The Second Talk given on Silent Illumination, at the two week retreat, April 2006, at the Maenllwyd.
Yesterday I mentioned some of the history of Silent Illumination and how it starts with Honghzhi. In fact it goes back further than that and I found a reference in the Sutra of Hui-neng, the Platform Sutra. Most of you probably know the Platform Sutra, or at least the first chapter of it which is the story of how Hui-neng, the "barbarian" ended up in a monastery and became the sixth Patriarch. Here are a couple of sections on Samadhi and Prajna. You can equate Samadhi to Silence and Prajna to Illumination. This is what he had to say:
The patriarch preached to the assembly as follows. Learned audience, in my system samadhi and prajna are fundamental. But do not be under the wrong impression that these two are independent of each other for they are inseparably united and they are not two entities. Samadhi is the quintessence of prajna, while prajna is the activity of samadhi. At the very moment that we obtain prajna, samadhi is therewith, and vice-versa. If you understand this principle you understand the equilibrium of samadhi and prajna. A disciple should not think there is a distinction. To hold such an opinion would hold that these are two characteristics in the Dharma. Samadhi begets prajna and prajna begets Samadhi. Learned audience, to what are samadhi and prajna analogous? They are analogous to a lamp and its light. With the lamp there is light. Without it there would be darkness. The lamp is the quintessence of the light and the light is the expression of the lamp. In name they are two things, but in substance they are one and the same. It is the same case with samadhi and prajna. 1
We may replace the words Samadhi and Prajna with Silence and Illumination.
Although the method has two words in its title and they seem to refer to two things, it's not that you have two tasks or two competing activities, one to cultivate Silence and one to cultivate Illumination. Through your cultivation, both of these emerge. And to the extent that one is there, the other will be there. And, to the extent that the second is there, the first will be there. To the extent that one is lacking, the other will be lacking. Neither is complete until both are complete.
Silence may get a bit tricky to practice sometimes. On the next page we find this:
Learned audience. Some teachers of meditation instruct their trainees to keep a watch on their mind for tranquillity so that it will cease from activity. Hence the disciples give up all exertion of mind. Ignorant persons become insane from having too much confidence in such instruction. Such cases are not rare and it is a great mistake to teach others to do this. 2
Silence is not having the mind cease from activity. So what does Silence mean? There seems to be some kind of contradiction there. We use the word 'Silence' to mean the mind stopping doing things. Yet here is a clear warning against quiescence, against switching off, against going into a trance. And, as Hui-neng says, there are still today people who teach that way and understand that way. It is all too common for people to hear that meditation is about calming the mind and thus to think 'Oh yes the more relaxed I get the better I am getting at it'. But no! Relaxing and calming the mind is an important part of practise but it is not the whole of practise.
Certainly, these days we come across people who have cultivated calming the mind over many years and got somewhat stuck, blank. What is lacking? What is lacking is the Illumination aspect. Illumination is the mind being Silent but also alert, bright clear, knowing, seeing. That too is quite tricky.
It is relatively easy to have a silent mind by switching it off. But how about having a silent mind that is still hearing, seeing, knowing? That is trickier. An elderly woman turned up at our meditation group a few weeks ago. She said that she has no problem with disturbances by external noises when she is meditating, she just switches off both her hearing aids! Well, OK, you switch off both your hearing aids, you close your eyes, you settle yourself in a room with no distractions, and yes you can get a sense of silence that way. Is that a useful sort of silence of mind to cultivate?
The Maenllwyd is a fairly quiet place to practise and there are benefits in having a quiet place to lessen distractions. Our minds are so wild that it is quite difficult to begin to calm them. So we use these expedient methods, in a sense 'inappropriate' methods, to find a way to get the mind to begin calming. We put ourselves in a quiet place. Perhaps we close our eyes. Perhaps we use quite a narrow suppressive method, a narrow focus such as a mantra or counting the breath. Perhaps we switch off our hearing aids. We can begin to calm the wild mind. Actually there is no problem with that providing we understand that it is only a beginning, a preparation for a more complete method later.
Silence does not mean switching off the world and cutting it out and not knowing it. Silence refers to absence of the interference of 'self' in perception of the world. That is what is to be silenced. So often the self simply gets in the way of Illumination, of seeing the world, of knowing the world. Maybe we see the sunrise, as we did this morning, shining through the mist. Maybe we truly see the sunrise shining through the mist - or maybe we have all sorts of self-referencing thoughts such as 'I wish I had my camera with me'; or 'That's nice, I hope it does it again tomorrow'. Do we simply just see things or do we grasp onto them - or push them away if it is something we do not like? How about simply seeing the sunrise; or simply feeling the rain on our head? Or simply feeling the cold? Or tasting the food? These are simple things but we make them complicated, we add to them. We attach to them. So how can we cultivate that 'disinterested' Silence, without being cut off from the world?
The mnemonic John uses many times on retreats is very relevant here. 'Let through, let be, let go'. Let through means 'really be with what is happening. Really see the sunrise, feel the rain, feel the cold' or whatever it is. Let it through. It's there and it's part of the world and part of experience. Know it, feel it, be it. But then we say 'let be'. 'Let be' means leave it alone, don't interfere with it. Don't fuss about it, don't push or pull or try to prolong it. Accept is as it is. This is where it gets very sticky because 'yes I want more of that' or 'I want less of that' or 'I can make use of that in the future' or 'I'll try to avoid that in the future'. Self gets in there.
The Silence we are talking about is a silence of the self, a self which is interfering all the time. It is very subtle and pervasive. It is only after quite a while, when we have settled down well in meditation, that we begin to appreciate that it really is so very pervasive. This indeed is perhaps the main reason for meditating. Through settling down, what's left after letting go of some of self becomes clearer - and that is Illumination beginning. As the surface froth settles, understanding and clarity has a chance to arise. A little bit of silence, and a little bit of clarity. So the clarity refers not only to the world out there, it refers to the world in here. It is OK to see yourself in action. We are not denying the self, we are trying to not have it in the way so much. If it is in the way, then let yourself see that process. Whatever there is to be seen, see it whether it's external or internal. Self, world, that's Illumination. Don't block your seeing of it, that's Silence.
Again back to the Sutra of Hui Neng. He was uneducated and illiterate and became enlightened merely by hearing the Diamond Sutra being chanted in the marketplace. He found out what was being chanted, went to the monastery and worked in the kitchen. He spent several months there, de-husking rice. Eventually he found his way to a secret interview with the Master, the Fifth Patriarch, during the third watch of the night. And the Master was testing him:
The Master expounded the Diamond Sutra to me. When he came to the sentence 'one should use one's mind in such a way that it will be free of any attachment' I at once became thoroughly enlightened. 3
"One should use one's mind in such a way that it will be free from any attachment." He doesn't say that one should switch-off one's mind so that it will become free of any attachment. Use one's mind, but free from attachment. Attachment of course is the activity of the self. But using the mind implies Illumination.
There are several different ways of translating that phrase. John uses a translation that puts it this way: 'Let the mind arise but do not put it anywhere'. Again, you see that the mind is active, but do not put it anywhere, do not get locked on to anything. That is a quotation from the Diamond Sutra but it is not easy to find the original as the words do not match. But I think I found it. It says 'The mind should be kept independent of any thoughts that arise within it.' The full paragraph says:
Bodhisattvas should leave behind all phenomenal distinctions and awaken the thought of the consummation of incomparable enlightenment by not allowing the mind to depend on notions evoked by the sensible world, by not allowing the mind to depend upon notions evoked by sounds, odours, flavours, touch contacts, or any qualities. The mind should be kept independent of any thoughts which arise within it. 4
So again the mind is there but it is not trapped by responses to the world, which are usually self-driven responses. We hear a sound, smell a smell, and straight away the self starts filtering, judging. Of course, there are certain survival instincts and evolutionary forces at play here when we talk about 'what is dangerous for me'. Probably this is how this pattern of thinking arises. It is self-protective in a literal sense, but in modern society it has gone way beyond that, becoming a whole self-oriented world generated from an initial evolutionary precaution. It gets in the way of our experience in the world.
Can we stop doing that? Can we trust that actually we don't need to be constantly on guard? There aren't too many wild animals around here. Food is probably going to appear on the table in the next day or two so we don't need to worry about starving. The weather is cold but we have fires. So, actually, our evolutionary-based survival instincts can be switched off. Perhaps we can trust to let go of defending ourselves. Peek out of the armour and see if you can see the world unfiltered. What would that be like? Maybe we don't know. Maybe we have never been without our armour. Can we drop our armour, drop our pretences, drop our defences? That is what is meant by Silence.
We have methods to help us. By placing our total awareness on the body, we are cultivating Illumination. When we include all our bodily experience we are automatically including all the experience of being us. We are including what our body is doing, our thought processes, and through our senses we are including awareness of the outside world. So placing awareness on our body is all we need to do to gain total Illumination. Everything is available to us that way. What gets in the way is that we don't actually succeed in having total awareness of our body, it's partial and distorted. We pay more attention to some parts than others. We ignore some parts that are uncomfortable physically or emotionally. We gravitate towards certain things that are pleasant. If we can actually achieve gradually, through cultivation, a total awareness of our bodily experience, then we will inevitably have a total awareness of all experience.
And where does Silence come in? Well, if your mind is totally on your bodily experience then that is Silence. If your mind is wandering off into thoughts, planning etc. then that is not Silence, that is the activity of the ego. But if you can drop that and simply have your attention on your bodily experience then self is out of the way. Self may still be doing its stuff, and that may be part of what you notice in your Illumination, but actually if it is just part of an even Illumination it is just part of what is there and is no longer pulling you off-centre. It's only when it pulls you off-centre and makes your body-awareness distorted or lost, that it is not Silent.
If your attention is fully and evenly on your bodily experience then it is both Illuminated and Silent. To the extent that it is wandering or distorted, off-centre, it is not fully Silent and it is not fully Illuminated. Don't be cross with yourself. Just notice what is happening. Sit with the intention to practise, knowing that you will slip, that something will happen, you'll get pulled off course. And that noticing is Illumination and that not getting cross with yourself is Silence. Notice what happens all the time but don't do anything with it. Notice yourself slipping and don't get cross. Notice that you are not slipping and don't get proud. Simply notice what is happening.
I spoke yesterday about stages in practise of Silent Illumination. And I mentioned that these are just labels of convenience, there are not clear cut demarcations for each stage. In general the early stage is focused on bringing the mind and body together. When you arrive on retreat the mind can be a long, long way away, both physically and in time. But if you cultivate a habit of noticing where the mind is, and bringing it back when it is not here, and noticing when attention to the body has slipped and bringing it back, the mind does begin to settle. Mind and body are becoming one, rejoined, fused. And when your body is walking your mind is with you, it's not anywhere else. It's not back home or at the destination of your walk. Walking from here to lunch, your mind isn't already there at the table, it's here feeling your feet on the ground, feeling the chill, feeling the sun. You are simply there with your body and when you arrive at the table you sit at the table, your body and mind are there.
Of course, from time to time you slip up, but overall you gradually get a better sense of being unified. And with that comes a possibility of a wider experience both of self and outside. And this is not particularly linear in the way I'm describing it. You may have times when your body and mind are not particularly well unified but you also have a good sense of the outside. That's OK as well; it's not that you have to do one then the other stepwise. As you bring your mind more within the sphere of your body it has more chance of noticing what is happening within you and around you. And there becomes a gradual solidifying of the sense 'This is me here, I'm in this place, this is the experience of being me, and this is the experience of being me in this place'.
Watch out for a tendency to be in this place yet not be you. What I mean by that is you can get caught by a landscape, you can get caught by a view. And you can have a sense of place but you may have lost your reference point, yourself. Having a sense of place is actually quite fine and there is a method of practise called Direct Contemplation based on that, which we may do later. For Silent Illumination your attention needs to be brought back to a reference point in the body. You may include what is out there but you do not go to what is out there. There is a difference between having an expanded sense of self and having gone from here to over there. If you find that you have gone from here to over there what is lacking is the contact with the body, so bring experience of your body in too.
Experience of the body is the traditional way to enter Silent Illumination. One way it can just happen is through following the breath. As you get better at following the breath, there comes a point at which you are with the breath and your sense of what is happening can expand. The breath is happening against a sort of background. There can be a flip-over when, rather than your attention being on the breath, your attention is on the space that contains the breath. This can happen particularly when your attention on the breath is very acute, and you notice the breath coming in and out, and you notice there is gap between the breath coming in and out - a second when there is no breath. If you attention is on the breath, at that turning point between the in and out breath - where is your attention when there is no breath? You attention is just open waiting for the breath. If your attention is just open, when the breath comes it is a bit like the filling of a container, a container that is sometimes filled with breath and sometimes not. You don't need to bother with what the container is, but just notice that there is breathing happening. And maybe there are other things happening such as sensations, sounds and so on. So, having started here with a narrow focus, once again you are slipping into a broader awareness. If you are well-practised at following the breath you may notice these turning points. If you try to do this or think about it of course you've created noise in your mind and lost it! But if you are simply following the breath very acutely you will notice these gaps, and in the gaps you may notice a kind of foreground-background flip.
Why am I mentioning this? Well during this second stage of Silent Illumination a similar thing can happen. You settle your attention on the body and it is quite clear and stable. You get a sense of expansion, inclusiveness. There may be an itch on the knee but it is no different from hearing the airplane or birdsong or smelling the incense. It may be the beating of your heart but, whatever it is, every sensation is part of an even awareness. There is no particular distinction between different sensations. They all have an equal status in your awareness. There is no need to make a distinction between one type of sensation and another, nor between outer and inner. These are simply things that are happening and they are noticed. There is no need for a commentary, they are simply there.
At some point you can do this foreground-background flip and you may have a sense they are happening within a container, which you might call 'space'. At that point, your attention is on everything - space and anything that arises in that space. You also have a sense of the space itself, the background behind what is arising. Your awareness has expanded beyond what you can actually sense. Your experience is waiting for whatever may arise anywhere.
The 'flipping' happened to me on my first Silent Illumination retreat here with John. I had done a lot of Western Zen Retreats but on this Silent Illumination retreat John instructed us all to follow our breath for the first day and a half. After a while, I went to John and said 'I can't do that, I keep losing the breath, I keep falling into the gaps between the breaths'. He said 'That's OK, carry on!' If you don't understand what is happening, it may be a bit confusing.
It's the same with Silent Illumination practise as a whole. If you don't understand that these changes in awareness may happen as the practise progresses it can be confusing when they do happen. But, don't try to make them happen! That doesn't work. As soon as you try to make something happen, or try to take a short cut and jump ahead, then the self is active and these things will not happen. If the mind is not Silent, these things will not happen and to the extent that you think they have happened then you are just kidding yourself, telling yourself a story.
So, apply the method, be aware that it may shift in its own way in its own time. But it's not something to be pushed.
One more point. At this point, when your sense of awareness has expanded, although the instruction is to have body awareness, there is a time in which body awareness slips away. Because your awareness is now quite even across all phenomena, the body becomes less obvious, lighter, and the boundary of it has faded. You need to be aware of the distinction between losing awareness of the body with the mind going somewhere else and a simple sense of expansion. When you are in the expanded state, if something happens with your body, a sound, an ache, then you'll know about it. If you have gone off somewhere else then you are in a kind of trance-like state. You may well not notice what is going on around you, you are just being somewhere else. That's the test.
Cultivate a sense of awareness of your body and notice how there is sensations and feelings there, weight, heaviness, warmth, cold, tension, ache, pain. Whatever it is, notice it but don't fuss about it, they are just there and confirm that you are sitting there. Know them but don't do anything with them. Notice the change, maybe a tension gets worse or eases, or a temperature changes. Notice how a thought wanders into the mind then out again. You don't have to do anything with them, they wander in and out. If they are noisy, busy and distracting then use some of the methods that you know for calming yourself, whatever works for you. When you have calmed down a bit, regain awareness of the body. Simply continue from there.
1. The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui Neng, Tr A. F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam, Shambala 1969, Book Two, p. 42 (Lightly edited for clarification)
2. Ibid, Book Two, p. 44
3. Ibid, Book Two, p. 18
4. Ibid, Book One, p. 44
