A Guide for Seon Meditation <5>

Let Go Again and Again Whenever Emotions Arise

Through Seon meditation, one must purify and get rid of the emotional clumps of pleasure and pain. Doing so resolves not only this life but even future lives, freeing you from the two-layered karmic causality of past, present, and future.

Among all meditation practices, the highest is Ganhwaseon, in which one breaks through a koan or hwadu in Korean. If you wholeheartedly trust in the teachings of the Buddha, it gives rise to great faith. From that, a deep sense of repentance for a life lived in ignorance will follow, along with a powerful determination to break through the hwadu. And from there, arises great doubt, the intense inquiry of “What is this?” When this process unfolds step by step and you break through the silver mountain and iron wall, you can free yourself from the emotional grip of pleasure and pain.

But in reality, most people do not have the spiritual capacity to accomplish this breakthrough all at once. Although it would be ideal to break through the hwadu instantly, it is difficult, which is why we begin with Seon meditation. Practicing even five minutes of meditation, or doing it frequently throughout the day, can help.

To meditate means not to stir up the three poisonous emotions. Meditation allows your turbulent, muddy mind to settle and become clear and still. The first step is to reduce desire. When feelings of liking or disliking arise, you must recognize them as manifestations of your karma. Progress comes little by little. When greed, anger, or ignorance arise, we must stop and let go again and again.

Emotional clumps are what we call discrimination. When one arises, another inevitably follows, due to the workings of cause and effect. This discriminating mind is also known as birth and death. Birth and death do not just refer to physical life and death. On a larger scale, the causes and effects of our present mental states stretch across three lifetimes. On a smaller scale, heaven and hell arise within each fleeting moment of the mind.

That’s why the Buddha said, “If you want to know your past life, look at yourself as you are now. If you want to know your future life, look at what you’re doing now.” Do good deeds not to gain things, but to build the inner strength that dissolves the cycle of pleasure and pain. Such virtue becomes wisdom.

Just as quantum physics says the smallest particles that make up matter appear as either waves or particles the moment they are observed, so too does the flow of karma change according to the discriminating mind. The emotional reactions of pleasure and pain are what we call samsara. Liberation means escaping from this cycle. The state where birth and death, pleasure and pain no longer exist, that is Nirvana.

To sum up, wherever you are, whatever you think or do, you must let go of the feelings of “I like this” or “I hate that” as they arise in each fleeting moment. Only then does cause and effect disappear, and liberation happen in that very instant. This is what we call breaking through the hwadu.