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FULLY ENGAGED

I AM OFTEN asked whether Chan will make you a better person. Well, it depends. Chan is a sharp knife. It can cut vegetables or it can be used to harm or kill. The refined, trained mind, if not properly used, can be dangerous. Some people can develop what we call “Chan sickness.”

As you practice, your focus sharpens; you become steadier and gain confidence. You can see things that other people may not see. You can become arrogant, impatient, and egotistical. People with this kind of Chan sickness criticize and condemn.

This is a trend in Buddhism today. Compared to the past, lay practitioners have more opportunity to practice. They pick up some knowledge of Buddhism and become proud.

Knowing is one thing. Being able to truly attain and to do is another.

Arrogance is one form of Chan sickness. Another is a kind of frustration and withdrawal from the world. Chan practitioners with this condition can become easily angered and impatient. During meditation they feel the body and breath. They go into an absorbed state and become peaceful and happy. When they stop meditating, however, they are overwhelmed by the chaos of the world and all its problems. They become frightened and want to run away.

There are laypeople who come to my meditation retreats and they feel wonderful. But they don’t want to become monastics because the monastic life is full of restrictions—no meat, sex, alcohol, television, or gambling. Yet they also don’t want to go back into society, which they now perceive as overly stressful and busy. They do part-time work so that any chance they get they can escape on retreat. They live a kind of dangling life: They are not really laypeople, but they are also not monastics. They are half and half.

When you practice Chan, you don’t withdraw. Chan is about the here and now. It’s about being fully engaged in daily life. Chan and life are not separate: They are one and the same. Chan is not about meditating all the time, saying mantras, or doing prostrations so you don’t have time for cooking, cleaning the house, developing your career, or looking after you children.

In Chan, you fully engage in life and learn to take on more responsibility. You have a bigger heart, a bigger mind. You do not stand on the sidelines, pointing out other people’s mistakes and failures. You do not criticize, condemn, or carp. You treat people with respect. You lift people up. You practice kindness and compassion. You practice forgiveness. You find the good in people. You see the Buddha that is inside all of us, and you help others to see it too.