STATION WBAI INTERVIEW: THE PRACTICE OF RETREAT | Getting The Buddha Mind

Editor’s note: The following transcript consists of a radio interview of Master Sheng-Yen conducted by Mr. Lex Hixon on radio station WBAI in New York City on June 21, 1981. Appreciation is hereby expressed to Mr. Hixon and WBAI for permission to publish this transcript.

LH: I am curious about the hidden principles behind the process of retreat and about the way people develop their practice on retreat-how their mind settles down and actually becomes “simple.” I want to begin by asking you-when a person first comes on retreat with a scattered mind, how can you tell when that mind is settled down enough to begin practicing the method?

Shih-fu: On the very first evening of the retreat I always instruct the participants: Take all your affairs of the past and future and put them temporarily aside. When you leave, you can pick them up again. But during the seven days of retreat, don’t bother with them at all. But it’s not easy for someone just starting out to suddenly drop all thoughts of past and future. Therefore I start by giving students a method to cause their attention to switch from the past and future into the present. Although outside thoughts may still come up, one should just ignore them and concentrate on the method.

At the beginning of the retreat I say: “Relax, relax, relax.” Relax the body, the nerves, and the mind. If any problems come up, just relax and don’t bother with them. If you feel any discomfort, relax. If you can stay relaxed, whenever a stray thought arises it will very naturally disperse. Eventually these thoughts will diminish. Don’t try to suppress thoughts. If you do, your meditation will grow worse and worse. The most important thing is to relax and just concentrate on the present moment, that is, the method you are working on. Even practicing like this, the average person who is new to the retreat will not be able to fully settle down until the third day or so. Of course there are those who have a good practice who can settle down right from the start.

LH: But Shih-fu, one of the things I noticed on retreat with you is that you were actually firing me up, rather than asking me to relax. I felt that after the first couple of days, after I had relaxed a bit, you were encouraging me to work very hard. So how can you explain that difference-relaxing and working very hard?

Shih-fu: After a person has already settled into the practice I will then give him a “tense” method. The person’s body and mind basically should still be relaxed. Nevertheless, his work on the method should be strenuous. After a person’s mind is calmed down you can make him put a lot of effort on keeping his mind moving in one direction, on a specific method. If you can single-mindedly go forward without slackening, then your power will get greater and greater and the results go deeper and deeper. When I see someone working like this, I might use all kinds of methods to goad him, shouting, scolding, anything to keep him from stopping or letting up. There is a Chinese saying: If your boat is going upstream, you better keep rowing, or you’ll slip back with the current. It’s like practice. You keep pushing forward. Otherwise
your human inertia will just pull you right back.

LH: This is why a retreat master who is sensitive is so essential. During my retreat, after my mind and body had settled down enough for Shih-fu to get me into this more strenuous, single-minded practice, something happened. I lost the connection, and though I used my will power to stir up that strong practice again, it wouldn’t happen. Shih-fu suggested that I relax again for a while. I thought I was going to lose the whole thing, but I relaxed again, and then, spontaneously, the more strenuous effort began to happen. So a retreat master knows just when to tell you to relax and when to goad you into strong effort, and those might alternate back and forth in a very complex manner.

From what I could see, it was masterful how Shih-fu worked very closely with the dozen or so people the entire retreat, even seeming to know exactly when people went to bed and when they got up. Not through any occult power necessarily; he’s just aware of everything that’s going on. When the guidance is very fine, I think there can be nothing better than this kind of intensified practice.

After a strenuous period of sitting, Shih-fu instructs people how to massage themselves to regather their energy, and teaches them certain yoga techniques. Could you explain your connection with Chinese yoga?

Shih-fu: Certain kinds of exercises have always played an important part in many meditation traditions, such as T’ai Chi Ch’uan in Taoism, Shao Lin Temple boxing in the Ch’an sect of Buddhism, and yoga exercises in India. Also, for those who really develop good concentration, spontaneous movements will come naturally from their bodies from the meditation. Especially for beginners, it is a very good idea to coordinate exercise with meditation. It may not be necessary for someone who already sits very well. Beginners or inconsistent sitters may think they’re relaxed, but are unconsciously tense, and the harder they work, the more tense they get. Also, because they are sitting immobile for a long time, problems may develop in various parts of the body, such as pain or poor circulation. Exercise is a good technique to correct these problems and keep the blood flowing throughout the body. The person whose concentration is very good will not have this problem-his blood will flow very smoothly.

LH: During the first few days I really got a lot from the exercises and it completely changed my attitude towards the body as an instrument for meditation. Usually when I meditate I tend to get away from the consciousness of the body, ignore it, but this really helped to integrate the body. Also the very fast and very slow walking in between sittings was a way of actually engaging the body in the meditative act. Maybe, Shih-fu, you could speak a little bit about fast and slow walking.

Shih-fu: In slow walking, a person’s mind should sink downwards, figuratively speaking. When the mind sinks downwards, the spirit rises. Concentration moves downwards when we’re doing the slow walking. Normally, people’s minds are floating upwards, going out in all directions. This is a very scattered, flighty condition of mind, not at all stable. When the mind sinks downwards, it will settle down.

In fast walking, the body is very active, but the mind is still. I say, “Don’t think. Just walk, the faster the better.” The feet should be moving quickly, with very short steps. If you walk single-mindedly, thinking of nothing else, eventually you forget who is walking. At that time you may wonder, “Who is walking?” So this technique uses fast movement to get the person to forget himself, or at least forget his body.

LH: Seven days under these circumstances, being silent, eating sparingly, sleeping sparingly, the periods of quiet and intense sitting, the self-massage and yoga, the miles of fast walking, the combination of the whole thing, all began to have an incredible effect. Shih-fu told me earlier there are many details about the retreat that I don’t know about-subtle details, that one would have to go on many retreats to be aware of. After all, I’m a complete neophyte, having only been on one of these retreats. So I’m just giving you the most obvious kind of report about it.

There are subtleties within subtleties as to how Shih-fu guides people. One example was the evening lectures, which had a peculiar quality of stimulating everyone’s practice in an unusual way. So after a whole day of trying hard perhaps with little success, Shih-fu told us, and we felt this too, that usually our best sitting would come after hearing the talk. Shih-fu, could you explain what’s going on in those talks and what you are doing for people on those talks?

Shih-fu: During the course of the retreat, there are many occasions where I say things to the group-while sitting, or privately. But the more important time is when I speak to everyone together in the evening. At that time I gather in everything that happened during the day, the various impressions I picked up, things that happened to people, and I say things indirectly to various people in the talk. I send messages, you could say, to the people sitting there. I rarely talk about Buddhist or Ch’an theory, and I don’t talk about matters not concerned with the retreat. I concentrate on the things that people are experiencing, physically
and mentally, and my talks are directed to these experiences.

However, I always start from a certain piece of literature, usually from Ch’an Buddhism, such as “Faith in Mind, ” or the “Song of Enlightenment.” In theory the lecture is based on this, but I just use it as a springboard to talk about the things that are happening on the retreat. For instance, someone, as they are sitting there listening, may feel very fatigued. I would say something, indirectly that advises him how to overcome fatigue. If I see someone who feels discomfort, I would give him a method to turn that into comfort. Another person may be feeling very hopeless. I would say something to help him overcome despair.

In the evening talk my attitude is usually somewhat different than it is during the rest of the retreat. Generally, I present people a rather stern face. I treat them sternly and seriously. But during the evening talk I take a very relaxed stance and treat people in a very harmonious kind of way. This is to give people a feeling of intimacy, so that each word seems directed to them personally. This makes them more receptive to any kind of clues or encouraging advice I’m giving them. The other times when I’m very serious and strict, they may have some doubt, feeling that maybe this master is a bit insensitive, that he’s pushing too hard. But after the evening talk, their attitude may change to feeling that, well, this person does seem to have compassion and is very concerned about me. This helps to re-establish their confidence in me.

LH: I’d like to say of my experience that the things Shih-fu says at any given time in the retreat do have marvelous effects. It happened in my mind a couple of times. One time he said something at lunch that had to do with his grandmaster asking certain questions. Coming away from that meal, I had a sense of karmic connection with his grandmaster. And something really opened up for me in the afternoon. Another time Shih-fu told me, in his Chinese form of English, which is very direct and effective, that I consider that there’s something very important to me inside a little box, that I was holding the box, but I had to continually turn the box one way and another to figure out how to open it. And those were just words, but when I went back to meditation I suddenly discovered that I was really actually having that experience, and it lifted my practice up onto another level.

I can attest that Shih-fu’s words do have this quality of not just being words, but actually kindling, which brings about new levels of experience. It is also possibly true that Shih-fu’s wishes for the people on retreat, his very pure Dharma wishes, without words, his concern and aspiration, have a direct impact on people. And this probably goes beyond being an expert retreat guide, and has something to do with a real transcendental connection that Shih-fu feels with people. There’s really nothing that can be said about that-it’s a kind of mystery and it’s one of the deeper dimensions of what’s going on in these retreats.

Shih-fu often describes four different conditions of mind-“scattered mind, ” “simple mind, ” “one mind, ” and “no mind.” Can you very briefly say what each one of these is?

Shih-fu: When people have just started meditation, or before they have practiced meditation, generally their mind is scattered. When a person has a lot of desires, or a lot of disappointment, or is worried about something, under those conditions, his mind is very scattered.

LH: What happens in “simple mind?”

Shih-fu: The state of “simple mind, ” or having relatively fewer thoughts, is when the person is beginning to work well, and their mind stays with the method almost constantly. If we should have some wandering thoughts, he immediately becomes aware of it and brings his mind back to the method, again and again.

LH: The method, by the way, might be anything from counting one’s breath, or watching one’s breath, to asking the question “Who am I?” or “Where am I?” But can you tell a change in a person’s appearance when they’re in a state of “simple mind?”

Shih-fu: Yes, I can tell. At that point the person’s body will not be moving around anymore. It will be very still and his breathing will be very even, very calm. Also, when I walk behind the person, or right around the area where that person is sitting, I pick up a feeling from the person that his mind is no longer scattered.

LH: The state of “no mind” may be frightening to some people. Shih-fu gave the example of one of his students in Taiwan having the experience of “one mind” to the extent that he just felt a total identity with the whole universe. He was embracing a dog on the street, and Shih-fu came up to him and said, “What are you doing embracing this dog?” The student said, “It’s just me!” And Shih-fu struck him suddenly and said. “What! You mean you still have a ‘me’ there?” In other words, he was trying to lift him out of his intoxication with “one mind” into the complete clarity of “no mind, ” where there is no “me, ” no matter how big it is. Even if your “me” is as big as the whole universe, you still haven’t reached the state of “no mind.” You explained that there’s really nothing to say about “no mind.” But can you give us some indication of at least what “no mind is not?”

Shih-fu: In the state of “no mind” there is no me, no you, there is no environment. But everything is there in front of you. It’s just that the mind is not moving. You perceive everything as it is, but your subjective self is not imposed on that. Your mind is totally still, but it doesn’t mean there is nothing there. The people you see are still people, animals are still animals. There’s no emotional reaction to things. And there’s no discrimination. If a person says that they’re experiencing everything as myself or that I am everything, that is not the stage of “no mind.”

LH: Shih-fu, you mentioned to me in the retreat that I had enough confidence in you and that’s a very important factor, the confidence in the master. I had confidence in the Three Jewels, the transcendental power of truth. But you said that I did not have strong enough confidence in myself. But what kind of self-confidence are you talking about if one is trying not to have the self? If one is practicing to drop one’s self?

Shih-fu: As far as confidence, or faith, is concerned, before the person has reached the state of “no mind, ” when they are starting from the scattered state of mind, you must start out with “self, ” get a firm grasp on yourself. The “small” self should become complete and firm. This amounts to being able to concentrate the mind well. When the mind is well concentrated, the person becomes very confident. You could say their “self” is concentrated. With that kind of concentrative power of self, a strong confidence arises in your ability to go forward, to pass through the “expanded” self, or “one mind, ” and finally to shatter this state and reach the level of “no mind, ” or no self. But when the state of “no self” is reached, the question of faith or confidence no longer arises. It is totally irrelevant at that point.

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