While the mind/body aggregate leads to a notion of self, and all the consequences that flow from that, it also contains all the possibilities of awakening to the Buddha mind, the true self-nature. "You must start with grasping the narrow sense of self. You must know this self in a very clear and solid manner." So says Master Sheng-Yen to those starting on the path of practice. And again, "The self is not to be despised; it is your vehicle to selflessness.”

This pragmatic recognition of the need to start at some graspable level of certainty typifies the method of Master Sheng-Yen, and that of his spiritual lineage, Ch'an Buddhism. At the same time, the method of Ch'an deliberately cultivates in its practitioners a driving sense of urgency. This radical earnestness of Ch'an is exemplified in the story that the First Partriarch of Ch'an, the Indian Bodhidharma, sat in meditation for nine years facing a blank wall.

Still, it would be a mistake to confuse this earnestness with asoeticism or fanaticism. (The austere and zealous style of Ch'an is balanced by a gentle tolerance for human frailty, and an exquisite wit.) The intensity of Ch'an is a product of a precise method, animated by a deep faith in the example and the teaching of Sakyamuni, the Buddha of the current epoch. Again, it would be a mistake to make a mechanistic interpretation of the precision of Ch'an, and practitioners without a qualified master may fall into this error.