Dharma Master Hsin Tao, the Founding Abbot of the Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Society (LJM), has been in recent years frequently invited to lead meditation camps and retreats in different parts of the world with ever-increasing admiration and popularity. His teachings of meditation practice at home in Taiwan are usually given at the Wu Sheng Monastery. A breakaway from that tradition took place with the recent 3-day retreat at the Jian Tan Youth Activity Center Oct. 4 - 6, 2019. Participants expressed satisfaction with their learning and brought home a wooden egg nicknamed “No Comprende” as a token and at-home reminder of their initial encounter with their efforts of, and attempts at, approaching enlightenment by practicing the “Listening to an Egg” method.

Overseas places where Dharma Master Hsin Tao offered teachings of meditation include to date mainland China, Korea, Myanmar, Malaysia, Germany and the USA. The Master has received the highest possible citation from the Myanmar government awarded to Buddhist gurus practicing meditation. “Peace Meditation” is a four-stage Chan practice Dharma Master Hsin Tao developed from his personal experiences over decades and distilled from a practice method as cited in Chapter 25 of the Shurangama Sutra attributed to Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara that centers on quiet tranquility from beginning to end over a four-phase process: controlled breathing in and out, inward reflection in total concentration devoid of clutter, consciousness of the flow in and out of the system, and listening to the quiet of the tranquility. As the process advances, one is gradually freed up from worldly concerns and clutter to achieve a calm mind until reaching a full realization of their true selves.

To make the practice of meditation more readily accessible to people nowadays, the LJM decided to offer a 3-part meditative series, with Part 1 debuted in Jian Tan as described above. Dharma Master Hsin Tao opened the session by sharing his insight into classic, Chan-centric, anecdotes beginning with the story of Buddha holding a flower in his hand and only Mahakashyapa smiled, over the history of inheritance from the First to the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, to the famous fable how Chan Master Mazu Daoyi used an egg for analogy to help his sister-in-law understand about the Way and the enlightenment. The audience was spell-bound.

Dharma Master Hsin Tao said that “to practice meditation requires us to sever the never-ending train of thoughts by first realizing that the Heart of Nirvana is neither arising nor ceasing and it has no external appearances while being unrestrained and entirely free from any containment. To learn to meditate properly affords us the understanding of the true, original mind that it defies likeness in appearance and any verbal and textual descriptions. How does one rid him-/herself of the illusion of the appearances? I have boiled down the essence of Chan meditation into a four-phased Peace Meditation that centers on concentrating to relocate and retrieve the heart that is our original self. Total concentration affords pure consciousness and the process of concentration and crystal clear consciousness return us home to our original selves.’

A crystal ball on-site at the retreat was eye-catching and participants said that it is almost like the Buddha’s Pearl of Wisdom that captures and reflects what was physically there for people to conjure up their respective associations. Then they realized that the crystal ball was there to remind people NOT to get lost or confused by physical phenomena that make up the world of the moment. A new book by Dharma Master Hsin Tao entitled The Quest of Chan Meditation was made available to retreat participants and a quote that captured everyone’s attention instantaneously reads “Not letting go causes Samsara, whereas letting go ceases Samsara.”

A participant surnamed Lin who operates a company said that he very much relates to Dharma Master Hsin Tao’s notion that Chan meditation is not a religious practice, but a good approach to get to know ourselves and how the body and mind interact. On-going practices help to eliminate clutter in the mind to keep calm, and foster our endurance and concentration that are instrumental in keeping a clear head, said Lin about how he already benefits from the retreat.

Q&A was open to the floor and many participants raised their hand for questions and how Master Hsin Tao time and again responded with simple and straightforward, yet often thought-provoking, answers was truly a bonus to all at hand. For example, why do people go for meditation? Master Hsin Tao said that “the world is a sea of sufferings and the Dharma is the boat. Chan meditation requires to go through the process of first having conviction in meditation, and understanding its methodologies, then putting the learning into practice to ultimately achieve that you “got it”. It is a process of turning thoughts into deeds and actions and the process is not an easy one. But once we realize the Dharma, we elevate ourselves above the sufferings and that means we sit on the boat, enjoy the scenery and have a positive journey.”

Another participant raised the question about what it might be like after attaining ultimate enlightenment. Master Hsin Tao responded first with a question that what the participants would expect in the given scenario. The Master reminded that trying to be different is not a sign of an unagitated mind. Enlightenment has the hallmarks of loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity to help liberate those in dire needs and in suffering. Those having achieved enlightenment are those well-equipped with compassion and wisdom, and consequently, enlightenment is an unagitated mind.

An overseas participant asked a straightforward question about the meaning of the event logo, pointing to a poached egg, and caused the venue to roar with laughter. As mentioned before that Dharma Master cited the fable of Chan Master Mazu Daoyi in a similar connection with an egg, Master Hsin Tao smiled and said that “a poached egg whose shell was cracked has attained enlightenment.”

Upon the ending of the retreat, there was an obvious consensus that the participants enjoyed the event and the process of learning. Many voiced the determination to keep up the practice routine to maintain and even advance the consciousness of clarity and focus on the long journey of finding one’s inner nature.

In our era of social media, it is a matter of course that participants share event photos with captions like “a drifting mind turned around quietly”, and “Insight. Consciousness. Chan. Self-reflection & -search. Self-examination in reverse to review the train of thoughts”. Many others took detailed notes throughout the 3-day retreat and their interactions with the Venerable Master, in the hope that their memories of the Master’s sermons and Dharma teachings would become their personal, constant reminders for times ahead.

A participant surnamed Huang shared posts on Facebook about the retreat, the Dharma teachings of Master Hsin Tao and his many other lessons well learned in the space of meditative practice. “Like pieces of a jigsaw that come together to make a picture whole again, the awareness arises bit by bit with each practice and eventually, you realize that the process of self-examination and awareness are each other’s flipside.” Huang is hopeful of living a life with awareness from thereon, and no longer with attachment or differentiation. The 3-day retreat filled him with immeasurable bliss of the Dharma and he very much looks forward to Parts 2 and 3 of the LJM Peace Meditation in 2020.