I’m writing this report as I wait on my
9pm
flight which was switched to
7:15pm, only to be delayed
indefinitely. The seven day Ch’an
retreat at Dharma Drum SanYi DIY Centre has been a very fruitful
experience. Due to the variety of experiences
I will categorize them for easier reading.
My Purpose In Life
The purpose of the retreat was to relax my
mind and find my general direction in life, as each person’s meaning in life is
essentially chosen by themselves. Whether someone chooses to chase for a higher meaning or float aimlessly
through time is ultimately a choice they make by themselves as not making a
choice in itself is a choice in life. I
ultimately decided to make my choice consciously by first understanding my
inner self in order to come to a decision.
I am thankful for Shifu’s talks as it has
now given me a sense of direction. In
particular Shifu’s talk in regards to ‘chu li xin’ (mind of renunciation). Shifu told us that many people mistaken
suffering for happiness, lingering in greed, chasing for power, wealth, fame
and sensual pleasure and mistaken it for happiness.
When we see someone chase for something, we
follow and chase and compete for the same thing, boosting our ego, our
arrogance if we are unfortunate enough to have obtain this impermanent object
and hurting our ego if we miss out. Like
the girl who manages to buy the latest limited edition handbag and shows off or
the other girl who really wants the bag yet misses out. The former will feel agitation when her new
bag is no longer special as the next season’s edition comes out, the latter
will feel depressed as her desire to have ownership of that bag was not
satisfied. Ultimately both will suffer
for mistaken an impermanent object for happiness.
I realized through his talk that I myself
was like the above. Ever since I
completed university, I had always desired to follow others. Follow my peers and become a banker, earn
lots of money, become “successful”. I
was chasing for something that was impermanent, thinking it would bring me
lasting happiness but in reality was the cause of my suffering. Through this retreat, I now understood that
this is not the right way and that my direction in life is to do something to
help this world, where I have a particular interest in clean energy.
Ironically, immediately after coming out of
the retreat, I have received a few enquiries about potential roles working for
investment banks. Whether I take up one
of those roles will depend on causes and conditions but now I feel that even if
I end up in such an organization and work like there’s no tomorrow, it will be
worth it if it is for a cause that helps the environment or leads to such a
path. Even though monetary reward is
still an appealing incentive to me, as the mealtime prayer mentions, ‘those
that give for the sake of happiness will have a peaceful mind’. May greed not blind this vision in life,
which I have found, as I re-enter an industry built on greed and profits, may I
overcome this test through wisdom and compassion.
Meditation
This is my first 7 day Chan retreat and the
experience has been painful but worth it. When fashi asked, “Who has been to a 7 day retreat before?” A few older
experienced practitioners raised their hands. I knew instantly, I was in trouble.
Fashi also mentioned according to our
application forms, the sitting time of each individual ranged from 15mins to 1
hour. I belonging to the extreme end of
the former category. But I am proud to
report that by the end of the retreat, I had managed to sit for 1 hour.
Besides breaking through the pain barrier
after experiencing severe leg pain, a small example of human suffering, I
managed to experience various new states of mind which I had never before. Such as vaguely feeling my breath as I meditate
and feeling like I was only counting numbers all with a few small scattered
thoughts. Feeling a surge of emotion
swelling from my sub-consciousness, an obstacle I had never faced, and tears
streaming down my face for absolutely no reason at all. All these new experiences gave me a boost of
confidence!
There was even one session when I lied to
myself that if I loosen my legs I would die. But that turned out to be a bad move as my scattered mind started to
wonder how fashi would ‘kill’ me. Would
he use a knife? A machine gun? Or like the comedy ‘Shi Shen’, use a chair and
then drag my body back into the temple leaving an over dramatic trail of blood.
Thus my meditative journey was very
fruitful and I vow to return one day for more. Although I did not reach enlightenment, I feel I have come back with a
relaxed mind and a sense of achievement.
Prayer of Repentance
All I can say is I’m very grateful for this
prayer. During repentance, I cried and
cried, tears streaming onto my face, my forehead, my chin and the floor, my
nose running as ever.
The prayer of repentance is very powerful
and I saw all my bad habits, greed, arrogance, selfishness and lots, lots
more. I repented to the point where when
I had nearly nothing left to repent, I repented for not listening to Aunt Ting
and to bring a towel along and wipe my tears! This prayer has shown me the need to practice wisdom and compassion and
I feel it has been a valuable learning experience for me personally.
The Attitude of Practice
Shifu once said, practice need not be
forced, but rather it should be treated as an ordinary part of life. Like waves of the sea, flowing seamlessly,
bit by bit. I experienced this through the
water bowl meditation. Moving through
the course marked out in the kitchen with a bowl of water filled to the rim, my
mind rushed when people over took me and my concentration waned. And like the story of the monk and the
obstacle course, with his bowl of oil, I told myself time and time again, “I
cannot spill a drop or I will die”, “I cannot spill a drop or I will die”.
I was the fifth male practitioner to start
in line and the 9th by the end of the course but amazingly when I
dropped my thoughts about others, I managed to catch up to the 8th
person and beat him to the finish line. I realized this was because at the final leg of the course, instead of
trying to take big slow steps as I did at first, I took small small steps which
let me move faster without spilling any water. This in itself was very much like practice, whereby it is more efficient
to take small frequent steps rather than large slow steps.
Although I made it to the end, unlike the
monk, I did not attain enlightenment but I experienced the attitude of
practice, a very important step in this new journey.
Summary
In summary, these are my main points of
experience at Sanyi. Find a purpose in
life, meditating, reflecting through repentance and experiencing the attitude
of practice. I look forward to my next
retreat with DDM, and recommend those who have never been to
Taiwan
for a retreat to give it a go. Otherwise
you will be missing out. Amitabha.
- Ken Chow
