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Silent illumination is actually the most direct method, because Chan is not something that you can use your mind to think about. It’s not something t… - Sheng-yen
" "Silent illumination is actually the most direct method, because Chan is not something that you can use your mind to think about. It’s not something that you can use any words or form of language to describe. The method is simply to do away with any method of practice. Use no method as the method itself. … The silent illumination method is to not have any thoughts. At that moment you just put down everything, and that is the state of Chan itself. Silent doesn’t mean falling asleep. That’s why we have to follow the word “silent” with the word “illumination,” that is, your mind must be very clear.
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About Sheng-yen
Sheng Yen (Chinese: 聖嚴 Shèngyán; 22 January 1931 – 3 February 2009) was a Taiwanese Chan Buddhist monk, religious scholar, and writer. Sheng Yen was the founder of the Dharma Drum Mountain, a Buddhist organization based in Taiwan.
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Shengyan
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Additional quotes by Sheng-yen
The supreme realization of the original nature of mind neither affirms nor negates any conceptual point of view; hence it does not need language for expression. One can exhaust the resources of language and still would not express ultimate Chan. This is because Chan transcends knowledge, symbols—the entire apparatus of language. You may call Chan “emptiness,” but it is not emptiness in the nihilistic sense, of “there is nothing there.” You may call it “existence,” but it is not existence in the common sense, of “I see it, so it must be there.” It is existence which transcends the fiction of our sensory world of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and form. Yet, Chan is never apart from them, and is one with our everyday world. It is innate to all beings, everywhere, at all times.
All things return to emptiness (guiyu kong 歸於空)—that is, there is no-self (wuwo 無我), no beings (wuren 無人), no living (wushou 無壽), no life (wuming 無命), no great being (wushi 無士), no ordinary being (wufu 無夫), no form (wuxing 無形), no appearances (wuxiang 無像), no men (wunan 無男), and no women (wunü 無女). Why? Because characteristics of a self are no characteristics; characteristics of a person, sentient beings, and lifespan are all free from characteristics.
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