Things You Need to Know About Chinese Meditation

You probably heard about meditation as it has been popular anywhere in the world. Stressed? Meditate. Have you been angry? Meditate. Do you need peace of mind? Meditate. But what does meditation do?  

Meditation is a way to get you centered and back in touch with your body in full awareness and consciousness. This has been also used by practitioners of martial arts class Washington, or any individuals who practice meditation. It is a way to be fully conscious of how you breathe and how your body responds to the silence.  

 

But what is meditation all about? What do they do? Where did it start? Find them out here.  

 

Silent Illumination 

The Buddhists call this the silent illumination that has been practiced since Huineng and Buddha. In the Chan tradition, this refers to as mozhao, from the Chinese words “mo” means silent and “Zhao” means illumination. The silent illumination is a practice of being still and in the presence of clarity and luminosity, very similar to the practices of Vipashyana and Shamata.  

 

Enlightenment 

In the Chan tradition, silent illumination through mediation is not concerned with stages or steps, as it only teaches enlightenment. They believed that our mind is intrinsically awake and we need to reform our mind back to its original state where it is without fixations and vexations. This is something remarkable especially to spiritualist individuals, as enlightenment is intrinsically within us, and only by reforming the mind to its natural and initial state, we can get back to silent illumination; enlightenment, therefore, cannot be created nor destroyed, but it needs to be discovered.  

 

We can assimilate our mind to a spacious room. Over time, we try to put on some set of furniture, hang some paintings and pictures, paint it with our color preference until time passes and we make clutters with our clothes and mess with our things. But the idea and the nature of the room as being intrinsically spacious does not change. If we get rid of all those messes and empty the room once again, it is back to its natural state. The same thing goes with our minds. If we declutter the mess: thought, memories, vexations, etc., we can achieve enlightenment.  

 

The ultimate way to execute and practice silent illumination is to sit comfortably and getting rid of your dependency on your sense organs like your ears, nose, tongue, eyes, as well as your physical body and the insides of your mind. You sit without fabricating anything, abiding anywhere, or falling into a stupor. In this very moment, you allow your mind to be fully awake and clear without delusion created by our thoughts, feelings, memories, etc.  

 

Of course, this practice is not an easy feat. Getting rid of your thoughts and yourself is almost impossible as vexations, self-attachment, and habitual tendencies run so deep that rooting them out can be so difficult to achieve. This is why practitioners of meditation need to work hard to experience enlightenment over and over again, as constant practice makes all this possible.