In Investigating Chan, First Lay the Foundation

In cultivating the Dharma-door of investigating Chan, you should not try to learn the details of how to investigate when you have not learned how to sit in full lotus, or even half lotus. You have not finished laying the foundation yet! To investigate Chan, you must first lay the foundation.

During the first week, set to clear the land. When you build a house, you must level the land first.

During the second week, you can drive in the stakes. Driving in the stakes requires effort–this is where you must cultivate patience and endure the pain, hunger, and cold. You must endure everything, which takes a lot of effort. Nonetheless, you must travel this path. You have to lay a good foundation and drive in good stakes. Otherwise, your house will not be sturdy; the wind will blow it down and the rain will wash it away. That is the consequence of not driving in the stakes well and not setting a good foundation.

In the third week, you can put up the beams, rafters, column bases, and columns.

In the fourth week, you can erect the walls, install doors and windows, and put up the ridgepole. That is the best way to build a house, gradually. You cannot “dig a well with one thrust of the shovel”; there is no instant success.

This holds true not only in investigating Chan, but also of being mindful of the Buddha, studying the teachings, practicing the Secret School, and delving into the Vinaya. In thought after thought, you have to train your mind to be honest and not to yearn for what is lofty. Do not run over to join the Secret School just because you hear someone talk about how wonderful it is. We should not get so deluded that we obstinately refuse to see the truth and rigidly hold onto old ways. The facts are right in front of us, but with addled brains, we still chase after what’s “secret, secret, secret” until we die not knowing what happened. That is truly secret! Actually, it is not secret, it is confusion; it is very muddled.

Buddhists should study true principles. Do not be blind followers. You should draw near virtuous people and stay away from bad people. Bad people are those who do nothing but cheat others. Virtuous people do not cheat others. People without virtue use all sorts of fraudulent means－ that is why they cannot preserve their virtue. Only those who do not cheat people can store up the merit and virtue they cultivate over days and months. That is why their virtue endures. Pay attention to this when you observe people. Do not just judge by appearances and say, “That person looks virtuous; he seems to be a Good and Wise Advisor.” You do not have a way to measure that. You must really get to know him thoroughly before you can make such an assessment. In this Dharma-ending Age, people have a common problem, that is, a penchant for what is lofty. We let our ears do the “seeing” for us. When we hear someone say such-and-such is good, we rush over. When we get there, we are clueless to whether it is good or not, and without realizing it, we get duped. People who follow confused belief in wealth and sex and in geomancy are very pathetic!

Today’s newspaper featured an article that happened in China’s Fujian province. Six children committed suicide together by jumping into the sea, hoping to become immortals. Why did they do that? They were misled by deviant talks, saying that people who do evil become ghosts, and people who do good become immortals. Moreover, what did “doing good” mean? It meant not being afraid to die. Children in rural areas are quite naive and easily believe whatever they hear. Since they were told that good people are not afraid to die and will become immortals after death, they decided to do a group suicide and become immortals. They thought, “In the past, there were Eight Immortals who probably committed suicide together. Now we can commit suicide together and become the Six Immortals and escape from the six paths of rebirth.” Thence, they killed themselves, wishing to become immortals.
Well, did they become immortals? I can guarantee they did not. Why? They were too muddled. People who become immortals are very intelligent, not foolish who have no understanding of true principles and can not tell right from wrong. How could they all die together and become immortals? If becoming immortals were that easy, everyone should just hurry up to die, and become immortals. However, that is impossible. How pitiful those foolish villagers were, blindly following this deviant claim and leading their children astray. This is very pathetic.

Why did those children choose to die unafraid, saying they were going to become immortals? You could say their environment forced them to feel that life was not worth living, that it would be better to die than to be living corpses. So seeking liberation, they all went to their deaths together. The children had written the word “death” over a thousand times in their notebooks. Every day, it was “death, death, death.” They kept thinking of death from morning to night. In their ignorance, those boys and girls were seduced by superstition, losing their true goal and direction.

Buddhists should not believe in superstition. You must break through superstition. What is superstition? It is being reckless and confused in your belief. You simply believe anything people say, and you end up all muddled. Being superstitious is still not that serious. What is most scary is ‘believing in confusion’, that you believe in the confused, upside-down teachings of externalist ways. Some people try to be clever; they do not believe in what is true but instead believe in what is false. This is a case of being confused within confusion. They do not recognize true principles. They take the true as false, and the false as true. For example, in the case of the six children, the theory that “death leads to immortality” is actually just a false claim meant to cheat people, but they believed it. If someone had told them they have to cultivate the Way before they can become immortals, they might not have believed that. In this world, there are many pathetic people and many woeful situations that we could never finish speaking of!