Observations placeholder

Errors in Turning the Light Around

1.  Even though your practice gradually matures, "there
are many pitfalls in front of the cliff of withered trees."
This makes it necessary to elucidate the experiences
involved in detail. Only when you have personally
gotten this far do you know how I can talk of it now.

2.  Our school is not the same as Chan study in that we
have step-by-step evidences of efficacy. Let us first
talk about points of distinction, then about
evidences of efficacy.

3.  When you are going to practice this doctrine, first see
to it somehow that you don't have much on your
mind, so that you can be alive and free. Make your
mood gentle and your mind comfortable, then enter
into quietude.

4.  When you are quiet, it is then essential to find
potential and find its opening; don't sit inside noth-
ingness or indifference (so-called "neutral voidness').

5.  Even as you let go of all objects, you are alert and
self-possessed.

6.  But don't get enthusiastic about attaining the experi-
cnce. (this easily happens whenever reality is taken
too seriously. That means not that you shouldn't
recognise reality, but that the rhythm of reality is on
the brink of existence and nonexistence. You can get
it by intent that is not willful.)

7.  Even in the midst of alert awareness, you are relaxed
and natural. But don't fall into the elements of body
and mind, where material and psychological illusions
take charge. If you tend to fall into a deadness when-
ever you go into meditation and are relatively lacking
in growth and creative energy, this means you have
fallen into a shadow world. Your mood is cold, your
breath sinking, and you have a number of other chill-
ing and withering experiences. If you continue this
way for a long time, you will degenerate into a block-
head or a rockhead.

8.  And yet it will not do to go along with all conditions.

9.  Once you have gone into quietude and all sorts of
loose ends come to you for no apparent reason, you
find you cannot tum them away if you want to, and
you even feel comfortable going along with them.
This is called the master becoming the servant. If this
goes on long, you fall into the various roads of the
realms of form and desire.

10.  Once you know this, you can seek experiential proofs.