mind training

The mind-training we will present here involves traditional Buddhist sutra-chanting. It consists of chanting a long sutra while demanding of your mind that it not wander, that it not think, that it do nothing except chant the sutra. There is a catch-phrase in zazen -- “You sit. You just sit.” In this discipline, you chant. You just chant. You do not think, reason, analogize, reflect, consider, conceive, ideate, imagine, communicate, speak, explain, teach, make clever word play, joke, plan, remember, react, game, relate, manifest sense of self, be a mind-creature, demonstrate, fantasize, sleep/dream-drift, bifurcate, listen, entertain conceits, opinionate, iterate music, play to an ego audience, frame utterances, wonder, or pay attention to anything other than what is being chanted.

The equipment is to be used to master the discipline just described. You just chant. If the mind/body lapses into any of the misbehaviors listed above, or their ilk, you put the mind/body over the seat and smack it. Pretty soon you behave. This training, over time, accustoms you more and more to being above the mind, rather than identifying yourself with it. It also prepares you for a transcendental relationship with your higher self, involving grade levels of consciousness stretching all the way to the Buddha-self in NIrvana -- the third way in which our equipment is to be used.

For a sutra, I would suggest a medieval Japanese version of The Lotus Sutra, a mahayana sutra of unknown origin. It is the one that I used. You will find it here, along with mp3 downloads of the chant and a pdf download of the text. The discipline described above is to be used until the mind thoroughly behaves, and no longer naughtily performs any of the acts mentioned in the first paragraph of this section.

When that has been accomplished, a more advanced strategy can be adopted. The Chinese have a technique they call “giving the monkey a banana”, which is a way of handling the excesses of mind-energy that gather as a result of the discipline of the chant, and which clamor to express something. The banana used in this system is Chi Gong, which, after the mind-body has been disciplined into good behavior by being properly spanked, can be practised at the same time as the chanting.

Assuming that you have clicked on the Chi Gong link, thoroughly studied it, practiced it for some months and gotten results, and have become advanced in the mind-training discipline as it has been given in this section, you may begin using the chi gong techniques given in the link section under the headings “Jing to Chi”, “Chi to Shen”, and “Shen to Tao”, at the same time as you chant the sutra.

Chi Gong is the banana for the sutra-chant consciousness, and at the same time, the sutra-chanting is the banana for the chi gong. Both practices can be imroved by doing them together in this way.

When you begin chanting the Hoben section, you can devote that entire section to bringing jing down from the kidney area to the vicinity of the lower dan tien. When you start the Juryo, begin using the technique described in “Jing to Chi” to transmute jing into chi and send it to lake chi-cargo. Continue this until about the phrase “Waku sek-koshin. Waku set-tashin.” and then begin rotating the middle dan tien, transmuting the chi into shen and willing that the shen go “into the meridians”.

Continue sending shen into the meridians until “Gu ko yaku-so. Shiki ko mimi”, or until you sense that it’s about played out, then, as you continue chanting, begin again to bring down jing from the kidney area until “Shin dai uno”, or until you feel it’s enough, then send chi to the vicinity of the middle dan tien until the phrase “Fu ji shaku shinmyo”. Then rotate the middle dan tien again to send shen to the vicinity of the upper dan tien all the way to the end of the sutra, then begin chanting “Om Myoho Renge Kyo” or “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo”, rotating the upper dan tien to transmute shen to tao, sending the tao upward through the bai hui into the spirit-world (you might try visualizing clear white light suffused with love, but this is optional)

Continue this until you feel it's enough, then keep chanting with bowed head and joined hands, affirming the reverent offering to the spirit-world. The points of demarcation are for example -- you might well want to develop your own places to change. Trust your own sense of when something is enough.