Evolution of Love 2

Intense Inquiry

Working with Hua Tou – intense inquiry

NDM: What did this Hua Tou practice entail exactly?

Chuan Zhi: It’s an all-encompassing, all-consuming practice. Once you do it long enough though, it’s as if it practices you. In essence, it’s all about looking to the source of everything. That can only happen with the ability to first generate the Great Doubt ... which I think of as a Mind that is free of judgment, ideas, and opinions; one that’s detached from the object of attention at any point in time. Once the Mind enters that domain it can see things quite clearly, beyond their manifestations as purely sensory objects. I use the term "things" rather generally: it includes the reasoning mind as well.

There were times when I was doing this practice that I got so consumed with it that I was literally unable to do complex things like driving a car or mathematics, or even offering a coherent conversation. I had to learn to nudge myself out of the rapture of practice (which was another challenge altogether).

NDM: What kind of requirements would someone need to do this Hua Tou method? Would someone already have to have a relatively quiet mind, experience with Zen, sitting for example?

Chuan Zhi: What's important is that one has experienced suffering. Without suffering there is rarely adequate willpower to devote to the practice to bring the real fruit.

Zen is not a passive thing, nor is it "pretty" ... we don't do it to get peace/calm/quiet/tranquil/etc., we do it to escape from samsara. It’s a path of salvation and it’s the energy of fire that drives it.

That fire comes from the force of will – that’s what makes the practice work. We do it because we are ready to die to ourselves because continuing on in the way we have is something we refuse to do. When we reach that stage in our personal lives, we are ready to do Zen.

And then whether we do the Hua Tou practice or any other Zen (or equivalent mystical/contemplative) practice, it doesn't matter so much: progress is inevitable.

When we do Zen practices without this intense drive to escape the torture of samsara, we can still have good experiences and learn things about ourselves, but Zen is a mystical journey, a journey of transformation, and that’s something altogether different.

- Interview with Non-Duality Magazine

Chuan Zhi was born in Lafayette Indiana in the United States in 1960, attended elementary school in Southern Illinois, and high school in Eastern Pennsylvania. In 1980 he attended Reed College in Portland Oregon where he graduated with an undergraduate degree in Physics in 1983. During his time at Reed he found the works of Robert M. Persig, D.T. Suzuki and Mircea Eliade which “planted the seeds” for his future foray into Zen. Following graduate studies in Nuclear Physics at Purdue University, he worked as an experimental physicist for a decade and later as a Computer Programmer for a variety of organizations. He continues working in this field for a division of the United Nations.

Beginning in the late 1980’s, he began attending sesshins (intensive meditation retreats) and studying under a variety of Zen teachers in the Mountain West and East Coast of the United States. In 1997 he met Jy Din Shakya, then Abbot and founder of Hsu Yun temple in Honolulu Hawaii, and one of Hsu Yun’s direct Dharma Heirs. He was ordained and given the name Chuan Zhi (傳智) that year at Hsu Yun temple. He was also named the head of a new Chan order with the objective to disseminate the teachings of Chan Buddhism to the West. The order was named the Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun, after Jy Din’s master, whom he also had named his own temple after nearly forty years prior. In 1998 Jy Din escorted Chuan Zhi to China where he received full ordination at Hong Fa temple, along with 500 others. Following the month-long ceremony, he became recognized by the Buddhist Association of China as an official lineage holder in the Linji (Rinzai) tradition and Abbot of the Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun.

Since then, Chuan Zhi has continued to work to spread the teachings of Chan to other interested persons. As of the writing of this biography, the Order of Hsu Yun (hsuyun.org) has grown to include local sanghas in Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Canada, Great Britain, France, Greece, Sweden, China and, of course, the United States.