it is, which is the practice of silence illumination. As Master Hongzhi who articulated the practice stated in his words, stay with that, just as that, stay with this, just as this.

[04:46]

It is what we often know as the practice of just sitting. But of course it's not just sitting, It's also just walking, just eating, just showering. Stay with this, just as this. Allowing the body to breathe as it does. Allowing thoughts and feelings through and experienced as they are moment to moment. allowing them to go when they are ready to move on. So it is just this simple. But we find it incredibly difficult to do, don't we?

[05:49]

And this is because of our entrenched habitual reactivities, our very strong compulsion to react to whatever's going on in the present moment with vexations. We get in the way of ourselves from being fully engaged with life as it is each moment. I'd like to read a short quote from Master Hongzhi. I guess you can tell this is my favorite book. In this quote, he said, the field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits.

[06:51]

Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness. I want to share this quote with you because the first sentence here talking about that the ill, the boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning pointing to the fact that silent illumination is the natural state of being it's already here Do you see it? There is no need to create or try to attain it. It's already here. All we need to do is to reconnect, reconnect with the natural state of being, silent illumination, realize the Buddha nature.

[07:56]

It's already here. The nature of emptiness is already here, right now, this moment now. And that's why some people talked about the practice of silent illumination. You're just sitting. It's doing nothing, but it is not doing nothing. It's not about sitting here, spacing out, or waiting for realization to happen. The second sentence of this quote is the key. It's pointing to the fact that silent illumination is the process of recognizing our entrenched habitual reactivities so that we can stop perpetuating them, unlearn them,

[08:57]

and release them, then you can reconnect with a natural state of being, which is already here. So what we do in sitting meditation provides us with an opportunity to gain insight into our habitual reactivities. because off the meditation cushion, our mind usually is way more agitated and confused. So sitting meditation provides an opportunity when our mind's a little bit more settled and clear. What are we doing in sitting meditation that we are talking about here? That's the process of silent illumination. It's to recognize, to practice recognizing our habitual reactivities, how they show up with this compulsive quality shows up in this very sort of convincing, convincing voice.

[10:11]

It's like, come with me with all the promises that if you come with me, follow me, act out this habit, you will get what you want. And that's why we fall for it over and over again. So we practice recognizing, recognizing this seductive voice, this habit with this compulsive quality that we can experience. It feels like there's this urge to believe in it and to act it out. That's why it's called habitual reactivity. And we're also practicing to become familiar with how the habits unfold, thought after thought, by maintaining moment-to-moment clear awareness. Very, very subtle mental mind habits, thought habits, thought including feelings, images, sensations in the body, moment after moment.

[11:23]

We also practice catching ourselves falling into it because it's every moment happening. Catch ourselves about to succumb to it. Catch ourselves already in the midst of it so that we can stop, stop perpetuating it and release the habit. So feel this urge and start, release it. In other words, This is what I just talked about. It's the work in the practice of silent illumination. It's not about creating or maintaining a mind state. Sometimes that's what we believe silent illumination is, is to maintain some mind state. That's not what it's about. It's maintaining total, clear awareness of body-mind in this space, each moment, moment after moment, to recognize and to unlearn our habitual reactivities.

[12:35]

So it is not about becoming good at this method of no method. I want to become really good at it so I can be able to get a gold medal in the meditation Olympics or something. That's not what this is about. It's about freeing ourselves from the unhelpful habits of suffering. And what we do, really seeing clearly what we do in meditation, allows us to see that. And also what we do in meditation is often the reflection of habitual reactivities, our modes of operations that we act, today without noticing in our daily life. We often like to believe that when we sit down on a cushion, we're like a different person. Oh no, we just carry our usual habits, the way we go about life with our awareness onto our cushion, the various ways we generate suffering.

[13:47]

And because we lack clarity of what it is that we are doing, we just keep perpetuating these habits. And for those of you who think, well, who cares if I suffer? Oh, well, when we suffer, with all this agitation in our mind, we are much more prone to act in ways that cause harm to others. Haven't we done that many times? And oftentimes, because we are not even clear that we are suffering, we must believe that by acting in ways to take out our frustrations or agitations on others will help us remove our suffering. And that's why we do that. And we don't even know that's what we are doing. So cultivating clarity of our habitual tendencies in meditation allows us to see how we've been generating suffering and causing harm.

[14:50]

Often. to loved ones without intending to in our life. Without clarity of what we're doing in meditation, we may also perpetuate vexations, strengthen them inadvertently, and then in turn act them out even more in our life. So I would take the time I have left to go over a few examples to explain what I mean and hopefully to help you recognize these habitual reactivities and maybe learn about how these reactivities are like, and you may discover other modes that I haven't mentioned. So one of the most, I said popular, from practitioners I have worked with is what I call the mode of creating a foggy mind.

[15:54]

So that often is motivated by a number of things. One is oftentimes practitioners come to meditation to get away from unpleasant thoughts and feelings. This meditation thing I heard is good. I can feel calm. And so related to that often is the desire to experience or create the sense of calmness, this peaceful feeling. It's very pleasant. So they want to do that. And related to that is also this sort of misunderstanding, that silence illumination. means that we are cultivating a blank mind with nothing happening. Silence, that sounds like nothing happening. So, and ignoring Master Hongzhi's teachings.

[16:55]

He said, there's no need to do anything to create some stage you thought is silent illumination. We ignore that. We ignore what our teachers say anyway, most of the time. And so we try to work hard to create to create this peace, this quote-unquote silence that we have created in our mind. We try to build whatever we imagine it to be. So how do practitioners go about doing that? Oftentimes, when they sit in meditation, because they want to experience this peace and calm. So I kind of take out a fog machine and just create a layer of fog in the mind. Or really what they're doing is by dulling down their awareness.

[17:58]

And so oftentimes it's intimately related to habitual drowsiness. like in meditation. And so the telltale sign that you are maybe into generating foggy mind is that every time you sit, you can reliably go to that particular state. Every time you sit, I go to this happy place, feel peaceful and calm. That would be a little bit suspect because every moment is brand new. Every moment is brand new. If every time we sit in meditation, we go to the same experience, that means we are the one generating it, rather than allowing the mind to be as it is in the present moment. And sometimes there are more thoughts, sometimes less thoughts, sometimes more agitated, sometimes less so.

[19:03]

If every time it is the same, then you need to look into it to see if you are generating it. And some of you may be sitting here thinking, oh, that sounds good. How do I do that? How do I generate that same state? That's what I've been working hard to do, right? And then you thought they might sound very desirable. Well, when we get into the habits of generating a foggy mind, what we are doing is we are obscuring the activities in the mind. So we allow whatever thought habits to roam free out of awareness and allow them to be perpetuated and strengthened out of our awareness. And also we are unaware of how it is being acted out in speech and bodily action. all our speech and bodily actions preceded by activities in the mind when we have no idea of what's going on in our mind and that is how we can have experiences like um if we have been very jealous of somebody and i've come harboring a lot of resentment

[20:26]

but we have been covering it, obscuring it with a layer of fog in our mind, dimming out our awareness. We have no idea that we have those thoughts and feelings. We let it perpetuate and strengthen and perpetuate. And then when we, one time we were encountering that person, we blurt out something that is super mean, super hurtful. Or we hang with that person, we're just kind of like, do this cold shoulder thing or do something that is very hurtful. And if we recognize it, I don't know where that came from. I didn't mean to say that. And so you may get really confused. Well, but it's very obvious where it's been coming from because those resentful thoughts have been strengthening and perpetuated in our mind.

[21:30]

And so they get acted out. Because we've been obscuring these thoughts, we didn't have an opportunity to intervene, to stop acting them out. So if you thought, cultivating, experiencing this foggy mind is a good idea, think again. And when we discover that this is what we are doing, we're habituated to giving rise, cultivating a foggy mind in meditation, then it would be a good idea to look into our life to see if we can recognize our doing that, this habit showing up in our daily life. Recently, I worked with practitioners who just assumed that he doesn't do that. And then when he looked into his life and he was a bit horrified, that's what I do all the time in my life.

[22:39]

And he realized that, for example, he's been obscuring, using a foggy mind to cover things. A lot of anger he's been feeling about something that's been going on. And so because he didn't know he's angry, he wasn't able to do anything about it. He was just like walking around with this agitation and taking out blindly on everyone in his life. And not only that, his father was actually feeling a lot of anger about the same issue. and came to talk to him about it, and he refused to talk to his father. He's like, just move on. What is wrong with you? Why are you holding on to it? And there's nothing to be angry about, because he had no idea about the anger he's been experiencing. So not only was he blindly acting out his agitation, because he's not aware of his anger, he failed to empathize with his loved one, leaving his dad feeling

[23:44]

unseen and unloved and he realized he was doing the same thing at home with his family so whenever there are problems with his child he's find himself just hiding behind this layer of fog and really not take any responsibility to to do to engage in the actions needed and just let his wife look after that and so sure to be trying to be calm when he's really hiding behind this layer of fog. And this mode of operation can also show up in ways where we willfully overlook problematic situations, behaviors exhibited by someone in our life, resulting in staying in a relationship or a job or a situation, allowing ourselves to be belittled, devalued, manipulated, or even abused.

[24:45]

Recently, a practitioner told me exactly this happening to her. And after being in that relationship for a few years, she completely lost all her confidence in herself. And that wasn't how she was before this. And of course, it's very painful for a loved one to watch us being in situations like this. Another common mode that may show up in our meditation is when we experience a good session of sitting meditation. As I sit here, I'm very calm, mind very still, very peaceful, very clear, whatever word you use to describe your wonderful session of meditation. And you go, yes, this is it. I finally got it. I worked so hard. I finally got it.

[25:45]

And the next thought is, this is how meditation is supposed to be all the time. Because I got it. So without our knowing, or maybe we know, then we try to recreate it. Next time you sit down, You expect that it's going to be like this again. Maybe you have done this already. And inevitably, you won't be able to recreate or relive that experience. Why is that? Because every moment is brand new. That is gone. And it does not mean that you cannot have another good session of good sitting meditation. However... because what we are doing is to hold up our memory, our idea of what good meditation is, right here, and use it to judge the present moment experience of meditation, then whatever happens in this present moment, not good enough, because not like that one.

[26:59]

Not like that one. So, It happened quite often that practitioners would come into interviews and ask, how's your meditation? Not very good. Well, for you to know it's not very good, well, what are you comparing it to? And inevitably, it comes out, oh, it's not like that one I experienced five years ago. one person 20 years ago. For 20 years, this person has been, without knowing, trying to go back to that experience, or at least use their idea of that experience to judge the present moment. Of course, that's the classic definition of dukkha. Whatever is happening in the present moment, not how it's supposed to be, not like that one.

[28:02]

If this is what we're doing in meditation, then it's worth looking into whether we have similar habitual tendencies in our lives. This is also a common one, right? You see, there's this sort of like a nagging feeling that whatever our current life situation is, we just feel it's not very good or not good enough. Huh, what are we comparing it to? And oftentimes one might discover that it is we, because we've been holding our idea of, for example, maybe like a certain time in our life where we think that is how my life is supposed to be without our knowing. A couple years ago, I read a piece saying that people who were very popular people in high school, after high school, they tend to feel pretty miserable because it was, right now, not like that person, that popular person I was when I was in high school.

[29:16]

And we may... Actually, I have another friend that's what... He was honestly complaining about his life. Not very good. I was like, I can't see anything wrong with your life now. And he said, well, it's not like in college. You know, in college, it was like staying in the dorm with my friends and always hanging out with my friends, doing things that are fun. Like that, basically in his mind, that's how life is supposed to be. and use that to judge the present moment situation, unsatisfactoriness. Or we may do something similar, but towards someone else, feeling that someone, the way they are, is not how they are supposed to be. If you have children, you may have experienced that. So depending on when is the favorite time of your children, like some happiest time of being a parent, maybe when your child was like a baby or a two-year-old or five-year-old, that was this time.

[30:34]

That was like a perfect kid. So cute, you know, when you're always like wanting to have your attention, whatever it is that you love about that time. Take a snapshot. That's my perfect child. And then they grow up, and they are not that one. So, from then on, something's wrong with this kid. Whatever's going on, that kid is just being themselves, but not how they're supposed to be. Dukkha. Dukkha. And we may do the same thing with... like sort of maybe a place or situation. So for example, I know someone when he started his job in an academic department, it's like a very vibrant place, lots of people there, they really are friends with each other.

[31:38]

So in his mind, that's how my department's supposed to be. And then those people retire, and then, like, the new generation came by. They just run differently. And people don't, like, bring food for department meetings and don't bring food for, like, potlucks. And it's like, like, we're not how it's supposed to be. Something's wrong here. There's nothing wrong. It's just the present moment as it is. But that's that habit, right? And lastly, another common mode of operation that can show in meditation is our reaction to thoughts. It doesn't matter how many times a teacher tells you it's okay, there are thoughts. Like, no, not these ones, or not at all, right?

[32:39]

I had a I met a practitioner a number of years ago who shared with us in the interview what he does in meditation. He said, this is what I do. He's a very sincere, very dedicated practitioner. And this is what he does in meditation to practice well. So he'd sit there and hold up a shotgun. Not an actual shotgun, just like in his mind, he's holding a shotgun. and it's like really watching that hole. That's like a rabbit comes up, the thoughts. As soon as there's a rabbit, I kill it with a shotgun. He thought he was practicing very diligently by keeping thoughts out of his mind, right? However, I hope you can appreciate in this image that in his mind, he's killing rabbits.

[33:41]

like thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, and really cultivating, breeding hatred, hatred. Instead of cultivating compassion, instead of cultivating compassion, because of his desire to cultivate a mind without thought, was cultivating compassion. reading hatred each moment, moment after moment in meditation instead. Now, some of you may think this has nothing to do with me. I don't hold shotgun in my meditation. Well, like there might be less obvious a way of turning your thoughts into enemies that you try to get rid of in various way of like pushing them away. Noticing this very subtle movement in your meditation of pushing thoughts away, ignoring them, turning a blind eye to it, dismissing them.

[34:47]

So, for example, recently a practitioner in retreat would mention in the interview, oh, those just random memories, just random memory, dismissing them, and it turns out those random memories about the two most important things going on in her life that she's been trying to block out without knowing, without herself knowing. Or another practitioners refer to her feelings as those silly feelings. Really, but actually she was trying to dismiss her feelings that she has been trying to push out of her awareness. so practice recognizing that this is what we're doing in meditation see that we are perpetuating the habits of reacting to the present moment with aversion and not to take it lightly because as we cultivate aversion hatred in our mind this way they spill over in life they spill over in life

[36:04]

off the cushion, we tend to see people as obstructing us, disturbing us, instead of, again, being more compassionate. Everyone's a problem. Your problem, your problem, your problem. And Instead of being easier to live with, we become more difficult to live with. Unkind. And that's actually what happened to one of the practitioners I encountered recently. He was like working very hard to make his mind calm without thought. It's like, that's what he was doing. The whole time, in meditation, pushing out, pushing out, just ignoring thoughts.

[37:07]

And he told me that's how he is in life. Like his girlfriend is disturbing him. The person sitting next to him in meditation, breathing too loud. Everyone, everything bothers him. So instead of freeing from suffering, we are strengthening the habit of suffering instead. If we are not careful. And we can act them out because we allow hatred to grow in our hearts. I encountered this person who allowed this hatred he had towards his neighbor. Just let it grow, let it grow, and let it grow. And one time, it got so overwhelming that he found himself holding a baseball bat, walking towards his neighbor's house. Like, not to play baseball with them, to... I hope I can be honest then, like to go and beat him up. So even though this is not a, he's not into violence.

[38:16]

That's why it's very important to be careful in our daily life. And notice habits that we are engaging in that perpetuates hatred and aversion. For example, You know, compulsively reading or listening to more new stories that justify and feed our hatred. Watch out for even the most subtle aversion. Because they like wheat. They grow and grow easily. And when we notice them, stop perpetuating and not feel it. And catch ourselves with the urge to feel it And then we notice this urge, release it. So the practice of silent illumination is not about making the mind a certain way, always feeling a certain sensation or being in a particular mind state.

[39:21]

It's about fully experiencing body-mind in this space in each moment as it is. Recognize our habitual reactivities so that we can unlearn them, unlearn them. And that way we can suffer less. And when we suffer less, then we are less prone to cause harm to others and more available to bring benefits to others. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:18]

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