The Abbot thought it over and decided that his request was reasonable. He replied, "Okay! I'll grant your request." Thereafter, every time they held a Chan meditation session, every participant got two steamed dumplings to eat in the evening.

The Ceremony Master asked the Abbot, "Where should I go?" The Abbot said, "Go to Sichuan Province and set up a temple. The Dharma-protectors there have affinities with you." The Ceremony Master used his power of spiritual travel to go to Sichuan. Upon arriving, he saw two tall cassia trees. The leaves and branches were lush and abundant. He sat beneath the two trees to meditate. The Dharma-protectors and lay-people of Sichuan discovered him sitting beneath the tree and assumed he was an adept cultivator, a superior monk with real virtue. So they built a temple beneath the twin cassia trees and called it Xuanggui (Twin Cassia) Temple. That's where he transmitted the Dharma and took disciples. Afterwards, many Chan meditators got enlightened there and he became known as the founding patriarch.

When we meditate, it's just like drinking water. Only you yourself know whether the water is hot or cold. When you've made some progress in cultivation, you yourself know. If your cultivation hasn't progressed, you also know. People who've made progress should continue to work hard. Those who haven't made progress shouldn't be lazy. In this period of Chan meditation, we should put down everything. That is to say, "Be able to pick this up, and be able to put that down." What do we want to pick up? We want to pick up the meditation topic, "Who is mindful of the Buddha?" What do we want to put down? We want to put down all our idle thoughts. If we can put down all of our idle thinking, then our wisdom will come forth. But if we can't put down our idle thoughts, then there won't be any response to our efforts.

Within this seven-day meditation retreat, you should be vigorous and courageous. Don't be the least bit lazy, and don't entertain even a shadow of a doubt. Let's work hard together and arrive at the point where there are no thoughts of self or others left. Right at that point, we can become free. If we can bring our skill to the point of realizing "no emptiness and no form," then we can unite with the Tathagatas. If we still haven't realized the state of no emptiness or form, then we should be truly ashamed. Why hasn't our skill elicited any response? Because our bad habits gathered from measureless eons in the past are simply too heavy. In our minds, we think we want to proceed on the road of Bodhi, but in reality, we don't really want to advance, and we're always retreating. We should recognize that since our habits are heavy and our karmic obstacles are deeply established, even more should we want to put down our idle thinking. It's not that difficult to put down our idle thinking. All we need to do is forget ourselves, and then our idle thoughts will be gone. It's just because we hang onto a self that we find the self so difficult to forget.

Here in the Chan hall, as we work in our cultivation, we should apply effort until we are unaware of heaven above, people in between, and earth below. If heaven, earth, and people have all disappeared, and north, south, east and west are forgotten, then right at that point when not even a single thought comes forth, the entire substance can manifest. We'll obtain the great functioning of the entire substance. But if we indulge in idle thoughts all day long, there will certainly be no response to our efforts. Thus, we have to work to the point where not a single thought arises, and when we walk, we are not aware that we are walking. When we stand, we aren't aware that we're standing. When we sit, we're unconscious of sitting. When we lie down, we aren't conscious of lying down. We have no conscious awareness of walking, standing, sitting and lying down. At this point,

You eat, but you're not aware of consuming a single grain of rice.
You dress, but you are unaware of putting on a single stitch.

The "you" that exists at that point merges with space. When you can unite with space, then suddenly you penetrate right through and instantly understand all things. This is the state of sudden enlightenment.

Sudden enlightenment is a result of daily cultivation. When you get a response from your daily efforts, you can suddenly be enlightened. If you normally don't cultivate, then you can never gain sudden enlightenment. Similarly, after a child is born, he is steeped in words and sounds every day. When the time comes, he is naturally able to talk. When he says his very first word, it's analogous to the enlightenment experience. When the time comes, he'll naturally be able to walk, and that first step he takes is like the enlightenment experience. How can he take his first step? Because he watches adults walking all day long, every day. Being steeped in that environment, very naturally he'll be able to walk. Cultivation works the same way. We cultivate today, we cultivate tomorrow, we cultivate back and forth until our skills elicit a response. Then, when not a single thought is produced and our idle thoughts are dispelled, we'll be enlightened.

Such an enlightenment may be the result of having worked hard at cultivation all the time, every day in this lifetime. When our skill is mature, we become enlightened. This enlightenment results from our cultivation in this lifetime. You may say, "I saw a person who hadn't been vigorous at all in cultivation, but he got enlightened as soon as he started to meditate. How do you explain that?" That's an exceptional case. Although he may not have been cultivating in this life, he did cultivate in previous lives. Not only did he cultivate, he cultivated ceaselessly. He was only a hairsbreadth away from enlightenment. In this life, as soon as he encountered this kind of environment, he was enlightened.

Although sudden enlightenment is instantaneous, it depends upon all of the good roots one has carefully and continually nurtured in past lives. It is just like a farmer planting a field. In the spring, he sows the seeds. In the summer, he weeds and hoes. Then in the autumn, there are crops to harvest. If in the spring the seeds are not planted, how could there possibly be a harvest in the autumn? That is to say, one share of plowing and weeding yields one share of harvest. We cultivators of the spiritual path are the same. Whether or not we've become enlightened, we should still be vigorous and courageous in our cultivation. We should energetically stride forward. Then we have hope of gathering our harvest in the final moment. We can see our true identity-original face.

Why haven't we seen our original face? Because the trace of self has not been cast away. Our thoughts of selfishness haven't been discarded. If we have no trace of self and no selfish thoughts, then we can recognize our original face.

But if we don't want to recognize our original face, then of course there's no problem. Whether we cultivate or not doesn't make much difference, because we have no hope of success. But we cultivators of the spiritual path want to preserve a certain amount of hope in our hearts. We have hope of understanding where people come from and where they go. If we want to know where we came from at birth and where we're going at death, if we want to clearly recognize our original face, then we cannot fear suffering, pain, trouble, or difficulty. Only then can we "regain the source and return to our origin" and obtain our "vajra-indestructible body."

What is our purpose in the Chan hall? We are smelting and forging our "vajra-indestructible body." Once our body is made of vajra and is indestructible, then we won't be aware of pain and suffering discomfort. If we fear both pain and suffering, then we certainly can't achieve a vajra body. This vajra-indestructible body comes about through tempering and perfecting our skill. Enduring that tempering process is our current work. We're forging our bodies to make them extremely durable and tough, so they'll never go bad.