Today, spiritual cultivation practices have emerged as a controversial issue in Taiwan, but that doesn't mean we should reject spiritual cultivation. By the same token, an interest in spiritual cultivation doesn't necessarily mean that a person's life is in crisis. The emergence of spiritual groups is surely a response to a demand, and one reason for this demand is that spiritual cultivation does indeed have genuine effects.

The traditional religions have stood the test of time in many different places. New religions or spiritual groups suit modern people's tastes, but they are still going through a process of adjustment. They need more time to test out and synthesize their ideas.

Having freed themselves from the shackles of society, spiritual groups have great flexibility, and this is particularly in tune with the worldview of people today. But once they come to be seen as an instant path to enlightenment, and their followers emphasize only "affirmation by personal experience," problems start to emerge. Even Chan (Zen) Buddhism, which has a long and deep tradition but which emphasizes personal experience and eschews reliance on written texts, diverged into variants such as "literary" Chan, "mad" Chan and "wild fox" Chan from the Yuan and Ming dynasties onward. Such divergence can happen all the more easily with spiritual cultivation, which has much shallower foundations.

Inadequate verification, rushing to develop theories, and excessive veneration are all problems that are apparent in spiritual cultivation today. The following are eight suggestions I would give to people seeking enlightenment through spiritual cultivation:

1. Every living being is a unique and complex bundle of life. Don't judge the quality of a spiritual group by whether they achieve rapid miracle cures for health problems. All self-cultivation stresses harmony of body and mind, so there is surely nothing wrong with pursuing spiritual growth in order to improve health, generate vitality and restore balance.

Of course, from the standpoint of spiritual cultivation, the mind and spirit are sources of physical health. All sorts of modern afflictions such as depression, insomnia or digestive problems mostly come from vexations of the mind. A mental fixation can also be a cause of disease. Most people tend to use certain parts of their body excessively, and habitually eat particular foods, and this leads to the decline of other abilities. This is occupational disease, in the broadest sense of the term.

On the other hand, if your physical health is out of adjustment this will also lead to mental problems. After many menopausal men and women take up spiritual cultivation, they are especially prone to visions both good and evil, but in fact these are physical in origin. In short, "blessing" or "empowerment" in spiritual cultivation not only depends on your mentor transmitting energy to you, but also on your capacity to receive it. After all, the literal meaning of "yoga" is complementarity. If a spiritual cultivation method has a powerful curative effect, it may be because it happens to complement your own imbalance. If it doesn't, you may arrive there step by step after building a foundation, so you needn't reject it simply because it doesn't produce an instant cure.

2. Distinguish clearly between great teachings and lesser teachings: It takes a lot of water to raise the level of a big reservoir by just a centimeter, but a small pipe will fill up very quickly. Similarly, great teachings can lift your whole life to a higher level, but because this is a comprehensive process, you won't usually see quick results. Lesser teachings are designed to deal with specific situations, so they will show their effects within a shorter time. It's a mistake to believe you have found great teachings just because the effects are more obvious.

3. Don't imagine that the powers of lesser teachings can be infinitely extended, and mistake them for a means to completely release the shackles from your life. For instance, Tantric Buddhism distinguishes the three lower tantras (kriya, charya, yoga) and the highest tantra (anut-tarayoga). The lower tantras have specific functions, and each of their rituals is appropriate to a different situation. But their effects cannot be infinitely extended: it is only the highest tantra that involves the transcendence and uplifting of one's life as a whole. At present, there is a strong tendency in spiritual cultivation circles to mistake lesser teachings for greater teachings.

4. Individual experiences may not be universal experiences: We see some practitioners infinitely extrapolating their own experiences, so that methods that are still at an experimental stage are given unwarranted importance or excessively praised and mystified. In this way, even people who at the outset were fair and pure-hearted will later go wrong.

5. Pay attention to the theoretical system underlying a spiritual cultivation method: As well as the theory itself, also observe whether this theoretical system links in with secular systems of knowledge. Excessive rejection of other ideas is usually a sign that something is amiss, but excessive tolerance or an attitude that anything goes is also too undiscerning.

6. Consider how open or closed a group is: In spiritual cultivation there are usually some taboos, so any group will be closed to some degree. But if it is excessively inward looking, and members claim to be a special chosen people due to their mystical experience, and listen only to each other, it is easy to be led astray without realizing it.

7. Pay attention to how the relationship between selflessness and giving is dealt with: Groups that directly associate training in selflessness with giving up personal privacy, willingness to devote or even sacrifice one's life, or donation of property, often encourage followers to give everything. This is problematic.

8. After taking up spiritual cultivation, examine whether you are becoming more tolerant: Some spiritual groups counter the decadence of others with their own purity, so that followers come to believe that their own actions are beyond reproach. This not only fails to make human relationships more considerate and harmonious, but also actually leads to greater subjectivity and arrogance. This is problematic too.

Joy, happiness, peace-the results that spiritual cultivation aims for-are all states of mind; they are not necessarily the same thing as coping well with the practical challenges and burdens of life. Every student of spiritual cultivation should always be thinking about how things will be back in the real world.

Freedom, liberation-just what is true freedom? Is it a lack of constraints in a subjective world? Or is it the ability to face the world the way it is and to genuinely take life as it comes? These two are poles apart. Real limitlessness, after all, does not mean cutting all bonds with the outside world, but the ability to make the best of any situation within the constraints it imposes. That is true contentment, and the culmination of self-cultivation.

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Lin Ku-fang, director of the graduate institute of arts at Fo Guang University, feels that the biggest problem in the spiritual cultivation community is lack of experiential verification and excessive haste at drawing conclusions to teach others. (photo by Jimmy Lin)