15

GRACEFUL EQUANIMITY

THE TEACHING OF impermanence is so strong in Buddhism, so fundamental. We all age and grow sick and die. You cannot stay young forever with Chan. Chan is not about the physical body, it is about the mind.

When he was in his late seventies, Master Sheng Yen was sick with kidney failure and was being treated with dialysis. His many disciples in Taiwan urged him to get a kidney transplant.

“You are a great master,” they said. “It will benefit all of us for you to remain alive as long as possible.”

Sheng Yen declined. He insisted whatever kidneys were available for transplant should go to a younger person, not someone who was already old and at the end of his life.

This is aging gracefully and facing death peacefully and with equanimity. Dying is natural. This is Chan.

 

WE CHINESE HAVE a saying that the Taoists don’t eat the smoke and fire of the human world. They go into the mountains or into monasteries, purifying themselves and trying to attain immortality through esoteric practices. Chan taught a form of spiritual commitment as it took hold in China that provided another perspective, another way of looking at things.

Although Chan teaches that we are not our bodies, it also teaches that we still have to take care of the body and try to keep it healthy and strong. We talk of “regulating” and “harmonizing” the body. We use the word tiao in Chinese, which could be thought of as the process of finely tuning a radio receiver, turning it slightly this way and that until the signal comes in strong and clear.

Some practitioners have gone to the opposite extreme. They don’t bother about the body; they don’t take care of the body, and the body becomes sick. We need the body to realize ourselves and attain liberation. Chan does not believe in the repulsiveness of the body or that the body is an impediment. We work with the body and treat it as absolutely essential.

The first Buddhist vow is about this. We vow to deliver all sentient beings from suffering. “Deliver” has several meanings in this context. We think of ourselves as messengers “delivering” a parcel or message. We also think of ourselves as “delivering” people from one place to another. There is also the sense of being midwives “delivering” babies, or the Buddha that is in all of us. Like the midwife, we help the mother let go. Life is delivered through letting go.

Our physical bodies are precisely sentient beings. By loving and helping the self, we are able to love and help the rest of the creation, which in the Chan view is inseparable from our own self, our own body. If we are consumed by self-blame, self-hatred, or self-denial, then we can’t hope to help others.

Although it is important to take care of the body, it is also important not to indulge it too much. We shouldn’t fetishize the body. We need to be able to live with some pain in our lives. We need to be able to take some hits. Everything need not be so comfortable all the time. Wanting always to have absolute comfort is another extreme kind of attachment to the body.

In Chan and the teaching of the Buddhism we follow the middle path, the middle way. This comes directly from Buddha’s experience.

 

MY STUDENTS ROUTINELY tell me that they hope I have a long life. Sometimes when I have been very sick, my students have been frightened that I would die, and they implored me to please live longer. My response is always the same: “The way for me to live longer is for you to practice Chan.”

If no one wants to practice, what was the point of the Buddha staying in the world? “Who will be our teacher after you pass away?” his disciples asked him.

“The precepts,” he replied. “Those who see the dharma see me.”

Every moment is only one moment. Once that moment goes, will it ever come back? Every moment is the first moment and the last moment. That’s why there’s freshness in it. And because every moment is the last moment, we must cherish it. Its freshness is why it’s wonderful. Its fleeting nature is why it’s precious.

This day has passed, our lives too are closing.
Like fish with little water.
Pleasures will not last.
Let us work with effort as if our heads are on fire.

That is what we recite in the Chan hall during our evening service—these words of caution by Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. Our lives are evaporating away. Each breath brings us closer to death.

Once our life is gone, it is gone. It is just taken away. The sand runs through your fingers. You cannot hold on to this moment or any moment. There is nothing you can hold on to.

Life just goes, goes, goes. It doesn’t stop. Still, our habitual mind thinks: there is still tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Life is only as long as one breath. What if the next breath doesn’t come?

When you face death, what is it that can help you? Chitchat? Gossip? A comfortable home? Power? Status? Money? Your family? No. Nothing and no one can help you. What can help is coming back to the present moment. The ability to always return to the present moment brings with it peace, clarity, and a brightness of the mind, even in the face of death. This clear, bright mind goes with you while you die.