I remember when I participated in the Awakening Camp, which is a short-term camp to experience monastic life, I spent fourteen days at the headquarter of Dharma Drum Mountain (DDM), attending various classes arranged by the monastic teachers. I got up early every day to sit and meditate. What struck me the most is that after the camp was over, the first thing I did when I came home from the mountain was to buy a tub of ice cream, sit down at the dining table with the ice cream in my left hand and the TV remote in my right hand. I devoured the whole tub of ice cream while sitting and watching TV. These are the things that I could not enjoy at the Awakening Camp. Once I came down the mountain, I was relieved and able to eat and watch whatever I wanted in one go. I felt that life was truly enjoyable! This could be considered as the “fierce” mindset.
Being confined on the mountain for fourteen days, not allowed to do this and that, or to do anything, I had to make up for all the things I couldn’t do up on the mountain. This mentality means that the monastic life had not yet been imprinted in my mind. I didn’t feel comfortable with it, but I could not get away from being confined on the mountain, so I had to live with it! After all, all I had to do was just endure it for fourteen days. The same could apply to meditation — it’s just half an hour of sitting meditation, anyway. During this half-hour, there are many things I want to do, think about, listen to, so I just temporarily stop thinking, listening, and doing them. After all, you just have to endure it and it will be over. What about when you get up from sitting? You feel relieved and may want to do, eat, drink and play with everything that you wanted earlier! Even though you continue to practice meditation every morning and evening, this kind of “revenge spending” rebound is also considered a mild form of “fierce” mindset.
The “gentle and continuous” mentality does not only refer to daily routine of sitting meditation. Its deeper meaning is to integrate the attitude of meditation into our everyday life. That is to say, not only should we be clear and relaxed during meditation, but also in our daily lives. The fact that it can become an attitude of living means that through meditation, we can change, improve, and refine our temperament, or our personality. It’s like we go to school not only for the sake of acquiring a skill to make money and support our family but also to learn how to behave, how to speak politely, and how to properly interact with others through education on morality. Once we learn this and act accordingly, we will greet elders as uncle and aunt, and know how to get along with our peers. This is a type of self-transformation and growth with us changing from not knowing to knowing how to interact with others properly.
This holds true for learning Chan meditation or studying Buddhism as well. Once we have learned a method or concept, apply it, and let this state of meditation become a form of learning, or a goal, for our personal growth. We hope that after learning Chan, our speech, actions, and thinking will align with Chan meditation or the Dharma. If truly followed, it will change our whole temperament. Maybe someone used to be restless and irritable, but after learning meditation and using meditation methods, his mind becomes calm and stable. When we interact with him, we can feel his magnetic field or aura. Magnetic field sounds a bit mystical, but in fact it is a kind of feeling. When people interact with each other, they can feel whether the person’s personality is stable or irritable, or perceive him as graceful, gentle, and elegant. This is a kind of feeling. In addition to one’s feelings, from the way he speaks, the way he does things, the way he handles objects, opens and closes the door, drinks water, etc., one can discern whether his physical and mental state is calm. This is why some people say that meditation is the best makeup, which does not cost money and cannot be bought with money because the “makeup” can change your whole temperament.
To be able to achieve the mentality of “gentle and continuous,” one must slowly integrate this state of meditation into one’s mind, so that it becomes part of life. Therefore, to see if one has achieved this state of mind, one can compare to see if there is a significant difference between the mental state during meditation and after. If there is a significant difference, it means that meditation is not practiced enough, and that it has not yet been integrated into our temperament. Our magnetic field still needs some time to adjust, indicating that it is not yet a truly gentle and continuous state.
I hope that we can all practice slowly. I am still practicing myself, and I know clearly there is a difference between the state of my body and mind during meditation and when I am off the cushion, even when I am talking to someone, or when I talk about my favorite topic. Through practice, over and over again, we aim to reduce the gap — we may be very calm and relaxed during meditation, and hopefully we can also remain calm and relaxed when meditation ends.
