PREPARATION FOR AND BENEFITS FROM THE INTENSIVE ZEN COURSE IN HAWAII
The Intensive Zen Course in Hawaii
Question 6
What would be the best way for students to prepare to attend this Intensive Zen Course?
Will gong-ans feature as a training or testing tool as part of the course?
What benefits in daily life will participants be able to realize after taking this landmark course?
Sifu Andy Cusick
Answer
The best way to prepare for the Intensive Zen Course in Hawaii is to come with an open mind. In Zen terms, come with an empty cup.
The same principle applies to all other learning. It is amusing that some students, having learnt some rudimentary features, which may not even be correct sometimes, think that they are smarter than masters. It is not uncommon today because many “masters”, especially in the internal arts and even when they are well-known, are bogus. But these students will miss a lot when they learn from genuine masters.
Gong-ans, or real stories of spiritual awakening or Enlightenment, will not be used as a training or testing tool for their particular purpose, but will be used to help course participants enjoy and understand Zen better.
The particular purpose of gong-ans is to help students attain a spiritual awakening or even Enlightenment. For example, a monk asked his master, “Why did our First Patriarch came from the West?”
Every monk knew the answer, i.e. Bodhiharma came from India to China to teach Zen.
But the master answered, “Three pounds of flax!”
The purpose was to shock the monk into non-thought. When the monk attained non-thought, he attained a spiritual awakening or Enlightenment. This is because the phenomenal world is the result of thought. When there is non-thought, the phenomenal world dissolves into Transcendental Reality.
The gong-an worked excellently for this particular monk because he was ready, having prepared himself after many years in the monastery. If the same answer were given to another person who was unprepared, it would not have the same result. He would probably have more thoughts than non-thought. He might, for example, think that that the master was crazy, or what had flax to do with Bodhidharma.
The Zen master was an expert teacher. He gave just the right stimulus at the right situation for the right student. It is the same with Shaolin Wahnam teachers. They give the right instructions to the right students or patients at the right moment. When they say, “let go”, for example, the students or patients go into a chi flow. The same instruction given to other people would produce different reactions.
Having monks following strict monastic rules was one way to prepare them for attaining a spiritual awakening or Enlightenment when an opportunity arose. If they could do whatever they liked, they would be unable to grasp the opportunity even when it was provided by their teacher. Charging high fees in our school is one way to create the right situation for students or patients to get the best results. If the fees were like what other schools charge, students or patients may think they are smarter than their teachers or healers.
As no one at the course is likely yet to desire to merge with the Cosmos, gong-ans are not taught for this purpose. Gong-ans are also not taught for attaining a spiritual awakening because we already have a better method to do so.
There are two schools of Zen, Caodong Chan or Soto Zen and Linji Chan or Rinzai Zen. Relatively, the main approach of Caodong Zen, of which the Shaolin Monastery was a leading example, is through meditation, or training of mind. The main approach in Linji Zen is through gong-ans. This is relative: both Caodong Zen and Rinji Zen use meditation and gong-ans as well as other expedient means.
It is unbelievable but true that without having to live in a monastery or attend regular spiritual retreats, many of our students at advanced courses like Cosmic Breathing, Merging with the Cosmos, and Small and Big Universe attain a spiritual awakening that change their life. I expect the percentage of students attaining a spiritual awakening at the Intensive Zen Course in Hawaii will be even higher.
Besides attaining a spiritual awakening that brings tremendous freedom and bliss not just during the course but for life, there are many other benefits that will enrich the daily life of the course participants.
Zen means meditation, though some people associate it with Zen Buddhism and regard it as religious. Even the term “Buddhism” as used by the Buddhists themselves is not “religious” as conceptualized by many people, especially in the West. If one avoids evil, do good and cultivate his (or her) mind, he is a Buddhist, or a good Christian, a good Muslim or a good follower of his own chosen religion, or a happy person without officially professing any religion.
Meditation here is not a process of thinking or reasoning. It is a process of mind training. Indeed, the mind training at the Intensive Zen Course is firstly to clear the mind of all thoughts, i.e. to attain mental clarity. Having attained mental clarity, the next step is to nourish the mind, making the mind remarkably strong. Then the course participants expand the mind, attaining a spiritual awakening, bringing tremendous freedom and bliss.
These wonderful benefits will be experienced at the course itself, and will continue for life, and after life. These skills become intrinsic and automatic. In other words, having acquired these wonderful skills, course participants do not need to trouble themselves how to employ their clear mind to solve problems more efficiently, or how to employ their expanded mind to feel free and joyful. Because their mind is clear, intrinsically and automatically they will solve problems more efficiently. Because of their spiritual expansion, they will intrinsically and automatically feel free and joyful.
Nevertheless, besides these wonderful skills, course participants will also learn some effective techniques to solve problems. The process is as follows:
- Define the problem.
- Assess whether a solution is effective, i.e. whether it will solve the problem.
- Assess where the effective solution is good, i.e. whether it is viable and easy to be carried out.
- Assess whether it is the best available solution, i.e. of various solutions it is the one that will produce the best result with the least effort in the shortest time.
Some of you would have heard of the case of me providing a viable solution in an impromptu manner to a problem described by a course participant at a regional Zen course in England after I had walked just seven steps. Course participants at the Intensive Zen Course in Hawaii will learn how I could accomplish this feat.
Simple sitting meditation during a Zen course in England
The above is reproduced from the thread Zen Intensive in Hawaii Q&A in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum
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