What Is the Dharma?

What is the Way? A questioner asked: "What is the Way?" The Chan master answered: "Eating and sleeping." The questioner asked: "I also eat and sleep. How is that different from the Way?" The Chan master answered: "When you eat, you do not eat properly, seeking a hundred things. When you sleep, you do not sleep properly, being picky in various ways. This is craving for forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations; it is not cultivating the Way."

Cultivating the Way in daily life is practiced as the Patriarchs did. It is not, as some people full of afflictions say, about merging into life, becoming one with forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations, and being 'liberated' by the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion – a result that only binds one tighter within the fetters of the five desires. When people full of afflictions teach the Dharma, they never depart from afflictions. They themselves have afflictions and do not teach others to transcend or liberate themselves from afflictions; instead, they wish others to have the same afflictions as themselves. They have no experience of liberating themselves from afflictions, no journey of transcending afflictions, and thus cannot properly guide others step by step out of the abyss of afflictions. Nor do they even recognize afflictions as an abyss, due to their attachment to enjoyment.

Some teachers also intentionally or unintentionally instill worldly afflictions, such as teaching how to stand tall and rise above others, how to be smooth-tongued and cunning in social interactions, how to praise oneself and disparage others, how to tolerate sexual desires and contentious anger, inducing all manner of craving in sentient beings. They even teach techniques of debate and sophistry. Engaging in these worldly, affliction-filled activities within the context of Buddhism ultimately leads and directs one towards the three evil paths, suffering immeasurably with little hope of escape. Therefore, if one truly wishes to cultivate the Way properly, one must diligently study the demeanor of the ancient cultivators, the Chan masters and Patriarchs. Learn their purity of heart and few desires in daily life. Learn their straightforward and guileless mind, their detachment from fame and gain, their lofty aspirations, and their single-minded dedication to the Way – the heart of a true follower of the Way.

Modern people, without needing instruction, are inherently burdened with heavy afflictions. Compounded by the influence of the social environment and customs, their minds are severely defiled. Every day they chase after things pervasively: the six sense faculties (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind) grasping at the six sense objects (forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, mental phenomena) – there is not a single phenomenon they do not seek, not a single thing they do not grasp. The obscuration of the five hindrances is extremely heavy. If one truly wishes to achieve a breakthrough in this life, one should awaken early. Constantly, in every place, reflect on the afflictions within one's own mind. Whenever there is a sense of seeking, one should be mindful: "I am chasing. I am chasing pervasively." What is it like not to chase pervasively? It is like the ancient cultivators: practicing the Way in the mountains, eating one meal a day at noon, having few desires and being content, with a mind constantly abiding in peace and joy. Anything else has the nature of chasing.