| 正念球 | Tai Chi Mindfulness Ball | DB: 内部特色词 / 禅意项目 |
| 八段锦 | Baduanjin | DB: 内部特色词 |
| 座上禅修 | seated meditation | DB: 正念禅修的要领 |
| 座下禅修 | off-cushion practice | DB: DoT定稿 “cultivation in daily life” |
## Register / style notes
- The text is a structured teaching; English kept a clear, instructional register while using Dharma-idiomatic terms.
- Quotations from Chan classics (e.g., *Faith in Mind*, the Bodhidharma–Huike exchange) are rendered in standard English Buddhist idiom rather than literal Chinese word order.
- Em dashes are rendered as `---` per project djot convention.
*From Basic Practice to the Awakening of Awareness*
*I. The Foundation of Meditation: Value the Basics---Posture, Breath, and Mind*
To practice meditation well, we need to value the basic training. Although the true mind we seek to realize is inherently complete and needs no embellishment, since beginningless time the habitual patterns of cyclic existence have veiled our mind. We must break through the fog of life before we can recognize our true mind.
Our present life-form of the five aggregates is both the field for cultivating Buddhahood and an obstacle to recognizing our true mind. Therefore we need skillful means, wisdom, and methods.
Sitting meditation is about posture, breath, and mind. Among these, adjusting the body and regulating the breath are very important supportive conditions for awakening awareness and recognizing the true mind. Although it is said, “Chan is not seated meditation,” sitting meditation has always been an important symbol of Buddhist practice---even the Buddha realized the Way beneath the bodhi tree.
In the past, the Chan school did not place particular emphasis on sitting cross-legged. Because Chan is a method of sudden enlightenment, aimed directly at helping practitioners recognize their true mind, it “only speaks of seeing the nature, not of meditative concentration and liberation.” Yet this requires superior faculties and keen wisdom; if the “cloud layer” in one’s life is too thick, there will be no capacity to recognize the true mind.
In Buddhist practice there are sudden teachings and gradual teachings; there is “originally not a single thing,” and there is “at all times diligently wipe it clean.” People’s faculties are not fixed; even dull faculties, provided the method is right and one continually clears away mental dust, can realize the true mind. We need the view of the sudden teaching so that we can be filled with confidence in practice---knowing that within the life of every person lies a quality no different from that of all the Buddhas of the three periods of time and the successive patriarchs; we only need to recognize it. At the same time, we must also make good use of the gradual teaching, creating an “ecology of awakening” in our practice. All our study of doctrine, application of the “Eight Steps and Three Types of Meditation”, and cultivation of refuge and bodhicitta are helping to create this environment.
In meditation, sitting posture, bodily adjustment, and breath regulation all help develop inner awareness. And the core of bodily adjustment is learning the seven-point sitting method.
*II. The Seven-Point Sitting Method: Seven Essentials of Sitting Meditation*
The seven-point sitting method contains seven points to heed during sitting meditation:
First, sitting cross-legged. That is, sitting in the lotus position: full lotus, half lotus, or even simple cross-legged. Each person’s conditions differ; choose a posture that suits you---relaxed, stable, and comfortable.
Second, forming the Dhyana Mudra with the hands. This mudra is very important; it helps the body and mind settle.
Third, keeping the spine upright. During sitting meditation, keeping the spine upright and extending upward is especially important.
Fourth, resting the tongue against the upper palate.
When these four actions are done well, they are very helpful for meditation. When the body’s posture is correct, qi and blood flow smoothly, energy within the body can move and circulate freely, and we can sustain an unending supply of vitality and energy to support our meditation. Otherwise, many people must first overcome two problems when sitting: drowsiness, distraction, and restlessness. Body and mind are closely related; adjusting the posture helps quiet the mind and gives us ample energy to maintain awareness.
Keeping the spine upright is especially important. The “eight sitting exercises” and “seven breathing exercises” that we advocate in meditation are precisely aimed at the lack of correct posture in the ankles, knees, hip joints, and other areas during meditation, as well as the lack of spinal conditioning. Through these corresponding movements, the body becomes more supple.
These exercises rely not only on movement practice but also on coordinating with the breath---during each movement training, bringing the breath to every part of the body, allowing qi and blood to flow freely and the body to become soft, so that a connection is formed between breath and body. Although we cherish our bodies, most of the time we are merely using them; the mind and body often lack connection. The eight sitting exercises and seven breathing exercises, on the one hand, help establish the connection between breath and body; on the other hand, they help us perform each movement with awareness.
*III. Mindfulness of Breathing and Abdominal Breathing: From Natural Breath to Deep Connection*
Most people’s breathing is rather shallow and short, even chaotic and irregular. Through training, the breath becomes deep, long, and fine. Breath is extremely important to life---life lies in a single breath; human life is between one breath and the next. Training the breath well contributes to health and longevity.
The seven breathing exercises use postures and various body movements to help us expand the space of breathing, bringing the breath to the chest, abdomen, back, and even the soles of the feet. As long as we practice with dedication for a while, we will sense its value.
These exercises are not merely physical adjustment and breath training; what is more important is that every movement is carried out with awareness. The eight mindful exercises for lotus posture and the seven mindful exercises for breathing, although called “auxiliary mindfulness practices,” are in a sense the actual practice of mindfulness cultivation. As long as we perform each movement with concentration and awareness, then whether we are dressing, eating, relating with others, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, all can become the actual practice of meditation.
Through the seven mindful exercises for breathing, we can better establish two connections: first, the connection between breath and body; second, the connection between awareness and breath (that is, between mind and breath). Once these are well trained, meditation becomes much easier.
In breath training, the most important aim of the seven breathing exercises is to help us learn abdominal breathing. Abdominal breathing needs to be gradually mastered and made habitual through continuous training---that is, using the rise and fall of the abdomen to drive inhalation and exhalation.
We can practice like this: focus attention on the abdomen, using the abdomen as an anchor. When inhaling, feel the abdomen expand and swell; when exhaling, the abdomen contracts. Maintain awareness throughout this process.
Although the Satipatthana Sutta does not especially emphasize abdominal breathing but begins with the natural breath, asking us to “know when the breath is long that it is long, know when the breath is short that it is short, know when the breath is coarse that it is coarse, know when the breath is fine that it is fine,” the principle is the same.
In practice, we can alternate: when able, do abdominal breathing; when tired, return to natural breathing, then practice abdominal breathing again as appropriate. Do not force it.
*IV. Concentration and Awareness: The Two Core Powers of Meditation*
Mindfulness cultivation develops two powers: concentration and awareness.
Cultivating concentration requires an “object of focus” (anchor). In the ten elements of mindfulness meditation, the practice of Samatha contains three elements, and the first is having an object of focus. This object can be the breath, walking, the Tai Chi Mindfulness Ball, or the movements of Baduanjin.
We need to rest the mind on the object of focus---“stopping” means settling. How can we settle? We need attention. The mental factor of attention is characterized by “alertness as its nature, leading the mind toward its object as its function”---it alerts us when the mind has wandered, leading the mind toward the object and settling there.
In the process of meditation, restlessness, distraction, and drowsiness are normal states of life that we are bound to encounter. We need to emerge from drowsiness, not fall into distraction, and bring the mind back again and again, settling it in awareness, resting it on the object of focus. This process first requires vigilance: realizing that the mind has already wandered off or grown drowsy, and then bringing it back. The mind may wander again and again; through vigilance and awareness we bring it back again and again. Without attention and awareness, we may remain unconsciously in drowsiness and distraction for long periods.
The purpose of cultivating concentration is to awaken awareness. People who do things well in the world more or less have concentration, but they have basically not received training in awareness. Therefore, in the process of concentration, many people unconsciously fall into attachment to things. Buddhist meditation, through concentration, ultimately aims to help us awaken awareness.
*V. Awareness: The Key to Awakened Nature*
The Satipatthana Sutta says that during breathing we should keep everything clear---like a pool of clear water that can clearly see all that occurs in the sky of the mind: when inhaling, know clearly that we are inhaling; when exhaling, know clearly that we are exhaling. When the mind wanders off in fantasy, maintain awareness and bring it back. Wander again and again, bring it back again and again.
Awareness is the key to awakened nature, the crucial doorway to awakened nature. Please do not underestimate this awareness. When many people first begin meditating, they have no understanding of awareness, because we are accustomed to “not knowing” and cannot feel the power of inner awareness. But this power has always been there; it is only obscured by ignorance. Through continuous training, we are constantly recognizing and becoming familiar with the power of awareness.
With training, awareness moves from vague to clear, like a turbid pool slowly becoming clear. We can clearly be aware of all that is happening in the present body-mind-world. At the same time, awareness grows stronger and stronger, so that we no longer fall into the inertia of thoughts.
In the sky of our mind, thoughts come and go like the ceaseless flow of vehicles on a highway. Without awareness, we unconsciously see one vehicle and climb on, then another vehicle comes and we climb on again… Every day we are busy getting on and off, shuttling back and forth among all kinds of thoughts, very exhausting.
Awakening awareness is like sitting by the roadside, able to keep a distance from thoughts. With awareness, we are like someone sitting by the road watching vehicles come and go, not falling into the vortex of thoughts, not controlled or swayed by them. All thoughts are essentially empty by nature, just as all waves are essentially seawater. But if we lack awareness, these thoughts will control and sway us---when there is no awareness, thoughts are delusion; when there is awareness, these thoughts are essentially awakened nature and will not have a negative effect on life.
Among the ten elements of mindfulness there is a self-checklist to help us examine ourselves: Have we truly awakened awareness? Can we recognize the characteristics of awareness? When we possess awareness, what is our relationship with thoughts?
*VI. Acceptance, Non-judgment, and Right View: The Right Attitude toward Thoughts*
In the part on awareness, the ten elements speak of four elements: awareness, acceptance, non-judgment, and right view.
Acceptance---during meditation, besides awakening awareness, we also need to face the various thoughts and images in our mind. Acceptance means accepting them.
Non-judgment---do not judge any good or bad, any thought, any image. Because when we judge, we enter the system of the discriminating mind. Why not judge? Because we are using awareness, not reason. In mindfulness meditation, the practice of the “Eight Steps and Three Types of Meditation” helps us use the discriminating mind well; mindfulness meditation itself, however, is to help us transcend the discriminating mind, transcend reason, and open the infinite wisdom of non-discrimination within us.
This also accords with Chan thought. The Third Patriarch Sengcan’s *Faith in Mind* says: “The Great Way is not difficult; it simply avoids picking and choosing. Once you set up right and wrong, the mind is scattered in confusion.” Once we fall into judgment and discrimination, we are using the system of the discriminating mind. When we do not discriminate or judge, we need to awaken awareness. Of course, if ordinary people do not discriminate but do not know how to awaken awareness, their non-discrimination may be merely dull and muddled.
For us, we need to awaken awareness, abide in awareness, and not judge the various thoughts and images---these images are like dreams and illusions in the sky of the mind. In awareness, these thoughts will dissolve and be disintegrated.
Right view---helps us understand the thoughts, images, and aware mind within us. The commonly used right views are:
- Contemplation of non-self: helps us realize that all thoughts are merely thoughts, not self. Do not label these thoughts with “I.” Thoughts simply arise and cease according to conditions; they are a form of dependent origination, and in dependent origination there is no self.
- Impermanence: helps us understand that thoughts are a process of arising and ceasing. As long as we bring awareness, we can see thoughts arising and passing, arising and passing. Do not hold a fixed assumption of permanence.
- Emptiness: helps us examine what thoughts are and what the mind is. Through examination, we can feel the spaciousness of the mind, “the mind is nowhere to be found.”
Just as Bodhidharma guided the Second Patriarch Huike: Huike said, “My mind is not at peace,” and Bodhidharma said, “Bring me your mind, and I will put it at rest”---bring the mind that is not at peace, and I will give it peace. Huike turned his light inward and examined what this restless mind really was. As a result, under examination, the restless mind naturally vanished; this is called “the mind is nowhere to be found.” We need to realize this “nowhere to be found,” and at the same time realize “clear and complete awareness”---what is that mind of clear and complete awareness?
Through these different views, on the one hand we deconstruct the deluded mind, and on the other hand we recognize the true mind and experience our original mind.
*VII. From Elementary to Advanced: The Gradual Path of Meditation*
The ten elements of mindfulness meditation, from the eight mindful exercises for lotus posture and the seven mindful exercises for breathing to the ten elements of mindfulness meditation, span the whole process of adjusting the body, regulating the breath, and then Samatha and Vipassana. We only need to follow this process step by step, first doing well in elementary mindfulness meditation, then entering intermediate, and then advanced.
When the foundation of elementary mindfulness meditation is well established and we know what awareness is, then bringing awareness into daily life to expand it constitutes intermediate mindfulness meditation. From intermediate to advanced is the move from “with attention” to “without attention,” from “with deliberate effort” to “effortless.” This process is actually not that difficult.
The difficulty or ease of practice is relative---just like anything in the world: with a method it is not difficult, without a method it is difficult. We already have such methods; as long as we train according to these methods step by step, meditation will become easier and easier.
Meditation is divided into seated meditation and off-cushion practice. Elementary practice is mainly training two powers: concentration and awareness. Through the training of the eight mindful exercises for lotus posture and the seven breathing exercises, in seated meditation we take the breath as an anchor and train abdominal breathing. In each inhalation and exhalation, with concentration and using the breath as an anchor, we cultivate concentration. As the breath becomes deeper and longer, the training of concentration becomes easier. At the same time, maintain awareness during breathing: when inhaling, know clearly that we are inhaling; when exhaling, know clearly that we are exhaling.
Seated meditation and off-cushion practice, stillness meditation and moving meditation, complement each other. At the beginning each person may choose different methods, but as long as we practice seated meditation with dedication, it will certainly help us go deeper in meditation.
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