by Zen Master Yasutani Hakuun.
Here we are going to speak about visionary/auditory and other
experiences which are commonly called makyô . In fact, makyô means various illusory phenomena (such as deceptive appearances, hallucinations, feelings, fantasies, revelations etc.) which are rather commonly experienced by a person who seriously keeps practicing zazen. Ma stands for “devil” and kyô for “sphere” or “realm.” Makyô are, therefore, “devilish” phenomena that appear and disturb the practitioner of zazen.
However, such phenomena themselves are not evil by nature. They become obstacles and grave hindrances only when the practitioner does not know the real nature of those phenomena and gets trapped by them. There are two ways of using the word makyô : either in a broad sense or in a narrow sense. When used in a broad and general sense, we can say that the entire life of ordinary people is nothing but a “makyô.” Also, a person who holds a strong attachment to what he or she has attained in terms of satori still remains in the world of makyô. That is, it is extremely hard to be entirely free from all makyô, even after enlightenment. Not only ordinary practitioners, but also Bodhisattvas such as Monju (Manjusri ) and Kannon (Avalokitesvara ) – although they are far advanced in their practice, much more than common practitioners, they are still said to possess a certain degree of makyô. If not, they would already have become perfect Buddhas, totally free of any kind of makyô. – But we are not going to speak about this sort of makyô in this lecture.
Here we are dealing with makyô in the specific sense of the word. If a person joins a sesshin of five to seven days for the first time and tries very hard to sit, he or she is inclined to experience, on the third or fourth day, some sort of makyô in various nature and intensity. These makyô are, in fact, extremely varied: Their forms are limitless, each matching the personality, character, history and situation of the respective practitioners.
There are makyô related to touch or smell or bodily movement. Sometimes the entire body could sway sideways or rock to and fro. It is not rare that words spring out without your knowing or an extremely delicate perfume is perceived out of nowhere. Visual hallucinations are most common. For example, one is sitting in zazen with one’s eyes wide open, when all of a sudden the tips of the tatami before one’s eyes look as if they were swaying up and down like ocean waves. Or everything may suddenly fade out or turn pitch-black in front of your eyes. A simple mark on the door may suddenly change into an animal or devil or angelic being. Once there was a Zen disciple who would see visions of “masks”: masks of demons and/or those of jesters. When asked whether he had had any history with such masks, he slowly remembered that he, as a child, had seen those things at a local festival in Kyûshû (one of the big southern islands in Japan). Another disciple was always annoyed in his zazen by the strong vision of the Buddha and his disciples walking around him reciting sutras; he was able to get rid of these scenes only by throwing himself into a big barrel of ice-cold water outside!
Many makyô cases also appear in the form of illusory hearing. It might be a sound of some musical instrument or other big noises like a loud explosion, which might actually make one jump up. Of course, these sounds can be “heard” only by the person who has this makyô. One person would hear the sound of a bamboo flute during zazen. He actually had learned how to play the bamboo flute many years before, but had not played it for a long time. Still, when he sat in zazen, the flute sound would constantly come back to him.
In the Zazen Yôjinki (Precautions for Zazen; see above) we read the following description about makyô:
“The body may feel hot or cold or glasslike or hard or heavy or light. This happens because the breath is not well harmonized (with the mind) and needs to be carefully regulated.”
Further it reads:
“One may experience the sensation of sinking or floating, or may alternately feel hazy and sharply alert. The disciple may develop the faculty of seeing through solid objects as though they were transparent, or he may experience his own body as a translucent substance. He may see Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Penetrating insights may suddenly come to him, or passages of sutras which were particularly difficult to understand may suddenly become luminously clear to him. All these abnormal visions and sensations are merely the symptoms of an impairment arising from a maladjustment of the mind with the breath.”
Other religions as well as other schools of Buddhism highly evaluate experiences which contain visions of the divine beings or experiences of hearing unworldly voices, performing miracles, receiving heavenly instructions, or purifying oneself through certain religious rites or performing miraculous deeds. These practices may lead to a positive attitude to life, and in that respect, they seem to be of some value. But seen from the point of view of practicing zazen with its ultimate aim, all these experiences are nothing but makyô, which have no decisive meaning on the way of attaining your true self.
How to Deal with Makyô
The important question is: What is the fundamental nature of these makyô, which are supposed to disturb you on the way of zazen? They are nothing but temporary states of mind at a certain point in the ripening process of your zazen practice as your concentration power increases. That is: when the ever-moving waves of thoughts on the surface of the shallow consciousness are more or less pacified, debris of past experiences and impressions, which remain in the deeper layers of the sub-consciousness, rise irregularly to the surface of the consciousness, creating an impression of very vivid and impressive reality. Therefore, makyô represent a kind of mixture of the real and the unreal and are somewhat similar to dreams which one has during sleep in the night. Dreams do not appear to us when we are very deeply asleep, but mostly when we are half-asleep or in a shallow sleep (often in the so-called REM-period). Likewise, makyô do not appear to a person who is in a very deep absorption or real Samadhi.
Important: you should never be led into the idea that these phenomena are realities and therefore meaningful. No, they are not. Even if you have a pretty vision of some Bodhisattva, it does not mean at all that you are closer to such a being yourself – in the same manner that having a dream of becoming a billionaire does not promise your becoming one when you wake up. This further means that there is no reason at all to boast about your makyô experiences; at the same time, you should not get terrified or discouraged at all even if you have a makyô of an awfully ugly monster or anything of the sort.
It is of particular importance that you do not get fascinated and enticed when you see a Buddha or godly beings blessing you or granting a supernatural message, or endowing some prophetical announcement which eventually turns out to be a reality. Even those cases are nothing but makyô in the process of attaining your true self. Therefore, they are simply a waste of your energy if you linger around these phenomena and get infatuated by them. The absolute rule is: ignore them!
However, one thing is sure: the fact that those phenomena appear to you is a certain sign, showing that you have reached the deeper level of your consciousness and therefore are at a crucial level of your zazen practice on the way to your self-realization. Simply keep going on! They say that even Shakyamuni Buddha, before he attained his great enlightenment, was greatly troubled by a spell of such makyô phenomena, which are called “obstructing devils.”
Once more: Each time you encounter a makyô, pay no attention to it, but simply keep doing the assigned zazen practice with all your spiritual energy.”
Additional pointers and teachings about this subject, collected by Frans Stiene, to help you understand that these teachings are not just found in Zen but in many other spiritual practices and teachings.
“No matter what arises, do not fixate on it! This is the ultimate and essential practice.” –Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol
“As it is said, experiences are like rainbows, but the great meditator who runs after them like a child will be deceived. We may occasionally have flashes of clairvoyance, seeing things we cannot ordinarily know. We may have signs of accomplishment, or predictions from the deity or the dakinis. But such experiences in most cases give rise to hope and expectation. They are none other than the tricks of demons: they simply cause obstacles. When true realization dawns in one’s mind, it is like the king of mountains, Mount Meru, which no wind can shake”. – Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
“These extrasensory powers are expressions of great mental power, but they still exist in the realm of relativity and are obstacles to the interiorization of mind needed for Self-realization. Actually, it’s not the powers themselves that are obstacles; it’s the attachment to them that obstructs progress. Under the influence of attachment, these powers can tempt egos that are not yet cleansed of selfishness and become a major obstruction to the experience of the highest samadhi.” – Inside the Yoga Sutras a comprehensive sourcebook for the study and practice of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras by Reverend Jaganath Carrera
“By nonattachment even to that (all these siddhis), the seed of bondage is destroyed and thus follows Kaivalya (Independence). All siddhis are mental phenomena, products of a one-pointed mind. They exist within creation and are limited; therefore the yogi— even when experiencing omnipotence and omniscience—is still in bondage. To attain liberation, the yogi needs to let go of even the desire to know everything and be all-powerful!” – Inside the Yoga Sutras a comprehensive sourcebook for the study and practice of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras by Reverend Jaganath Carrera
“These visions can be distracting, but stay calm. Remain aware of them, but don’t pay them any special attention.” – Lama Thubten Yeshe
“In themselves temporary experiences, such as clairvoyance and the like, are not hindrances. A hindrance begins when we think, “I am wonderful! I am superior to others. I have acquired great powers!” Becoming conceited is a real obstacle, since we start to look down upon others and lack compassion “
– Khenchen Trangu Rinpoche
“You might even develop, as did the great masters of old, heightened powers of perception, such as clairvoyance or mental telepathy. If you do have these experiences, though, it’s best not to boast about them or mention them to anyone but your teacher or very close students of your teacher. In the Buddhist tradition, people don’t talk much about their own experiences and realizations, mostly because such boasting tends to increase one’s own sense of pride and can lead to misuse of the experiences to gain worldly power or influence over other people, which is harmful to oneself and to others. For this reason, training in meditation involves a vow or a commitment-known in·Sanskrit as samaya- not to misuse the abilities gained through meditation practice: a vow similar to treaties not to misuse nuclear arms. The con- sequence of breaking this commitment is the loss of whatever realizations and abilities one has attained through practice.” – Mingyur Rinpoche
“These attainments are impediments to samadhi, although they are powers in active life. Divine perceptions are hindrances to a yogi whose wisdom is supreme and whose goal is spiritual absorption. They are great accomplishments, but he should know that they fall within the range of the gunas of nature, and in acquiring them he might forget his main aim in life and luxuriate in them. If they are shunned, however, they become aids to samadhi. The yogi may mistake these accomplishments and rewards for the end and aim of yogic practices. He may imagine that he has attained great spiritual heights, and that whatever is attainable through yoga has been achieved. In this way he may forget the goal of Self-Realization. Patanjali warns yogis to treat these powers as obstacles in their sadhana. One should control them as whole-heartedly as one fought earlier to conquer the afflictions of the body and the fluctuations of the mind. Then one can move forwards towards kaivalya, emancipation.” – B.K.S. Iyengar – Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
“If we are mushotoku, if our mind are without attachments (attachments of sensations, feelings, thoughts, opinions, desires, and volition), if our minds are without discriminating thought but we rest instead in free emptiness, we can receive the whole universe. Wisdom and intuition appear,” – Mushotoku Mind – The Heart of the Heart Sutra by Taisen Deshimaru
“In order to give free play to intuition, one must not permit anything to intervene between one’s self and the object. When that happens, one’s self and the object remain separated to the end and intuition can have but a limited sphere to work in, revealing only a partial view of the object. Only after one’s self has been reduced to nothing can intuition wield its unrestricted power, for only then is the opposition between that which sees and that which is seen dissipated. The viewer is not restrained by subjectivity nor does the viewed and in objectivity; the subject is itself the object, and the object is itself the subject. When intuition is at work, the object is never objectified; or, in Buddhist phraseology, seeing intuitively means entering the sphere of Non-Duality.” – The Unknown Craftsman – A Japanese Insight into Beauty by Soetsu Yanagi
“The ordinary accomplishments correspond to obtaining some powers like clairvoyance, walking in space, and so on. The sublime accomplishments correspond to the realization of the nature of the mind.” – Bokar Rinpoche
“In short, all the infinite phenomena of samsara and nirvana are nothing else than the projection of one’s own mind and are therefore an illusion. Nothing is truly existent and permanent. When you understand this, you will realize that everything is unborn like space, that its nature is emptiness. It is with this realization — that you yourself, the teacher, and all phenomena are like a dream and illusion — that you should practice the meditation on the wisdom deity and recite the mantra. And if you ever have a sign of accomplishment, even a vision of the yidam, you should continue to recognize its illusory nature and avoid the error of feeling attached or proud. To be conceited and think, “I have achieved a sign of accomplishment” is an obstacle, a demon. However high your realization may be, you must never be proud of any signs such as clairvoyance that you may experience, but remain free from clinging and see their dreamlike nature. Otherwise, if you are attached to such things, it will be impossible for even the most basic qualities of the path to develop in your mind. As the great siddha Saraha said, “Wherever there is attachment, there will be a downfall.” Even the husk of a sesame seed’s worth of attachment will create great suffering in the mind. So if you have any result in your practice, you should simply think that it is the natural consequence of doing the practice and not be proud of it. As we read in Parting from the Four Attachments, the four-line teaching that Mañjushri gave in a vision to the great Sakyapa teacher Jetsun Trakpa Gyaltsen: As long as there is clinging, there is no view”. – Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
