by Tang Huyen

Don't bother about any content of experience, ordinary or
extraordinary, positive or negative, just drop, drop, drop. The
dropping of it turns it into the realm of Buddha, regardless of
what it is in and of itself in the first place. That's all you need
to know. The entire canon of Buddhism and the entire body of
Buddhist teachers become useless when you know how to do that.

In Chan there is the distinction between the realm of
Buddha (the realm of awakening) and the realm of
the devil (Mara-dhatu, Chinese mo-jie, Japanese
makkyo). There are real experiences of awakening,
which therefore in and of themselves belong to the
realm of Buddha. But most experiences are merely
pleasant passing experiences of the garden variety,
and their outcome — what good or bad they do —
entirely depends on how one takes them. It's the
manner of handling them that is important, not their
content (matter) per se.

If one hangs on to them, one enslaves oneself to them
and therefore they belong to the realm of the devil. If
one lets go of them, one frees oneself of them and
they belong to the realm of Buddha, because they
help one free oneself of attachment.

There are people who had some such experiences,
say, in their teenage and early adulthood, lost all
balance and perspective to them, hanged on to them
hard for the rest of their lives and used them as the
measuring stick to measure the rest of their lives.
Their handling of them turned them into the
realm of the devil, because they voluntarily
enslaved themselves to them for the rest of their
lives. They could have let go of them, and doing so
would have turned them into the realm of Buddha,
as such experiences (regardless of what they were
in and of themselves) would have helped them free
themselves of attachment, and this freeing
themselves of attachment would have been the true
Buddhist experience, namely an experience of
freedom. Freedom comes from detachment and
letting go, and enslavement comes from attachment
and hanging on.

Even the authentic experiences of awakening (those
that are valid directly by their content) still have to
be detached from and let go of, otherwise they
wouldn't be authentic experiences of awakening.

So keep balance and perspective, observe
equanimity and drop your experience (whatever it
was) just as you drop everything else, get over it and
everything else, and let it and everything else pass
like water under a bridge. That is Buddhism and
Chan. Don't bother about technicalities, because if
you don't understand that much, technicalities won't
help you. If you understand that much, you don't
need technicalities.

In other words, don't bother about any content of
experience, ordinary or extraordinary, positive or
negative, just drop, drop, drop. The dropping of it
turns it into the realm of Buddha, regardless of what
it is in and of itself in the first place. That's all you
need to know. The entire canon of Buddhism and
the entire body of Buddhist teachers become
useless when you know how to do that.

It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their
significance.
— Epictetus

Colophon

Written by Tang Huyen and posted to alt.philosophy.zen,
talk.religion.buddhism, and alt.zen on 26 May 2006,
in reply to "jimi" who had asked about integrating
a peak experience that had faded. Original Message-ID:
<[email protected]>.

Tang Huyen was a regular contributor to Buddhist Usenet
groups through the 2000s, distinguished by rigorous
citation of Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese canonical sources
alongside Western scholarship. This post develops the
Chan distinction between the Buddha-realm and the
Mara-realm (Mo-jie / Makkyo) in the specific context
of peak experiences and their handling — extending
his account of self-deception as obstacle (Nov 2005)
into a positive framework for release.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work
Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

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