Invoking the Hua-Tou and Negation Practices
As to how to wipe it out, we have already many sayings of
Shakyamuni Buddha and nothing is simpler than the word ‘Halt’ in
His saying: ‘If it halts, it is enlightenment (bodhi).’
– Hsu Yun, from the Hsu Yun Ho Shang Fa Hui
Disasters have a way of bringing people together, but Covid-19 has forced an odd kind of isolation upon us, one that’s both separating us from each other and simultaneously bringing us together, albeit in a virtual way. We might imagine that the availability of social media has helped us respond to the present viral threat with more ease than those who suffered through the H1N1 flu pandemic of 1918. But like the 1918 pandemic, many of us have found ourselves without employment and living more closely with our families. Social media isn’t always effective at helping us navigate the emotional challenges that come with having our lives so abruptly upended. Two simple Chan practices can come to our aide to better help us get through this difficult time.
In my recent book, Exploring Chan, An Introduction to the Religious and Mystical Tradition of Chinese Buddhism (2019), I encourage Chan devotees to work with negation practice or the hua-tou as a complement to sitting time on the meditation cushion. Although I don’t recommend working with both practices simultaneously, they each have benefits that can help us along Chan’s mystical path.
What are these two Chan practices and what purpose do they serve? While the hua-tou offers a mechanism to help us pierce through layers of “self” so that we can come to know the source from which it manifests, negation practice helps sever the attachments that give rise to a self in the first place. As a metaphor, imagine we have a coconut and want to get to the tasty liquid in the center. One approach could be to bore a hole through the outer shell with a drill; another could be to take a machete and persistently hack away the outer protective layers until we’ve reached the center. The hua-tou is like using a drill, while negation practice is like using a machete: two different approaches for accomplishing the same thing.
Anyone who has sincerely tackled either of these two Chan disciplines knows how difficult they are. The outer shell that protects our core is extremely resilient, fiercely defying our efforts to pierce it. This is why adequate motivation is essential before we begin the practice—it’s that motivation that keeps us forging ahead and not giving up.
With that said, it’s clear that Chan practices such as these will not be effective for all people, and thankfully there are many others available (for examples, see Part II of Exploring Chan). For those motivated and ready to take a leap into the unknown and wage war against the tough protective layers of the psyche, let’s review these two ways to go about it.
Readers familiar with my past articles on the hua-tou will recall that the method involves reflecting upon a single, open-ended question, which directs our attention inward to the source that ponders it. When I engaged in this practice many years ago, I used the hua-tou, “Who is it who …?” and filled in the dots with whatever activity I was engaged in at the time. If I was washing dishes, “Who is it who is washing the dishes?”, or if I was drinking tea, “Who is it who is drinking this tea?” The point of this kind of questioning is to direct our gaze toward the source of consciousness; that is, toward the “I” from which conscious experience arises. Another hua-tou I worked with was “What is this?” Rather than seeking the “who” I would seek the “what.” For example, if I looked up and saw a lamp, I would ask “What is this?” as it related to the experience of seeing the lamp; i.e., the experience of experiencing the lamp. Exploring Chan offers many other examples of hua-tous, but the essence of each is the same: to help guide us toward the source of consciousness.
The main obstacle encountered with hua-tou work is intellectualization. The rational mind can’t help with this practice. For many people, however, the notion that there is a way of understanding that’s not related to discursive thought is, understandably, difficult to fathom: if we haven’t seen in this way before, we can’t have awareness of it as a real thing. So, the only way we can imagine approaching the hua-tou, then, is through thought. And this gets us nowhere. Negation practice, however, provides a solution to this conundrum.
With negation practice, instead of asking ourselves questions that point us into the ineffable depths of being, we direct ourselves to halt our normal way of interacting with, and experiencing, the world. We de-condition ourselves, removing habituated ways of thinking about, perceiving, and reacting to our environment. Again, as with the hua-tou, Exploring Chan offers a thorough examination of negation practice, tracing its origins to the Upanishads or earlier Vedas. The key ingredient for this practice to work is vigilance. Throughout our waking hours we work to sever our attachments, removing the bonds between “I” and thoughts, emotions, and actions. For example, when we recognize that we’re having a particular thought about something, we direct ourselves to halt it. Perhaps the thought arises: “My shoes are uncomfortable.” We stop and recognize the thought as independent from ourselves by negating it: not this! In this example, it doesn’t mean we don’t take action to remedy the discomfort, but it does mean that we detach ourselves from not only the thought about feeling discomfort, but from the discomfort itself; i.e., we may feel pain, but need not identify ourselves with that pain – it can exist apart from ourselves, just as the thought which arose in response to it.
Intellectualization of negation practice can sometimes be a problem, but it’s not as prevalent an issue as it is with the hua-tou practice. It’s important to remember that the process of detaching does not mean that we abandon things, people, activities, etc., only that we sever our preexisting relationships with them.
Both the hua-tou and negation practice lead to an immense sense of freedom and wholeness as the psyche becomes more resilient and less pulled and pushed by emotions and desires. Some people describe the phenomena as emancipation, liberation, or salvation. But regardless of the description, we find that managing abrupt changes in life can become effortless, and social encounters are unable to interfere with our inner life that has become the new foundation from which we experience the world. Covid-19 may be wreaking havoc with the world, but we can remain contentedly unmoved, and at home, in our home?
For a more in-depth look at these practices, see Exploring Chan, An Introduction to the Religious and Mystical Tradition of Chinese Buddhism, or past articles contributed by the author.