Living Zen

Living Chan is a representative work by the contemporary Chan master Venerable Jinghui expounding the idea of 'Living Chan,' published by China Civil Aviation Press in 2004. Its contents are mainly selected from Venerable Jinghui's lecture records and articles such as Huadu Dharma Talks and The Buddha Dharma of Being Human, edited and compiled by Zongshun and Mingdao. 'Living Chan' is a meditation practice advocated by Venerable Jinghui in 1991 while he was abbot of Bailin Chan Monastery in Zhaoxian County, Hebei; its approach is to integrate the spirit and wisdom of Chan into daily life, realize Chan's transcendence within life, and enable 'practice within life, and live within practice.' The book takes 'awakening to life, dedicating oneself to life' as its core purpose, emphasizes 'making good use of one's mind and treating all beings well,' and explains its theoretical basis according to Mahayana classics such as the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, the Lankavatara Sutra, the Vimalakirti Sutra, and the Avatamsaka Sutra, proposing the four foundations of bodhicitta, the view of prajna, breath contemplation, and Living Chan. On the practical level, the book summarizes four slogans: ground faith in life, ground practice in the present moment, dissolve the Buddha Dharma into the world, and dissolve the individual into the masses; it also gives an eight-character guideline for being human (faith, cause and effect, conscience, morality) and an eight-character guideline for doing things (gratitude, inclusiveness, sharing, forming connections). Combining koans of Chan masters through the ages with everyday situations, the book also explains how to settle body and mind and transform affliction amid duties and obligations. Since 1993 the author has held 'Living Chan Summer Camps' at Bailin Chan Monastery, bringing this idea out of the study and into ordinary people's lives.