Having and not having

A friend from the stillness practice group brought a foreign visitor to ask Mr Hải about meditation. The visitor asked in English:

• Hello, Mr Hải. I understand that meditation means letting go of all thinking so that the mind becomes empty and quiet. Is that right?
  Mr Hải listened and seemed to follow, though his friend also helped to interpret. Mr Hải replied in Vietnamese mixed with English words:
• Vâng, đúng vậy (Yes, that's right).
  The visitor asked further:
• And if we want to stop thinking, we shouldn't bother about anything in life, take on no responsibilities in life, and have no dealings with other people. Is that so?
  Mr Hải shook his head and replied:
• You have misunderstood. To keep the mind from thinking, you need to have a great many things. Most people who practise stillness and meditative concentration misunderstand this point.
• What Mr Hải says surprises me. I have been to many meditation retreats all over the world, including meditation centres of Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese Daoism, Sufi Islam and Christian orders. Everyone said that you must let go of everything for the mind to become pure and still.
  Mr Hải smiled:
• If they were right, and if you had practised just as they said, you would not be here, because your mind would already be pure and still. But your mind is not yet pure and still. When you sit in meditation you still have to struggle hard against delusive thoughts, so you are still confused about yourself.
  The visitor nodded vigorously:
• Mr Hải is wonderful. We have only just met and you already understand my mind. I trust you. Please explain to me why a pure, still mind requires many things, and what those many things are...
  Mr Hải said:
• My friend, for the mind to be pure and still, a person must have great clear awareness. A clouded mind is just agitation. The less clear the awareness, the less stillness; the more clear the awareness, the more stillness. When the mind is truly pure and still, its clear awareness is dazzling and radiant.
  My friend, to have a mind of clear awareness we must have three indispensable conditions.
  The first is abundant inner strength. Inner strength is different from outward muscular strength. To have abundant inner strength, one must practise qigong in the right way.
  The second is pure, saintly ethics. A person with ethics in the heart has a mind of great clear awareness. A person who is crooked and cruel has a mind that is clouded and agitated.
  The third is doing many meritorious deeds that help others. The very happiness we create for other people keeps our own mind constantly clear and aware.

Only when all three conditions are present will clear awareness appear when we sit to practise stillness. And those three must be inexhaustibly abundant for our clear awareness to be strong enough to make the mind deeply pure and still. So anyone who believes that a pure and still mind comes from letting go of everything is gravely mistaken.

The foreign visitor sat thinking for a moment, then suddenly burst into sobs and said through his tears:

• If I had not met Mr Hải today, I would have carried my mistaken view with me and wandered on through birth and death. Yes, many people hold the same idea as I did when they practise stillness and meditative concentration: they let go of everything, take no responsibility for life, and then all of them end up uneasy, unlucky, drifting and suffering, with minds more and more clouded and agitated.
  I will stay in this country for two months, until my visa runs out, to pick up rubbish by day and teach English free of charge to poor students by night. I will do this as a way of repaying Mr Hải, and repaying this country, which has saved my soul. In my spare moments, may I come here to meditate with you?

Mr Hải said:

• My friend, we are very grateful that you have come to visit our country. This meditation hall is always open and you are welcome. There are also a few empty rooms here; you can stay here as long as you like. Food and drink are always ready to serve you. Please look on this place as your home too.
  🏡

We tend to think that being a saint, with an inwardly pure and still mind, means living without responsibility towards life. No: only those who live with a deep sense of responsibility towards life have a door through which to become a saint. We tend to think that a pure and still mind is made from nothingness. No: a pure and still mind is made from noble deeds.