Dhyana, the next Paramita, is a Sanskrit word which means “the cultivation of thought.” The Chinese transliteration is “Chan.” Many Chinese people, if they have not studied Buddhism, are not aware that the Chinese word Chan comes from Sanskrit. They know the word Chan, but they don’t know its meaning. It is one of the five major schools of Buddhism: Chan, Teaching, Vinaya, Secret, and Pure Land. When you cultivate Dhyana, you cultivate a hua tou, or meditation topic, such as “Who is mindful of the Buddha?” You are then thinking in terms of existence and non-existence, and both the existence and non-existence of existence and non-existence! When you meditate you “investigate Dhyana.” It’s like drilling a hole through something. You just keep drilling and drilling until you get through. In the same way you keep investigating until you “break through.” It’s like being in a dark, windowless room and drilling a hole in the wall until the light shines through. As a deluded person lacking understanding, you are in a “dark room.”

Investigating Dhyana is also like a cat stalking a mouse. I talked about the cat yesterday, just getting ready to bring him up again today! Now if a cat is after a mouse, he will wait and wait by the mousehole for the mouse to show his little head. As soon as it does—zap!—it’s caught. What does the mouse represent? Ignorance. Just as ignorance was likened to a “dark room” in the previous analogy, so too, when you finally “see the light” in meditation, it’s like catching the mouse. Investigating Dhyana is also like a dragon watching over its pearl. Dragons are more attached to their pearls than to their very lives. So they always take very good care of them. Meditators focus their concentration in the same way on their topic and never let it wander. This is also known as “contemplating at ease.” If you can contemplate at ease, then you are focusing in thought after thought. If you can’t, then your mind wanders away from your topic and you have false thinking. Contemplating at ease means not having false thinking. So we say,

When your thoughts stir, the myriad affairs arise.
When your thoughts stop, all affairs cease.

As soon as you strike up false thinking, everything starts happening. When your thoughts stop, then nothing is happening! I often tell you:

When the mind stops and thoughts cease, that is true wealth and honor.
When desire and selfishness are ended,that is the true field of blessings.

Why? Because you are without greed. People who are not greedy are wealthy. Greedy people are poor. If they weren’t poor, why would they still want “more"? Why would they be greedy? People are greedy because they don’t feel they have enough. If they have a million dollars, they want two million. If they have two million, they want two billion, and so on, and they are never satisfied. Why not? Because they are afraid of being poor. People who can’t be satisfied are always miserable. People who know how to be content are always happy.

When desire and selfishness come to an end, that is the genuine field of blessings. People without blessings are always greedy for something. If you don’t have false thinking, if you don’t compete, and if you have no desires, then you are blessed.

Investigating Dhyana, then, is like a cat stalking a mouse or a dragon guarding its pearl.

“I don’t want to be like a cat or a dragon! Cats kill mice and dragons just run around all the time, from the sky to the ocean.”

Then I will give you another analogy. It’s like a chicken hatching an egg. The Shurangama Sutra says,

Womb-born beings are born from emotion
Egg-born beings are born from thought

When the hen sits on her eggs she thinks, “My chicks are going to hatch right on time; they are going to be fine little chicks!” Sitting in meditation one thinks, “One of these days for sure I am going to get enlightened. Every day I work on my meditation, I get that much more light. If I work every day I will gain more and more light, and eventually, I will be one with the Buddha.” Thinking like this—like an old hen thinking about her eggs—sooner or later, you will be successful.