Thoroughly understanding both basic principles and teachings is the prerequisite of practice. The results of practice are samadhi and wisdom. There are two kinds of samadhi and wisdom, those with outflows and those without outflows. Samadhi and wisdom are simultaneously and mutually enriching. When samadhi arises, wisdom also arises; when wisdom becomes deeper, the power of samadhi also gets stronger.

Sometimes, a person who practices seriously experiences a false sense of emptiness. It is not the genuine emptiness of Ch'an. A person experiencing false emptiness can be passive and apathetic. Nothing will matter to him. He may even have an aversion toward society and life. He may not care deeply about anything ─ family, career, a future ─ because, to him, everything is an illusory attachment, a form of bondage. He will want to leave everything behind.

This happened to one of my students. After he participated in a Ch'an retreat, he found everything to be empty. He went home and spent all his money treating his friends to dinner. Then he threw all his possessions away. His friends worried that he was going crazy, so they had him committed to a mental hospital. Throughout all of this, he kept insisting that he was not crazy. He was right. What his friends mistook for insanity was a temporary condition brought on by a false sense of emptiness. It does not last too long. Within a short period of time, his normal world view would have returned of its own accord.