Chan Practice Q&A: A Leaf Untouched

Disciple: Master, greetings! I once asked a Dharma teacher about how, in the secular world, it seems difficult to achieve anything in one’s work without attachment and passion. The Dharma teacher advised me that I should approach everything proactively and give it my utmost effort, and then let go without becoming attached. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder: to be proactive means that if I fail once, I must continue trying again and again. If so, where does it ultimately end? Could this constant striving itself become another form of attachment? I would be grateful for your guidance. Thank you.

Master Hsin Tao: This is like being caught in the rain. If we were to stand naked in the rain, the rain would not be able to penetrate our bodies; it would simply run off us. In the same way, all the busyness and myriad phenomena of life are self-arising, self-manifesting, self-ceasing, and self-liberating. They are not as inherently binding as we imagine. Our primordial awareness is like a nonstick pan: whatever effort you make is fine, but you should not allow concerns over gain and loss to create obstruction within you. There is nothing wrong with wanting to succeed, but the moment you become preoccupied with gain and loss, suffering arises. If you are free from such concerns, then you can work hard and diligently without any problem; there will be no obstruction. Does that make sense?

Disciple: If one is completely free from concern over gain and loss, then theoretically, regardless of whether one’s efforts bear anticipated result, there is no need to concern with the outcome; one simply makes the effort. Yet when doing things in the secular world, we may set certain goals. Or perhaps we recognize that something is right and therefore ought to be done, but after doing it, we still fail to achieve the desired result. If we are free from concern over gain and loss, does it mean that, having made the effort, we simply let go? But if something is genuinely worth doing, should we never give up, but continue striving and trying again and again? If so, where is the point at which we should stop?

Master Hsin Tao: Our lives are often dominated by attachment; whatever we do, we tend to become attached. The most important thing is to learn how to free ourselves from attachment. Naturally, whenever we undertake something, there must be a goal and a direction that enable us to keep striving toward its accomplishment. Yet along the way, we will inevitably encounter obstacles. Whether we succeed or fail does not matter. We simply continue moving forward until we succeed—that is what it means to be proactive. Thus, the obstacles we encounter along the way are no longer really obstacles for us. And once we have succeeded, even success itself is no longer something to be attached to. When we encounter an obstacle in the course of doing something, that does not necessarily mean that we have failed. If you do not become preoccupied with the obstacle, you may actually be better able to overcome it. Once you become overly concerned with it, however, you may find it even more difficult to break through. This is the principle of advancing through temporary retreat: you are moving forward, but you use retreat as your means of overcoming resistance.

In our daily lives, our sense of gain and loss is illusory and insubtantial. Whether we succeed or fail is likewise a matter of karmic fruition. Success does not necessarily follow simply because you have worked very hard, nor does failure necessarily result from a lack of effort. Sometimes whether something succeeds or fails is itself merely a concept; it is also shaped by the causes, conditions, and karmic results established from previous lives. Yet from the perspective of dependent origination, this does not mean that we should not make an effort. If you do nothing, you may accomplish nothing; only through making an effort can there be results. In the simplest terms: act wholeheartedly and live at ease.