You Cannot Attain Enlightenment Through Sitting Meditation

Master Nanyue Huairang encountered Mazu Daoyi. This was when Daoyi had not yet awakened and was studying at Chuanfa Temple. He sat diligently in meditation every day.

Master Huairang, passing by, asked: "What do you seek through sitting meditation?"

Daoyi replied: "I wish to become a Buddha."

Master Huairang went to the backyard, picked up a brick, and began rubbing it vigorously against the rock where Daoyi sat in meditation.

Daoyi, curious, asked: "Master, what on earth are you doing?"

"I'm making a mirror."

Daoyi laughed. "How can rubbing a brick make it into a mirror?"

Huairang replied: "How can sitting meditation make you into a Buddha?"

In that instant, Daoyi felt something shocking. "Then what should I do?"

Huairang said: "When a person drives an ox-cart and the cart doesn't move, should you beat the wheels or beat the ox?"

Huairang continued speaking to Daoyi: "Are you learning sitting meditation, or are you learning to be a sitting Buddha? If you are learning sitting meditation, meditation is not about sitting. If you seek a sitting Buddha, Buddha has no fixed form. If you become a sitting Buddha, that would be killing the Buddha. If you become attached to sitting, you cannot reach the truth. Do not harbor thoughts of grasping or abandoning regarding the dharma that has no dwelling place."

Around us, there are many people who diligently attend churches and temples to gain eternal life or to reach paradise. People believe this way: they think that by diligently going to temples and churches and praying, they will be embraced by God and reach paradise. However, you cannot go to heaven through hymns and prayers. You cannot reach paradise through hundred-day prayer retreats.

At that time in China, sitting meditation was very widespread. Buddhism was the most popular religion among the people then. Just as attending church to sing hymns and pray is common in our country today, sitting meditation was exactly like that then. They believed this way: they thought that by sitting in lotus position and cultivating the mind, they would become Buddhas.

In temples, people repent daily. In churches likewise, they repent. Even if today's and yesterday's problems are resolved through prayer and repentance, that person still has tomorrow's problems and the day after's problems waiting. They must continue repenting. Because they will sin again tomorrow. They must continue their sinful and weary life, repeatedly repenting and asking for forgiveness.

Then what should be done? Rather than going to church to ask for forgiveness, one must make one's own mind into a church. This is why the Non-Church Movement emerged today. Japan's famous Non-Church Movement leader Uchimura Kanzo understood this much. That is, nothing is gained through sitting meditation; rather, unless you conquer the mind that seeks to gain something through sitting meditation, you cannot obtain either eternal life or enlightenment.

"Are you learning sitting meditation, or are you learning to be a sitting Buddha? If you are learning sitting meditation, meditation is not about sitting."

Zen (禪) is not about the body sitting and calming the mind into stillness. Unless you shatter even that stillness you think is stillness, unless you escape from there too, you cannot attain that state.

"If you seek a sitting Buddha, Buddha has no fixed form."

Buddha is not such a model sitting in a temple hall. Buddha is the world that can freely utilize and freely enjoy the world of all phenomena, the entire universe - that is the world of Buddha. Therefore, if you imitate a sitting Buddha, you dishonor Buddha. If you become attached to sitting, you cannot reach the truth.

From Master Sogongja's Lectures on the Transmission of the Lamp
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