11 Anxiety ~~~~~~~ With narrow views and doubts, Haste will slow you down. Those who take up the study of Buddhism before their views have expanded are subject to fears and doubts. They doubt the method and whether they can reach their objective. Like those who have narrow views and only see what is in front of their eyes, it is a shallow and limited perspective. This is a common problem on retreat. Everyone should believe that even if they cannot become enlightened this time, they can do so in the future, either in this lifetime or the next. Do you have faith that your method can lead you to enlightenment? Or do you think that it is just the beginning, that later you will learn more advanced methods? Do you believe that Ch'an practice is reliable? Some people may think: "I just came here to take a look. Later, there will be things to learn in other places." Over the years I have met many people who lack faith. Because of this they reach a certain point and cannot go any further. They may have a partial faith. They may have confidence in themselves but do not trust the method. Or they have faith in the method but do not entirely trust the teacher. Some people may trust the teacher but doubt what levels can actually be reached with Ch'an. This mixture of faith and doubt prevents them from having a deep experience. Of course, if there were no sense of doubt in the beginning, you would not be motivated to practice. After practicing diligently, you will gradually resolve the problem of doubt. It all depends on your karmic roots. When those with deep karmic roots come in contact with the teachings of Ch'an, they quickly accept them. But those with shallow roots have obstacles which prevent them from believing in themselves, the method, or the teacher. The first requirement of Ch'an is faith. You should believe that you are the ones with deep karmic roots; otherwise, why would you have come to this Ch'an retreat? Compared to the multitude of people in the world, those who can undergo Ch'an training are very few. Perhaps you still do not believe in yourself, the method, or what I am talking about. But, beginning now, I hope you will start having faith. It does not matter if you are not enlightened yet. Just like a blind person being guided by someone who sees, a person who is not enlightened can borrow a teacher's guidance and experience. It does not matter if you started out with narrow views, as long as you can emerge from them. When you try to understand or judge matters that are beyond your background and experience, it is natural to have some doubts. Use a mind of faith to cure your doubts. It is very important to give rise to a great faith to achieve results. You should have complete faith in what I am teaching. As to the environment, it does not matter whether this is the ideal place to practice. But the sooner you want to get results, the longer it will take to get anywhere. Once someone was driving me to an appointment. Since he wanted to get me there as quickly as possible, he decided to take a short cut. Though the road was shorter, it turned out that the traffic was heavier than on the normal route. Another case was a person who was required to take the English equivalency exam in order to apply for a U.S. visa. She thought of a quick method: Before she actually wrote anything down, she would first skim through the entire test to weed out the answers she did not understand. But by the time she went through this first reading, the time was up and nothing was on the answer sheet. It is the same with practice. If you keep asking yourself, "When am I going to get enlightened?" you will always be in that state of mind and never get anywhere. It is the same when you have trouble getting to sleep and you look at the other people sleeping soundly around you. If you become anxious and keep worrying, "Why can't I sleep? Let me sleep!" you will never get to sleep. The more you want benefits from Ch'an, the further you will be from obtaining them. In fact, you will only increase your vexations. You may be a highly intelligent person who works very hard and has good karmic roots. But if you are anxious to get enlightened, you have created a barrier between yourself and enlightenment. A tree should be watered very gradually as it is growing. Do not be in a hurry to eat the fruit. Consider the story about an inexperienced farmer who planted a field of rice. After the crop sprouted, he kept going out to look at it and saying, "Why isn't it growing any faster?" Then he thought of an idea to help it grow. He pulled each stalk out a little taller. The next day he said, "I think I'll go out and help them again." But when he surveyed the field, all the shoots had died. There is a Chinese saying: "You can't dig a well with one scoop." Another one is: "You can't eat a cake in one bite." It is better for the digestion to chew food until very fine before swallowing. It is the same with practice. Don't try to swallow your practice in one gulp; chew it patiently. You have to be careful and meticulous. Attach to it and you lose the measure; The mind will enter a deviant path. When you grasp onto something, find a happy medium. For example, if you grasp the incense board too tightly, you will hurt the person you are hitting, and may even break the board. But if you hold it too loosely, you cannot aim accurately. You have to hold it just right -- not too tight, not too loose. In any activity, you have to find just the right way to do it. This is difficult to accomplish without practice. I constantly tell people on retreat to relax -- mentally and physically. But some people do not know how to do this. Others are too relaxed. As soon as they sit down, they slump over. You cannot practice this way. Even though your mind is relaxed, you should hold tightly onto the method. Stick to the method and do not let it go. But sometimes people take this advice and become nervous and tense. For instance, in counting the breath, some may become so intent on holding to the method that they end up holding onto the breath itself, thus breathing unnaturally. Or they try to get rid of stray thoughts by counting and breathing faster and faster. This tenses the body. You should hold tight to the method, but at the same time you should not let yourself get tense. To illustrate this, suppose you are walking along a road and it starts bearing to the right. If you keep to a one-track frame of mind of just sticking to the present thought, you will not allow for the bend in the road and walk straight ahead into a tree. Once I gave someone the hua-t'ou "What is wu?" I told her to keep her mind on this one thought, moment to moment, to never leave this question. After a while, her mind jumped to something else, and it became, "I am wu." Rather than correcting herself, she thought, "Shih-fu told me to stay on the present thought." She kept repeating the statement, "I am wu." Finally, she said to me, "There's really no point in this. I already know the answer. There is nothing." (The literal meaning of wu is "nothingness.") When I tell you to hold onto the method, it does not mean to grasp it blindly. Sometimes you have to adjust. I am teaching one method but everyone is unique. Their background, physique, age, experience, are all different. If you just take what I say literally, it could be that you heard it wrong, or that you start practicing it wrong. Therefore, you cannot go by that entirely. You have to test it out by experience. You must be aware of what is going on. If your breath is not flowing smoothly, that should be a signal that you are not practicing correctly. Ask me about it. There was a student who was sitting in the "correct" posture, but his backside became very painful. He was putting too much pressure on his tailbone. I advised him to lean slightly forward and straighten his back so that this bone would not touch the cushion. If you come across a problem like this, you should not continue on in pain because you think that you are doing as I instructed. Of course I would not teach you something that causes you pain. You just sometimes have to make your own adjustments. * * * * * * * *