information:classification, stylistic:style_transfer, structural:scholar_edition
Dhyāna

Huineng defines zuochan, seated meditation, in a non-literal way as follows. He says "sitting" (zuo) means for the mind not to be activated in regards to various good and bad realms externally, while "meditation" (chan) means to see the motionlessness of the self-nature internally. He criticizes motionlessness of the body, as well as the practices of concentrating on mind and on purity. He says:

If one is to concentrate on the mind, then the mind is fundamentally false. You should understand that the mind is like a phantasm, so nothing can concentrate on it. If one is to concentrate on purity, then our natures are fundamentally pure, it is through false thoughts that suchness is covered up. Just be without false thoughts and the nature is pure of itself. If you activate your mind to become attached to purity, you will only generate the falseness of purity. The false is without location; it is the concentration that is false. Purity is without shape and characteristics; you only create the characteristics of purity and say this is ‘effort’. To have such a view is to obscure one’s own fundamental nature, and only to be fettered by purity.

As Gregory observes, concentrating on, or viewing, the mind and purity are both dualistic as this is to make mind and purity into objects. Such objectification is false. Moreover, our nature is intrinsically pure, but activating the mind to view purity only externalizes that nature. This is to be deluded and to cover our fundamental purity so that it will not be seen.