Chan Buddhism Study Notes

Hanshaw's Place

• Description of the path to Hanshaw's place: "laughable," no sign of cart or horse, converging gorges, jumbled cliffs.
• Hanshaw described as a poor and crazy character.

Poor Scholars and Poetry

• A group of out-of-work scholars find joy in poetry.
• They are focused on the Tang dynasty.
• Hanshaw likely spent winters in this area.
• Hanshaw was friends with a monk named Fanggan and a kitchen worker who saved leftovers for Old Pearl Mountain.

Anjang and Colloquial Language

• Anjang used colloquial language.
• Reference to a sentiment of not envying others.
• Connection to the back-to-earth movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
• Mention of Burton Watson's thorough translations.

Cold Mountain and Wisdom

• Description of cold mountain as sometimes intractable, sometimes agreeable.
• Nature is happy of itself, but wisdom is needed to recognize it.
• Retreat to cold mountain to wash out one's ears.

Bodhidharma

• Bodhidharma was an Indian Buddhist from the 5th or 6th century.
• He tried to promote Buddhism in China but had limited success during his lifetime.
• Stories depict him as a hermit in a cave, similar to Hanshaw.

Chan Buddhism

• Introduction to the character for Chan Buddhism.
• It is composed of two elements related to the relationship between heaven and earth.

Visual Elements and Chi Energy

• Visual element related to energy coming down from the heavens (chi energy).
• The character originally meant "altar."
• The altar represents heavens with three streams of life and sources of chi energy.

The Individual and the Cosmos

• The second character signifies the individual or alone.
• Chan Buddhism emphasizes the individual's connection to the cosmos rather than communal worship.
• The individual is alone with the cosmos, harmonizing through breathing and chi energy circulation.
• Zen/Chan is about the cosmos being alone with itself, not a division between the individual and the cosmos.

Original Being

• The character for original being is related to seeing absence as part of Chan Buddhist practice.
• Meditation helps one see through thought, language, and memory to perceive emptiness.

Breath and Chi

• Introduction to characters for breath and chi.
• The character for breath includes elements for self and heart.
• Self emerges from the mind to the heart.
• The goal is to replace the mind as an identity center with consciousness emptied of its contents.
• The character for chi represents the cosmos breathing through perpetual changes.

Spirit

• The character for spirit combines the cosmos and chi energy with a streak of lightning.
• The human spirit is like a burst of energy in space.

Intentionality/Desire/Intelligence

• The character for intentionality/desire/intelligence includes elements for the heart and mind.
• This character describes not just humans, but all of existence.
• The entire cosmos has desire and thinks.

Connections in Chan Buddhist Practice

• The combination of elements relates to the spirit.
• The idea of seeing absence is connected to one another in Chan Buddhist practice.
• The way in which we are trying to tune ourselves to that which is larger than ourselves.

Wisdom (Prajna)

• Prajna is transcendental wisdom or insight in Buddhism.
• Chan Buddhism uniquely connects this to Taoism.

Absence and Presence

• Absence (Yin) is associated with "not" or formlessness.
• Presence (Yang) is associated with "is" or formfulness.
• Zen Buddhism often refers to form and formlessness, relating to absence and presence in a Taoist context.

Taoist Insight and Awakening

• Taoist practice aims to see the absence of self, recognizing oneself as a temporary presence.
• Life should be rooted in an empty mind, leading to true awakening.
• Cultivating a "sky mind" or "mirror mind" involves emptying the mind of its contents and recognizing individuality as a small part of the whole.

Sujan

• Inhabiting life wholly moment by moment in absolute clarity, also known as Sujan.
• Living moment by moment.
• Sujan (self-sowness) emerges from living in the present.
• Zen and Chan Buddhists aim to achieve the same thing as Taoists by living in the moment.

Nonaction

• Absence action is action rooted in absence.

Thought and Stillness

• Thought is an ever-generating part.
• • The discipline involves not clinging to thoughts but letting them emerge and fade.
• This is practiced through posture and focus on breathing.

Emotions

• Being present with emotions without clinging to them, allowing them to pass through.
• Regular meditation helps in rechecking this process.

Meditation

• Cham meditation doesn't suppress thought but reduces stimuli, revealing original nature.

• Experiencing stillness at the source of movement leads to intimacy with the cosmos.

• Awakening isn't just tranquility but moving selflessly with change, integrating inner and outer experiences.

Enlightened State

• Regular meditative practice leads to calm and connectedness, diminishing self-absorption.
• Single-minded focus on self disappears.

Next Steps

• Reading the poems of Stonehouse, a Buddhist monk; who is a Buddhist monk for the next session to ground these concepts in a story.
• Following with poems of storms.