Do you ride a bicycle? When 1^st learning to ride you must focus intensely.. Initially its internal focus on body position, on center of balance, etc. . any break in focus and you fall over. After continued practice and effort, the focus changes to external ..  terrain  and road surface effects, traffic hazards, navigation from point A to point B.. eventually if you stick with it long enough, practice enough.. all these drop away.. and you just ride the bike….. without conscious thought of any of these things.

 Meditation practice is the same.. you focus intensely on breathing, a chakra, tri-channel cycling, etc.. whatever you might be working with at the time…practice, practice, practice until you just do it naturally, without conscious thought…

then you can focus and empty the mind just as you learned to do on the bicycle.

Like an old turtle sitting at the bottom of the pond, silently gazing up at all the frantic activity of the water bugs on the surface.

As long as we are up there on the surface, we are going to be constantly blindsided by whatever erupts there, every wave, every little fish or frog that breaks the surface of the pond will be an intrusion into our lives.

From the vantage point of the turtle, it’s all part of the normal activity of pond

That’s what we’re trying to experience with Chan practice.

The effort in sitting doesn’t involve an effort of intense concentration, but an effort to be stable, relax, focus, then allow ourselves to be empty and open..

Rather than trying to control the flow of our moment to moment experience, allow ourselves to be transparent to it.

Just as the turtle is a part of the life of the pond. As well as an observer of the surface.

Use Chan practice to see and feel life more fully, more completely, in all its extremes, not as a filter to create some illusion of peace and tranquility.. but to  experience everything life offers us.

Let the thoughts and feelings and sounds pass through us like light through a window, or like taking a bicycle ride on a familiar road on a warm sunny morning.