Master Sheng Yen lectures on "The Stages of Chan Practice" in Tel Aviv

1/7/2004

Chan Master Sheng Yen took up an invitation to lecture at Bhavana House on December 14, 2003 in Tel Aviv during his trip to Israel with the World Council of Religious Leaders.

Bhavana House is a Buddhist Center founded by Professors Gonen and Bashan. The main teachers that the center have studied from are Vipassana teachers and the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. The Center is frequented by advanced practitioners, and most of their members have more than 10 years of meditation practice. When one of their members, Shlomo Shlomox, incidentally he is also a disciple of Master Sheng Yen, learnt of his visit to Israel, he implored the master to put aside some time in his busy schedule at Israel to give a lecture at the Bhavana House.

Thus to an audience of more than 30 people, Master Sheng Yen lectured about the methods of gong'an and huatuo, and, Vipassana and Silent Illumination, how one can attain the unification of the body and mind, the union of the previous and future thoughts as one, to the attainment of the shattering of time and space, from which, will emerge the union of wisdom and compassion. And this is the level of "without abiding in anything, let the mind arise" of the Diamond Sutra. During the question and answer session after the lecture, the audience brought up several progressive questions, for instance "what is the difference between the liberation from enlightenment vs. seeing the nature? Are they the same or are they different?" "How does one maintain one's practice after seeing the nature?" "Is viewing the mountains as mountains, water as water related to seeing the nature, or, is it related to the 3 levels of the unification of the body and mind"?

When the lecture was concluded, many people in the audience expressed desire to participate in the meditation retreats led by Master Sheng Yen.