By Jake Lyne · Western Chan Fellowship
A Koan
Mihu had a monk ask Yangshan, “Do people these days need enlightenment or not?” Yangshan said, “It’s not that there is no enlightenment, but what can be done about falling into the secondary?” The monk went back and reported this to Mihu. Hu deeply agreed with this.
This koan plays with primary and secondary. The first (primary) teacher sends the student to a second teacher, with whom the first teacher turns out to be in agreement. No argument is made for the utility of enlightenment because enlightenment needs no apology, definition or explanation.
The secondary is the domain in which utility is relevant, and in which we encounter uncertainty, or too much certainty and all the manifestations of our ego. On retreat the normal starting point is the secondary, it is where we endeavour to meet ourselves as we really are, without flinching.
People go on retreat for many reasons: personal difficulties such as relationship problems, loss, or mental health issues; to rediscover experiences they have had in the past (which turns out to be a blind alley); to reconnect with or deepen practice; out of a sense of curiosity and enquiry; or to ‘get’ enlightened. The latter may be quite a common motivation, but generally people are coy about mentioning it because it can sound presumptuous.
At the start we should address this presumption. Chan Buddhism, the tradition in which I practice, is a Mahayana or bodhisattva tradition. The four great vows of a bodhisattva are translated in various ways in English. In our tradition: I vow to deliver innumerable beings I vow to cut off endless vexations I vow to master limitless approaches to Dharma I vow to attain supreme Buddhahood
In the last of these caution is set aside, the vow of supreme Buddhahood is boldly asserted. Yet to want enlightenment is a problem of the grasping mind and therefore a contradiction. However, there is a world of difference between a vow, or dedicating oneself to the path in a spirit of giving, and a desire, or wanting a form of status in order to enhance or secure the self. The fact that these vows are unattainable makes them suitable as vows for a lifetime of practice, but remember…”it’s not that there is no enlightenment.”
One of the joys of retreat is silence, disconnection from all forms of media, especially social media and smart phones and from reading, writing and speaking. But we are social beings and when we are not talking to someone else most of us talk to ourselves. Since we are freed from our normal routines, habits and responsibilities, ‘I’ can become a central theme. How am I doing? How I am feeling, the pain in my knees, how everyone else seems to be doing in comparison to me, what people think of me, what I think of them, what I think of the food, how tired I am, how good/bad a meditator I am. How am I supposed to meditate, am I doing it right? What someone said to me, what I should have said to them etc. etc.
Maybe this I-centricity gets noticed and if so it is a bit of a breakthrough, there is the possibility of some perspective. From only being subject, the mind might also become object and may begin to settle down.
People’s experiences of retreat are quite different from each other. Some people experience great difficulty others encounter very little hardship. And it can vary from one retreat to the next. How people approach a retreat also varies greatly. I remember when I started to train as a retreat interviewer, being surprised at how different each person was in interview. I had presumed that most people approached meditation interviews the way that I did.
There are many blind alleys that the mind can get lost in. One of the reasons that some people are qualified to lead retreats is that through long experience, they have fallen into most of the traps themselves and so are able to detect practice problems in others and be able to offer guidance based on empathy.
Rebecca Li, author of ‘Illumination: The Buddhist Method of No Method’ calls these traps ‘modes.’ They include harshness to self, perfectionism, craving for enlightenment, getting into trance, aversion to practice, intellectualising, quietism and ‘forgetting emptiness’ which means having fixed ideas about a final destination of practice. Roughly, these can be grouped as avoidant modes, hypercritical modes and grasping modes (the three poisons). These tendencies are revealed on retreat, but manifest in myriad contexts in everyday life. Retreat is a microcosm in which unhelpful habits of mind become easier to see. Paradoxically, in retreating we bring ourselves into clearer view.
Experiences on retreat are common, especially as the ‘modes’ recede from view. Anyone who has read about Zen will have read about experiences of expansiveness, oneness, wonder, joy and, more rarely, seeing the nature (enlightenment). On our retreats we sometimes recite a liturgy called ‘On pursuing that which has no tracks.’ It was written by our late Teacher John Crook and is based on Dogen’s Fukazazengi. In one line it says ‘There is no point in sifting and searching for another’s insights.’ Retreat is intensely personal and people see what they need to see, not what someone else has seen (necessarily), nor on what they have seen themselves previously.
If people practice sincerely, and most retreat participants do, some shifts in mind state come about purely by virtue of the intensity of meditation practice, withdrawal from normal habits and the ongoing attempt to be present. This may not be realised, it might even seem that the retreat is ‘going badly’, but that is merely a judgement. In reality mind states shift and the experience is often pleasant. But the shifts are not permanent, they slip away after the retreat is over. Letting them go gracefully is another practice, akin to the practice of gratitude. Letting good experiences go gracefully is a training in letting go of grasping and embracing freedom. It also makes it easier to pick up the practice of retreat in the future.
But do people these days need enlightenment or not? Many people who come on retreat are deeply troubled by the horrors and cruelty of war, by the harm being done by climate change and overconsumption to people, forests, other animals, fish, birds and insects, and the threat of nuclear extinction. These concerns are not so often raised on retreat, though there are retreats that make the direct connection, for example the Triratna Earth Sangha retreats and the Zen Peacemakers Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat.
These realities are part of the background to ‘do people these days need enlightenment or not?’ This question is one side of a profound dialogue embedded in the koan of the monk, Mihu and Yangshan.
‘There is no problem with enlightenment’ is the response, an echo of the question.
What is the meaning? To settle easily for either or for both is heartless, and is not a solution.
The koan raises profound and unsettling questions for all of us, and for the practices and ways of Buddhism in general. What is the relationship between retreat, our practice, our empathy and kindness, and a world in crisis?
What can be done about falling into the secondary and facing the world in which we live?
Let your mind stop, pay attention and in this moment you can enter the inquiry of retreat without going anywhere.
About the author
Dr Jake Lyne is an experienced Chan Retreat Leader with the Western Chan Fellowship and a retired Clinical Psychologist. He is one of the coordinators of the EBU Ecodharma Network and seeks to raise awareness of the extreme seriousness of the risks we and all species on earth are facing, and therefore of the need for urgent and determined action. He is married to Jan, who shares his interest in ecodharma, and they have three grown up children. In his leisure time he is interested in sailing and astrophysics and runs marathons for charity.
This article first appeared in EBU Magazine #13 – Buddhism & Modern Europe (Winter 2024). Download the full issue as PDF or browse all issues.