seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

So far, so good. The characters and setting of the drama and the spontaneously
plotted events can be marvelously healing - assuming that afterwards he is able consciously
to integrate their meaning. Old guilts, desires, rejections, or sorrows can be satisfactorily
resolved. Dead relatives or friends whose love and counsel he once depended on can return
to comfort and guide him. He can ask forgiveness or give explanations or say and do things
which he previously was never able to say or do.
The situation is not so good if the characters, setting, and events alarm him beyond his
ability to cope with them. For example, a particular character in the drama may vivify so
intensely that the meditator finds that he can actually see or hear the character outside the
meditation. Now the meditator has gotten himself into potentially serious trouble. Whenever
an archetype invades consciousness and the ego loses its discriminative integrity, professional
or clerical help is indicated. Actually, a marvelous opportunity has presented itself: the
unruly archetype may be the key to opening an emotional block of some kind. It is clear only
that a problem has been encountered and that a resolution of the problem will likely serve to
advance the meditator's spiritual and emotional maturity.
With varying degrees of difficulty, adepts can enter and exit these dramas, but
beginners usually have no such control. For this reason, Chan masters insist that novices not
allow themselves to linger in any vision or psychic encounter experienced during meditation.
Japanese Zen masters are especially vehement in their opposition to these phenomena
(makyo/maya) and will not tolerate such intrusions even into their own meditations. Tibetan
masters, however, are truly masterful in their ability to control such situations.
In her intriguing "Magic and Mystery in Tibet", Alexandra David- Neel, the famous
French adventuress and Tibetan lama, who was an undisputed adept at meditation, relates her
own harrowing experience with this technique. Tibetans advocate mastery of this form and
put it to many uses. Aside from conjuring up gods, goddesses, companions and lovers, they
also conjure up monstrous demons and believe, for example, that they can actually send the
objectified demons forth to harass their enemies. David-Neel, desiring to experiment with
the technique, choose to create a companion, "a monk, short and fat, of an innocent and jolly
type." For a few months she concentrated on creating this fellow and soon was able to give
him objective reality: whenever she wanted, she could actually bring him to life and see him
living with her in her apartment. Then, one day, she left her apartment to go on a long
journey on horseback and the monk came along. Soon, she relates, "...it was not necessary
for me to think of him to make him appear. The phantom performed various actions of the
kind that are natural to travelers and that I had not commanded. For instance, he walked,
stopped, looked around him. The illusion was mostly visual, but sometimes I felt as if a robe
was lightly rubbing against me and once a hand seemed to touch my shoulder."
Soon David-Neel noticed that her jolly phantom began to change. He grew thin and
"his face assumed a vaguely mocking, sly, malignant look. He became more troublesome and
bold. In brief, he escaped my control." She goes on to insist that a herdsman who entered her
CHAPTER 19 RIGHT MEDITATION
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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