mind is at the heart of our lives; so the clarification and awakening of mind
is of potential interest to everyone, in whatever walk of life.
For many years I focused on the study of Chan Buddhism, the Chinese
precursor of Zen. Classical Chan appealed to me because it cut directly
through to the essence of mind without being burdened by dogmatism or
cultural accretions.
One of the most interesting ways this is done in Chan classics is by
concentrating the teachings of the scriptures and schools of Buddhism into
symbolic stories representing the underlying state of mind. Many of these
stories are specifically for turning the light around, and because of my early
experiences I was particularly interested in them. The more difficult and
complex Chan stories dealing with creative integration of the golden flower
mind with the ordinary world required mental work in everyday life and
took much longer to begin to penetrate.
Eventually I learned to practice turning the light around according to the
methods of all the major schools of Buddhism. At first I was most
dramatically affected by the Chan and Pure Land ways of awakening this
consciousness, but I subsequently found that the techniques of each school
had their own advantages; so I continued to apply whatever worked best
whenever I had a special quest and wanted renewed inspiration.
At the same time, I studied the various support systems devised by the
schools to enable people to experience the golden flower consciousness in
