#channel/bodhi-light-teachings  **Interviewer:** Master, I’m going to list a bunch of problems, and you stop me when you hear a problem that Chan Meditation does not solve, okay? Depression. Stress. Anxiety. Anger. Reactivity. [snoring sound] Addiction. High blood pressure. Baldness. **Interviewer:** It cures baldness? [laughter] **Master:** Yeah... Sometimes... **Interviewer:** So, Master, are you telling me that Chan meditation solves all of these problems I just listed? **Master:** Yeah. **Interviewer:** How is that possible? **Master:** Because it calms the mind down. It calms you down. When you’re afflicted—you’re depressed—in Buddhism, we call it an affliction. Depression is just one type of affliction. I was very depressed myself. I—through meditation, I can tell you that I have a normal life. I am not as depressed as before. Actually, I would say I’m not depressed at all—that’s noticeable to any of you. My depression lasts about this long because I recognize depression, I squash it right away. Depression starts with a negative thought and brings you lower and lower and lower until it takes hold of you—you basically are helpless. So you build up this—this vast network of thoughts that justify to yourself why you should feel morose and unhappy. And once you’re there, you’re caught in this net. It’s very hard for you to extricate [yourself]. So Chan Meditation—or Chan, in short—is a meditation discipline that trains you to recognize thoughts in your mind before they snowball. Then it’s very manageable. You can get out a lot easier. So meditation—the more skilled you are, the faster you are at recognizing these afflictions. And when you recognize the afflictions, you have the skill—you develop the skills to squash it. It’s like nip the problem at the buds. **Interviewer:** Master, there’s a rumor going around that you don’t teach mindfulness. **Master:** I don’t teach mindfulness because I found something more effective. First—first answer is that it’s too slow for me. Number two, mindfulness is basically to be aware of what you’re doing. For example, this famous Master says, “Mindfulness is not just sitting. It's when you eat, you chew 25 times. You have to [count] up to 25 before you can swallow.” And that’s mindfulness meditation. Or—some of these things, to me, are not meditation. It's just the exact opposite of meditation. Meditation is to reduce thoughts, it's not to increase thoughts. Can you imagine? Never mind about chewing, but you say, “Inhale, one. Exhale, one. Inhale, two. Exhale, two.” You see? It’s another thought, another thought, another thought. Okay. So, you’re sitting there—you're perfectly happy, and all of a sudden you tell yourself, “Let’s think about breathing.” It helps reduce the other types of thoughts, but to me, it’s too many thoughts. So when I started teaching meditation, I understood that I had to be different in order for you—students—to develop your meditation skills faster. That’s why when I stress the training here in Chan—is that it brings you to one thought; not two—just one. **Interviewer:** You literally mean one thought? **Master:** One thought. You only have one thought in your mind? **Interviewer:** Why is that valuable? **Master:** When you bring your mind to concentrate on one thought, there are fewer mental activities and that's an edge over a regular person. Because this person here who has fewer thoughts will be able to react faster and you're able to solve problems better. **Interviewer:** Master, in Chan Meditation, we sit in full lotus. In my case, I can only sit half because of an injury, but we typically sit in lotus. Now sitting in lotus, after a while—for anybody who has done it—is painful. It gets painful. I think anybody listening to this would automatically ask: How can I feel peace if I’m feeling pain? That’s paradoxical. **Master:** But we don’t force everyone to do it. We say you should be doing full lotus. If you can’t, like in your case, do half lotus. If you can’t do that, do no lotus. The difference is that the full lotus is a special form of training that we use in Chan that will help you develop your Chan skills a lot faster than otherwise. That’s all. **Interviewer:** What’s the benefit of it? **Master:** When you practice meditation, the common mistakes that people make is that they seek to be comfortable. They seek to feel peaceful. They seek to feel better. And that, right there, is the impediment to their experiencing more peace, more bliss. Whereas, if your goal is to increase your peace and your bliss, then you want to learn to endure the difficulties. **Interviewer:** So, Master Z, who’s one of the abbots of one of our temples—super peaceful—you know, everyone loves him. Can anyone become that peaceful? And how long does it, you know, take to arrive at that peace? **Master:** Anyone can be peaceful. Peacefulness is not an exclusive thing. If you meditate properly, using the proper technique under the proper guidance, then you will experience something called peace and bliss. You feel more peaceful than before, and you feel more blissful than before. That is a function of entering what we call samadhi. It’s a skill that you develop. Furthermore, Chan meditation also makes you peaceful because fewer things can afflict you. **Interviewer:** Can I say something that’s going to get me kicked out of this temple? **Master:** Let’s give it a try. **Interviewer:** The other night—last week—I was watching a movie, and I had a beer. Obviously, drinking beer all the time isn’t good. That’s a terrible thing one shouldn’t do— **Master:** You don’t have to say that just to appease me. **Interviewer:** No, I believe you. **Master:** I’m not judgmental. I used to drink a lot, so I know for sure it’s not good to drink a lot. **Interviewer:** One beer does no harm, right? Well, one always leads to two, so I try not to drink more than that. **Master:** See, that’s Chan right there. You say one makes you feel good. Two makes you feel better. Three—ooh la la! What are we learning here? That’s what normal people do. Notice this, folks. It’s so casual that he says, “One beer makes you feel good. Normally, I go for two, but I stop because one makes me feel good already. I don’t need two.” That’s a reduction of affliction right there. It’s the effectiveness of Chan. **Interviewer:** Master, I’m always reading research from scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists touting the benefits of meditation. They use all these graphs. Every time I read these articles, however, I have to question whether scientific inquiry and scientific research can truly capture what meditation is doing—especially Chan meditation. **Master:** It can capture some aspects. **Interviewer:** Yeah? **Master:** It can capture less than one percent. **Interviewer:** Why do you say that? **Master:** Because there are so many wonderful things happening inside you that they don’t know where to begin. What do they measure? The only measurement they have been able to come up with is brain activity. Before you conduct a successful experiment, you need to have a hypothesis. You need to have a thesis, if you will. They don’t know how to come up with a thesis or what to measure.