I wonder whether any of you have experienced meditation, or whether you truly understand what meditation means.
Let me borrow a saying from the venerable old master Zhang Zhishun to explain the meaning of meditation.
"Meditation does not mean keeping your body still. It means keeping your Primordial Spirit still."
What is meant by the Primordial Spirit remaining still is that your thoughts and cognition do not run wild, nor are they influenced or tugged about by external things.
Instead, they remain thusly unmoved, not stirred by anything at all.
When nothing is happening, your spirit—your attention—does not follow the thoughts stirred up by your habitual patterns of thinking.
When the heart does not move with thoughts, that is called the Primordial Spirit remaining still.
Because you know that thoughts constantly undergo uncertain changes in different environments and circumstances, without any fixed state, there is no need to treat them as real.
Today, you may think someone is a good person; tomorrow, you may think they are not. It is not that person's problem. The problem lies in the fact that your thoughts have changed.
When you believe someone is good, even if they do something wrong, you still think they are good.
When you believe someone is bad, no matter what they do, you will still think they are bad.
What practitioners train through meditation is precisely this: not being disturbed by anything, and not allowing anything to stir their habitual thinking into passing judgment.
Some may ask, if nothing happens and they are alone, yet their thoughts run wild—thinking of this one moment and that the next—what should they do?
The principle is the same: train the Primordial Spirit to remain still. In other words, stand outside your own thoughts and watch them, or let your mind freely shift its thoughts without turning according to their habitual tendencies—in other words, do not let your own thoughts turn you.
What does it mean not to be turned by thoughts? Put more simply, do not take what you think as real, because it is merely one of our habits.
For example, you clearly do not want to think about something, yet you cannot control yourself and keep thinking about it. At such a time, who is making you think about it?
It is your habitual tendencies making you think about it. Others may tell you that these are your karmic creditors and enemies, but in truth, they are simply the habits of this life and your countless past lives.
After living beings come into this world, they do not bring memories of their past lives, because the spiritual consciousness, or Conscious Spirit—the mental awareness—of those past lives has already dispersed.
But the Primordial Spirit—that is, the habitual tendencies within your subconscious—still remains, continuously revealing itself as you grow.
Just as each person has different talents for different things, those are all caused by the habitual tendencies of countless past lives, or rather, the habits of countless past lives.
Some friends may ask again: there were no pianos in ancient times, so how could people in later generations possess a talent for the piano?
There are two explanations. One is that they encountered something similar before. The other is: are you certain every one of their lives was spent in this world? Could they have brought it from another space?
But that is beside the point, so let us not discuss it for now. The main topic remains the Primordial Spirit being unmoved.
The Primordial Spirit in "the Primordial Spirit being unmoved" does not mean that the subconscious remains still, nor does it mean that thoughts remain still. It means standing outside thought, between consciousness and the subconscious, and remaining unmoved in that position.
People have two hearts. The outer heart is your conscious thinking, while the inner heart is the one standing outside thought.
For the Primordial Spirit to remain unmoved in meditation means that your inner heart does not move along with the outer one.
Here, we must mention the subject of closed retreat.
So-called closed retreat does not mean locking someone away somewhere and never letting them out. If that counted as closed retreat, then if you raised a pig in a pigsty, would that pig not have become an immortal long ago?
So-called closed retreat is also called closing the three gates of perception: the eyes, ears, and mouth. As the saying goes, "The eyes behold no forms, the ears hear nothing, the mouth speaks no words, and one naturally gains longevity."
What closed retreat closes are these three gates. But everyone must take note: closing the three gates of perception here does not mean shutting your eyes and refusing to look, plugging your ears and refusing to listen, or keeping your mouth closed and refusing to speak.
Its true meaning is that your attention is not stirred by these three points, these three gates.
When ordinary people see something, their attention is drawn to it. That means their Primordial Spirit has moved.
The same goes for hearing things—hearing the wind and taking it for rain, and all that.
"Let the mouth speak no words" actually means not speaking according to whatever your habitual tendencies make you think. It does not mean people should not speak at all.
If you close these three gates of perception properly, your attention will not wander about, and then you can nourish the spirit. The spirit spoken of here is the Primordial Spirit.
After some people begin cultivating, they often cultivate the wrong way. Not only do their own habitual tendencies remain unchanged, but they also accumulate many troubles.
For example, when they see someone fishing, they insist on going over to admonish them and recite sutras. If the person refuses to listen, they force them to listen, then speak ill of them, saying things like, "You are creating sin."
"Buddha and Bodhisattva will punish you. After you die, you will go to hell," and other such words to frighten them.
At that moment, people like this have actually already fallen into the demonic path. Because they want to forcibly pour their own understanding into the fisherman.
It is like why so many children nowadays suffer from depression, prefer being alone, and become withdrawn.
It is all caused by parents who do not understand. There is a saying about what one's family of origin brings upon them; that is what it means as well.
It means parents forcibly instill what they believe to be correct into their children, causing distress in the children's minds.
The children cannot express their true selves and can only let their parents manipulate them. Some children remain utterly confused even after becoming adults. They do not want to do this, nor do they want to do that, and have no interest in anything. That is because, deep in their subconscious, they do not dare express themselves. They believe that even if they speak out, it will be useless, and no one will understand them. This is all caused by their parents from childhood.
Whatever you want to do, they deny it. Whatever you want to do, you receive no support. They judge whether you are good or bad from their own perspective.
When people cannot even live as themselves, they gradually lose interest in everything, or develop a resistant mindset toward the whole world.
If you do not understand this point, then even if you cultivate for an entire lifetime, you will never cultivate the true Dao. You will still keep circling within the confines of habitual tendencies and cognition.
What is cultivation? Allow them to be themselves, allow yourself to be yourself, and do not force your personal will upon others. Are children not people? Are others not people?
You always take what you yourself think and forcibly demand that others think and act the same way. When they do it, you find it displeasing; when they do not, you are unwilling to accept it.
Think about it: is it you who is sick, or them?
Likewise, if a practitioner uses their own understanding to forcibly change others, then it is like falling into the demonic path.
If everyone in the world were as you wanted them to be, would they not all become your copies? How could that possibly be?
If whatever you consider right is right, and whatever you consider wrong is wrong, then what need would there be for heavenly principle?
Would heavenly principle have nothing to do anymore???
Wake up. Stop persecuting others. What they experience is what they need to experience, and what you experience is what you need to experience. Your experiences cannot stand in for theirs, nor can theirs stand in for yours.
Your thoughts and cognition belong only to you; likewise, theirs belong only to them.
There may be empathy, but no two are entirely the same.