In a monastery in the mountains of Zhejiang, a Chan master in his seventies sits across a wooden table. He's been practicing for over fifty years. He was ordained at 19, received Dharma transmission at 45, and has taught thousands of students.
We asked him about the state of Chan today.
On Lineage
"Lineage isn't a certificate. It's a living transmission — one person recognizing the awakened nature in another. The paper is just the paper. The real transmission happens in silence, in the space between two people who understand."
On Doubt
"Doubt is essential. If you never doubt, you never investigate. The great doubt leads to the great awakening. But doubt must be honest — not the doubt of a clever mind looking for shortcuts, but the doubt of someone who genuinely doesn't know and needs to find out."
On Monasteries
"Monasteries are containers. They hold the practice when individuals can't. But they can also become prisons — places where form replaces substance. The best monastery is the one that makes itself unnecessary."
On What Hasn't Changed
"The mind is still the mind. Suffering is still suffering. Liberation is still liberation. The robes are different, the buildings are different, the language is different. But when someone sits down and truly looks at their own mind — what they find is the same thing Bodhidharma found facing that wall."