Chanting meditation is an important aspect of daily Zen practice. At first you may not understand. After you chant regularly, you will understand. Chanting meditation means keeping a not-moving mind and perceiving the sound of your own voice. Perceiving your voice means perceiving your true self or true nature. Then you and the sound are never separate, which means that you and the whole universe are never separate. Thus, to perceive your true nature is to perceive universal substance. With regular chanting, your centre gets stronger and stronger. When your centre is strong, you can control your feelings, condition and situation.
At Little Heron Zen Hermitage we practice together. At first, people come with strong opinions, many strong likes and dislikes. For many people, chanting is not easy: there much confused thinking! However, when we do chanting meditation correctly, perceiving the sound of our own voice and those around us, our minds become clear. In clear mind, there is no like or dislike, only the sound of the voice. Ultimately, we learn that chanting is not for our personal pleasure, but to make our direction clear, in order to save all beings from suffering.
When you are chanting, you must perceive the sound of your voice, and when you do, you and the universe have already become one. Suffering disappears; true happiness appears. This is called nirvana. If you keep nirvana, your mind is clear like space. Clear like space means clear like a mirror. Red comes, red. White comes, white. Someone is happy; I am happy. Someone is sad; I am sad. Someone is hungry; give them food. The name for this is Great Love, Great Compassion, the Great Bodhisattva way. That also means Great Wisdom. This is chanting meditation, chanting Zen.
