What is Chan meditation?

Meditation is the path to clarification. It has two aspects, calming the mind and insight into the nature of mind as a process rather than as a thing. Without a calm mind, insight cannot occur; without insight, the nature of experience is not understood. Calming the mind usually comes first, both for beginners and for experienced meditators. Insight arises when correct meditation is pursued. It may be a painful process, arduous, boring or stressful, since the habits and assumptions from which one is built must be challenged. Eventually practitioners experience joy in a new depth and clarity.

Meditation normally requires a disciplined approach. It is practised both formally, sitting on a cushion, and also informally by a mindfulness of one's everyday activities, sensations and feelings. Nothing lies outside the realm of meditation. Anything that arises is grist to the mill.

There are various methods to calm the mind. A basic meditation for a beginner is mindfulness of breathing following methods which are taught by practised teachers. An easy conscience, patience, work and concentration are also conducive to a calm mind. The opposites of these promote a disturbed mind and personal turmoil. Turmoil also arises from years of conditioning, events in earlier life and in previous generations. We inherit difficult karma from before our own lifetime as it rolls down from one generation to the next. We are each responsible for our own karma in the sense that only we can do anything about it.

In this Chan group our core practice is the method of Silent Illumination. This is an objectless mediation in which we let go of thoughts, feelings and sensations as they arise. We sit ‘without trying to think and without trying not to think’. When applied correctly and with diligence Silent Illumination is a method that combines both ‘calming’ and ‘insight’ in a single process. If appropriate for a practitioner we may also use methods based on awareness of breathing and body, particularly in the early stages of learning meditation.