2. watching over your breathing
Another method is “watching over your breathing”. “Watching over your breathing” and counting your breath are two different methods. “Watching over your breathing” is called the Ānāpānasati Sutta. This means that you are very clearly aware of your breathing state. This is called “watching over breathing”. For example, now you are listening to this lecture, so you don’t know if you are breathing in or out. Even when we close our eyes during our sleep, the breathing will not stop, it continues twenty-four hours a day. But we are not aware of our breathing state. “Watching over breathing” means that you sit there, calm down your heart and stay aware of your state of breathing. Whether you are breathing in or out, if it is cold or hot, long or short. You need to be aware of all your state of breathing. If you are really calm, you will find out that your initial heavy and rush breathing will slowly become long, slow, fine and even. All these states, when you reach the state of “forgetting self”, you don’t even know where the breathing is coming from. Sometimes you will find out that every pore of your body is breathing, and entering the breath of your body. Furthermore, you could feel that you became a single cell that is hollow in the middle. This is only a breath in and out. The cultivation state of everyone is very different. But we don’t use this “watching over your breathing” method to cultivate, we only use it to practice our concentration. Put your consciousness and mind on your breathing state, and just simply let yourself calm down. This method is very important for the Buddhism of the Small Vehicle. Buddha’s son Rāhula attained the fruit of Arhat with the Ānāpānasati Sutta.
3. counting the breath
There is also “counting the breath”. This is an easier method. You can decide yourself. This means that for your breathing, for instance, one exhalation plus one inhalation equals one breath. If you count ten times, but if you are very distracted you probably will count to 12 or 13. When I just started, I often counted until 15 – this means that you have distracting thoughts. This is a very easy and simple method, a counting method to control our distracting thoughts, because when we meditate, there will be many distracting thoughts. This is called the method of counting breath.
4. chanting mantra
There is also the method of “chanting mantra” using one thought to replace many thoughts. This means that when I chant Buddha’s name or mantras, my body and mind will be fully focused on Buddha’s name and mantra. This will better control the distracting thoughts and make them much less – this is to train our concentration.
There are many types of mantras, the most common ones are: 1. Praise and purification Mantra, for example, the 100-Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva. 2. Corresponding mantra, for example, the heart mantra of all buddhas and bodhisattvas. 3. The mantras that defeat demons, such as Shurangama Mantra. 4. The mantras that release souls from suffering, such as Pure Land Rebirth Mantra. If combined with the cultivation of Zen Samadhi, I suggest you chant the corresponding mantra – the heart mantras of all buddhas and bodhisattvas are better. For example, the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra is the heart mantra of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Chanting this mantra for a long time can not only improve concentration, but also connect us to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara’s compassion without any discrimination and origination, and great compassion based on sameness in essence, and be blessed and protected from it. Thus, this could clean some of our bad Karma.
When we chant, our voice can rise from the lower belly, a little bit like an opera singer. Watch over your body as a hollow state. Don’t think about our heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney – don’t think about where the hollow area is. Then, let the stream of sound fill up and vibrate your meridians. If you chant like this, it’s very easy to be focused and enter the state of Samadhi. When practitioners chant until their concentration power is enough, their body and mind will become the sound stream of the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra, they will enter the sound ocean of the Dharma realm. When we chant the names of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, their empowerment will be very strong, because Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have the power of their great vows before they attain complete enlightenment.
Since our goal is to train our concentration, then you may say: “Master, I can chant a cup or a broom, it’s the same as chanting Buddha’s name.” Actually, chanting the names and central mantras of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will obtain their empowerment and blessings. It’s not only helping us train our concentration, it also brings empowerment and blessings. This is because Buddhas and Bodhisattvas resolve their vows before they attained complete enlightenment. Such as Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara’s vow: “to help all who are suffering” – this means “saving those suffering immediately when hearing their mourning”. Also Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha had vowed that “as long as hell is not empty, I will not complete my Buddhahood.” Chanting their names is easier to associate with the power of their vows, and obtaining their help and empowerment.
There are many names and mantras; the chanting method is very important. Chanting must vibrate with the path of Meridians. Let every cell vibrate within the stream of sound, and starting from the lower belly area, the whole body will become truly empty. This is called persistent chanting. If the sound is still in your throat, it’s called chanting. Only through persistent chanting can we enter the state of “forgetting self”, and the state of Samadhi. I think it will be too slow if we train our concentration through chanting. It’s still workable.
So, I have introduced some very simple methods to train our concentration – the most common ones.
The 2nd. How to break and go beyond our attachment
Then, what should we do to break and go beyond our attachment on the area of matter, the area of sound and light, and the undulation area? This means that we need to break and go beyond our self attachment. What is self attachment? This means that we must break and go beyond our attachment on our body and mind that is constantly in the cycle of birth and extinction. If we don’t attach to this, we will be pacified.
So far, we introduced the two most important principles of Buddhism: Person with no-self and Dharma with no-self. These are a bit boring principles that we often see in Buddhism. What is person with no-self? This means that the self that you believe in – your body and mind that are constantly being born and extinct – that self is not truly you. Within this “person”, there is no “you”. Only a fake phenomenon that is constantly born and extinct. This phenomenon is moment-to-moment born and extinct; within it, it’s not you. You are neither born nor extinct, you are Buddha. Another of your states is in the area of true vacuum space. You are neither born nor extinct, you are Buddha. You are only trapped in this illusion and can’t be liberated from it.
This illusion includes the unceasing body and mind, including the five skandhas: “form, perception and feeling, conceptualized thinking, behaviors and consciousness.” These are Buddhist terminologies. If you don’t understand, you can go read it on the internet. Form: matter, the material state – every material thing that you can see and touch, we call them “form”. Feeling and perception: all your feelings and perceptions – such as your feelings of hot, numb, cold, swelling, and pain, happiness and joy, as well as unhappiness. Conceptualized thinking: your moment-to-moment born and extinct thoughts, and the unceasing wave of your consciousness is called conceptualized thinking. Behavior: all your behaviors. Consciousness: your concept and definition, your experiences, and your physical experiences. This is the five skandhas mentioned in the “Heart Sutra”. They are all parts of self. Your “self” is composed by all these things.
Dharma with no self is a very important principle in Buddhism. This means that not only humans, all things and beings don’t have a real existence of “self”. They are born when the causes and connections gather and extinct when causes and connections dissipate. This is called the “interdependent origination” in Buddhism. For example, this table is produced with wood and stone. There are also workers that work to build the table – with all these causes and connections, this table was created. “Table” is only a fake label, for this table itself, it is born when the causes and connections gather, and is extinct when causes and connections dissipate. If there are no workers, no wood – all these causes and connections don’t exist – and this table won’t exist.
Self attachment means that you are attached to all these unreal illusions, you believe they are real and are attached to them. Especially this body – you are trapped by its illusion, being moved by it, including every word, every sound, every form, perception and feeling, conceptualized thinking, behaviors and consciousness, your consciousness, experiences, feelings, and perceptions – all of these, you can’t see that they are only illusions and are trapped and absorbed by them. If you are attached to all of these, this is called self-attachment.
After many years of cultivation, I discovered that when we just start to break and go beyond self-attachment, the greatest disturbance and impact are emotional and sexual desires. Sometimes, you say: “the self is emotions and sexual desires.” It’s not wrong. You see within our consciousness, the unceasing thoughts from day and night are all about fame, profit, emotional and sexual desire. These things are constantly cycling within us. We are lured by these things. The most difficult one to break and go beyond is emotional and sexual desires. If we break through the emotional and sexual desires, then fame, greed and all other desires will become much easier to break. Sometimes the strong attachment on fame and profit is because, I think, emotional and sexual desires are not satisfied, and one is looking for another escape point. To break through emotional and sexual desires is very difficult.
Some elderly people say that they are no longer sexually active, it seems that they have no more sexual desires. In the past, some monks in order to cut through their sexual desires, even destroyed their reproductive organs. But to break and go beyond sexual desires can’t be attained by simply destroying all these physiological or material things. No sexual behavior doesn’t mean you don’t have sexual desires. Emotional and sexual desires, to a broader definition, include also lovership, friendship, family relationship, and so on – they all belong to the category of emotional and sexual desires. But here we focused more on the physiological disturbance from sexual behaviors.
There are two verses from a Chinese poem: “What is love and emotions? We live and die for them.” For thousands of years, humans created so many poems and literature for love and emotions, but it still can’t be explained and defined. Almost every sentient being experiences all sorts of feelings within love and emotions. Thus, we are all sentient beings with love and emotions.
From our cultivation angle, what is love and emotions? Actually from our cultivation angle, love and emotions are nothing. Let me explain with a simple metaphor: In the area of matter, it’s a superficial phenomenon and form. You feel love and emotion because of physical form – either you find the person pretty or ugly – this is only a superficial form, an illusory feeling and perception. Your feelings are only thoughts, what you crave, what you did – it’s a behavior, it’s an experience. What did you experience? This is love and emotion. These are the five skandhas. The five skandhas are empty. The five skandhas in Heart Sutra are all love and emotions: form, perception and feeling, conceptualized thinking, behaviors and consciousness. In the area of light and sound, what is love and emotion? They are light and sounds. They are not material – they are light and sounds. In the area of true emptiness, they are manifestations of all forms. From the area of matter to the undulation area, practitioners are almost all trying to break and go beyond their emotional and sexual desires. They are all in the trap of emotional and sexual desires. Even if you become the vibration of the undulation area, it is still the vibration of love and emotions. Even when we enter the area of true vacuum space, enter the true empty self, we still have the love to illuminate all sentient beings, the love and emotions to help all sentient beings. The eighth ground Bodhisattvas haven’t broken and gone beyond love and emotions. They still have love and emotions to help sentient beings. Even when they advanced to the love of empty self and became compassion, they are still sentient beings that haven’t been liberated. Although they enter the area of true vacuum space, they still have projections in the area of matter and the area of sound and light. In these projections, there are life after life connections waiting to be completed, in addition to their own karma and collective karma. They need to bear the collective karma of sentient beings. That is also because they haven’t been liberated from emotions and desires, so they must bear them.
We can say that the biggest obstacle of human cultivation is emotions and sexual desires. When humans reach puberty, it becomes a seed of sexual desire. This is because we came from the sexual intercourse of our parents. We are a seed of sexual desire. When all the causes and connections are fulfilled, the seed will bloom and have fruits. There are too many causes and connections in this world; in this century of wifi and internet, the conditions to fulfill our cause and connection are much faster and easier. If there are people who are willing to bear fruits in different connections, until the end of their life, let’s not use human ethics, qualities and responsibilities to label their behaviors. Let’s only discuss their consequences from the angle of Buddhist cultivation.
Through all these years of cultivation, I found out that during the cultivation process, many young people are lured and affected by sexual desires, they can’t be liberated from it. Their cultivation attained a certain level, and regressed because of their sexual desires. Now, let’s discuss the consequences from the angle of Buddhist cultivation.
- First, they made many connections. Emotions and sexual desires are very difficult to let go since they can’t be exchanged equally with other things. For example, you love me, and I love you in return, then we let go this relation – it’s impossible to do for us.
- Secondly, some people continuously cycle through lovers. This will hurt many people who cling on to emotional and sexual love. Thus, this emotional and sexual love will cause very profound and remarkable adverse connections. This is not good for our cultivation.
- Thirdly, emotional and sexual desires can cause us to be very easily distracted and unable to focus our mind, unable to be fully concentrated and enter Samadhi.
- Fourthly, our energy will be consumed easily.
- Fifthly, our jealousy, anger and hate, and possessiveness will become stronger, and harder to be completely pacified.
- Sixthly, we will become very hypocrite and always lie. Our dark side will be strengthened. This kind of darkness can make us feel that life is meaningless. Brightness and candor represent growing and life; darkness represents death.
Overall, for practitioners, emotional love and sexual desire is the most difficult illusory state to be liberated from in the area of matter and area of light and sound. That’s because we are the seeds of emotional love and sexual desire.
In the Small Vehicle Buddhism, the fourth fruit Arhats start their cultivation from desires; renouncing secular life, following precepts and disciplines; cultivating the four dhyanas and eight samadhis. They literally escaped from the illusory state of emotional love and sexual desire. I don’t mean to convince everyone to be detached from emotional love and all desires and become a monk. However, we need to know certain obstacles that emotional love and sexual desire create on the path of cultivation.
The fourth fruit Arhats cultivate the four dhyanas and eight samadhis, so they can escape from this illusory state. In Samadhi, they are pacified and enjoy complete tranquility of mind, sorrows and pleasures being both extinguished. Tranquility and extinction are only one side of the area of matter. The other side is “birth and growing”. From here, “tranquility and extinction” and “birth and growing” happen at the same time. In the area of undulation, “tranquility and extinction” and “birth and growing” happen at the same time. When Arhats are in the state of “tranquility and extinction” for a very long time, eventually causes and connections will be fulfilled, and they will leave the state of Samadhi. This is why certain Sutras explain that Arhats can stay in Samadhi for eons – their meditative concentration is very strong so they can stay in Samadhi for a very long time. Sometimes, they can even stay in Samadhi for centuries. However, when causes and connections are fulfilled, they can’t remain in Samadhi anymore. At that time, they will be very lost. They may ask, “where am I and what year is it?” They don’t even know. They don’t understand that the emotional and sexual desire which they are trying to escape still remains within them, because they are themselves emotional and sexual desire. Everyone is itself emotional and sexual desire. There is nothing to escape indeed. What Arhats are trying to escape from is only the opportunity and condition for the seed to bloom. The seed is still there, sentient beings have emotions, and all past causes and connections are still there.
When Arhats attain the state of four dhyanas and eight samadhis, with their meditative concentration, they can extinguish all their feelings and perceptions. If we can’t overcome emotional and sexual temptations, it’s because we can’t empty our feelings and perceptions. But Arhats, with their meditation concentration of four dhyanas and eight samadhis, can extinguish all feelings and perceptions of body and mind. When Arhats are in Samadhi, they only have very weak breathing. Their breathing is so weak that it can only make one fine hair falter. This is Arhat’s Samadhi state of “tranquility and extinction”. It’s almost the cessation of “Chi” flow and pulsation. However, they still have very weak breathing. Once they are out of Samadhi, everything in this world, including emotional and sexual desire, for Arhats who have attained the fourth stage, all things in this world can only succeed in making waver a little bit one of their fine hairs. Wind from all directions can’t move them – they are truly eight winds cannot move them. They use meditative power to defend against everything.
However, all past connections must eventually be completed, in order for them to realize Buddhahood in the human world. They need to help and save sentient beings that are trapped within emotional and sexual desires. Their immovability and emotionlessness won’t allow them to be able to save beings who have connections with them. Thus, Bodhisattvas appear. Therefore, many Arhats started to raise the heart to become Bodhisattva, and save sentient beings. Arhats who raise their compassion will not care about any exterior things and formalities. Their discipline is “mindfully discipline your heart to equanimity”. Every moment they start to notice the change of their heart and mind, and watch over whether their heart is disciplined. They let go of all formalities and exterior things, and solely focus on the path of Bodhisattva.
The path of Bodhisattva is to “mindfully discipline your heart to equanimity”. Every moment, the heart must be in the Samadhi of “emptiness”. This way they enter the world and can use all sorts of means to help and save sentient beings. This even includes satisfying the emotional and sexual desire of sentient beings. However, this kind of Bodhisattva is very difficult to find in this life. Practitioners who want to directly cultivate the path of Bodhisattvas, regardless of their capacity of growth from past life, find it very difficult to both help and save sentient beings and also cultivate the fourth stage Arhat’s meditative power of Samadhi. It is almost still very difficult. The transformation and cultivation of meditative power, and certain causes and connections, can’t be completed by individual efforts. Sometimes, changes of the universal collective karma will influence our cultivation. Sometimes, even if you pay a lot of efforts, you might not reach your goal.