Our prayer session lasted for about 2 hours tonight. I hope that you folks will go train your legs to sit comfortably in a long meditation session, before training your mind to cope. Your legs will hurt after sitting for a long time in a prayer session. The pain will affect you emotionally. So, you should learn to train your legs followed by training your mind. Your mind will travel away from the practice if it lasts too long - “Gosh! This is taking too long! My legs hurt!” When your mind travels outward, you will lose your concentration.
I hope to stretch our prayer sessions longer, to 3 or 4 hours or even 5 hours. I hope you can sit like I can, with no discomforts. I thought the session only lasted for about 5 minutes. I was sitting there very quietly, enjoying the power of blessing from the Buddhas and Bodhisatvas, completely immersed in spiritual joy and did not feel like ending the session at all. My legs did not hurt. I thought the session had yet to start. I did not feel any pain in my legs. On the contrary, I felt very comfortable and relaxed that I could have sat there till dawn. I hope you could reach this level of attainment one day.
When you have dealt with your legs, then you will have to deal with your mind. How could you tame your mind? We have to train our mind to be quiet and still. How to do so? You can achieve that through daily practices, meditations and reading books. If you just think about wanting to have fun all the times, your mind will end up being very active during your prayer session. You would be thinking about “Why has it not finished yet? It is too long! It is too painful!” And you will end up looking around, watching the person sitting next to you and thinking “Sigh! Your legs hurt too, like mine! Everyone is experiencing painful legs!” You will then find it amusing and continue to look around. You will not be able to enter the state of Samadhi.
Samadhi is one of the methods of cultivation. Even though you are able to enter Samadhi with no pain felt in your legs and no feelings arising in your mind, it is still far from enlightenment. There are many Qigong masters who can sit still throughout the night with no feelings of discomfort, but they are still kept away from the path of enlightenment. But if we can’t even sit still like the Qigong masters, then we are even worse off than they are. So, train your legs, followed by training your mind. Take care of the basics before pursuing the most supreme teachings. If you can’t even handle the basics and yet you are telling me that you want to become a Buddha, you are just too far off your target.
Master Nan mentioned in one of his books that there were some practitioners who could sit still in meditation for more than 10 to 20 days. Have they succeeded in their cultivation? He said that is not enlightenment but the wrong path. When one sits still for more than 10 to 20 days but does not know what’s going on, he is on the wrong path. Venerable Guang Qing (广钦) meditated for more than 10 to 20 days in Quan Province in the past. When Master Nan asked him about his personal experience, he found out that the latter went into a state of unconsciousness - that was not enlightenment. On the other hand, if others can sit still for 10 to 20 days and are yet on the wrong path, what about those of us who can only sit for a few hours yet complaining about the pains, who look around at others in a restless manner? How then can you cultivate? So, be pragmatic and take care of the basics. Start with the training of your legs, followed by the training of your mind. If you can’t even handle these two basics, forget about enlightenment because it is simply too far fetched!
